***
Ash got off a shot just as Deegan disappeared around a group of rocks. By his estimation he had two shots left. But it didn’t matter. He was too late, with the evac team rushing in to the rescue and now this. Deegan had the rifle. And wasn’t one to ask questions first. He was thetake no prisonerstype. The bloke who’d follow a mission to the letter, never thinking that maybe they’d been after the wrong man all along, working for the wrong people, selling their souls for the wrong reasons. He had to stop him. Had to stop the mayhem.
Just as he set off again, something shifted behind him.
He turned and came face-to-face with the giant.
Just wonderful.
***
Exploding into motion, Elias dropped to the river’s rocky edge.
Anger made him rabid, more beast than man, his conscious mind gone, devoured by the need to kill. He didn’t feel a damn thing—not the pull in his side or the throbbing in his head, not the cold or the rocks under his feet. He couldn’t feel where the cuffs’ plastic had melted against his wrists from the heat of the fire. He didn’t let fear touch him either, though it had been there seconds earlier, as he’d watched the dark-haired man shoot at Leo.
All he knew as he attacked was rage. Sharp, piercing, hot enough to burn it all down.
He punched the asshole’s face, crunching bone, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to grind it to a powder. Killing the man wouldn’t suffice. He needed to obliterate him, dismantle him into his smallest possible pieces, until there was nothing left but a smudge.
“Stop!” the man yelled, backing up a step, Glock up, arms steady. “I’m on your team, I’m with you.”
Was that Leo’s gun? “Nobody’s with me.”
The man’s eyes flicked to the side. “The woman appears to be.”
“She’s it.” His nostrils flared with emotion. “If you’ve killed her, then I’ll—”
“Who are you?”
“Who the fuck wants to know?” Elias circled left, the gun trained on him every second of the way.
“An interested party.”
Elias narrowed his eyes. “Interested?”
“I’m not with them.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, mate, I’m not with Chronos. I’m intelligence. I know about the virus. I know what it can do. I’ve been after this thing for—”
Fury bubbled up.
“You shot her.”
“I didn’t. No. No, I shot at Deegan, not your…” The man held the weapon to the side, loose in one hand. “I didn’t aim for her. I swear on my…my daughter’s—”
Elias pounced.
The guy was quick. Without hesitation, he kicked low, just missed Elias’s knee, and shot back up, delivering a quick uppercut to his chin. Strong, too.
Elias’s head snapped back, he saw stars…and, above, the helicopter.
Fucking helicopter.
Another shot rang out—not from the man this time. From above?
Elias shook his head to clear it, noting in a distant sort of way that they’d moved downriver, toward the falls’ endless bellowing. They weren’t yards away from the fucking thing—they were almostonit. Leo had disappeared. Where? Around the next bend? She couldn’t have fallen in. She couldn’t be dead.
