The main doors are wide open—blown apart—but the exit’s a death trap. Gunfire is pouring from all angles. A voice outside blares from a loudspeaker, demanding surrender.
Fuck that.
I skid to a stop. Steadying as my legs threaten to give. I pivot, backtrack, and shove past a body still twitching as blood pools beneath it.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
I taste metal and smoke, blood flooding the back of my throat. I wipe my eyes, smear more blood across my face. Myhands are shaking. Everything inside me is screaming—get out, get out, get out.
A vent shaft. Small, high, but just big enough.
I drag over a crate, the metal scraping so loudly it drowns out the gunfire for half a second. I clamber up, my hands fumbling with the screws, vision tunneling. The vent blurs in front of me. My fingers slip.
Move, Arlo. MOVE.
Boots thunder down the hall and a shot rings out—so close the air around my face hisses. Sparks explode. Something grazes my scalp. My balance breaks. I fall hard, the back of my skull slamming into concrete. The floor shudders beneath me, pain blooming across the back of my head in waves.
I blink. Once. Twice. The ceiling swims.
I roll over, crawling blindly toward my rifle. My shoulder burns. My palms sting from cuts I don’t remember getting. I reach out?—
And freeze.
A shadow swallows the light. A man drops on top of me, crushing me beneath his weight.
“Pretty little payday for your head,” he grunts in my ear. “Boss’ll be thrilled.”
I thrash. Kick. Scream. My nails rake his face, but he just laughs and slams me harder into the ground. His grip tightens?—
Crack.
A sickening sound splits the air. Blood and brains spray across my face. I stare, stunned, as the man slumps off me—half his skull caved in.
Priest towers over us, blood dripping from his knuckles. One hand grips his gun. The other is pressed to the side where I stabbed him. His eyes aren’t human—just raw heat and ice, flickering between fury and something darker.
He grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet, ripping a scream from me. My shoulder lights up in agony. I twist, fight, but it’s useless.
“No—!”
His bloody handwraps around my throat and he slams me back against the wall. He cages me in, body to body, never looking away as he tightens the straps on his vest. His gun lifts. Fires down the hall. Again. Again.
His other hand clamps around my arm—so tight I feel something pull, crack, or maybe just give out entirely.
“We have to move!” Raze’s voice cuts through the chaos. “They’re swarming—fucking move!”
Priest throws me over his shoulder and the world lurches.
My head spins, blood loss turning everything to static. His shoulder digs into my gut, forcing the air from my lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t scream. I can’t fucking think.
Gunfire lights up the corridor. Bodies drop. I see shadows in the corners. Red dots through smoke. Flashes of Sovereign black.
“Get to the trucks!” Priest roars over the carnage.
We burst into the night. Smoke thickens the air as he throws me into the back of a truck like dead weight. I hit the floor hard. Blood—mine,his, someone else’s—slicks under my hands as I try to crawl away.
