And maybe then, finally, I’ll feel something.
Something real.
Something human.
Boom.
A blast of searing heat slams into me, knocking me sideways into the wall. Fire. Light. Shrapnel. Flesh. The air fractures. The building screams. My ears ring. Dull and shrieking.
My vision flickers. Smoke blurs the world into nothing. I suck in a breath thick with ash and blood. Concrete dust clings to my throat.
“One-eight-seven! One-eight-seven! Get it the fuck together!”
The voice crashes through my skull. Not real. Not here. Wrong time. Wrong place.
But my brain doesn’t care. It’s back there. In hell. In the screaming.
“One-eight-seven. One-eight-seven.”
My hands shake. Just for a second.
I shove a new piece of gum between my teeth and chew like I’m grinding bone.
Focus.
I stagger, slamming my back against a steel support beam. Raze barrels toward me, blood running down his arm, a jagged chunk of steel jammed into his bicep.
“We’re under fucking attack!”
“No shit.” I draw my Glock and lean out just as a bullet pings past my head.
Screams tear through the crowd. People claw over each other. Blood smears the floor. Masked bastards in tactical gear storm through the massive hole in the wall with rifles raised. They don’t check targets. They just shoot.
I put two in the chest of one coming up the right, kick another’s knee until it folds the wrong way and tear the rifle from his dying hands.
Dalton and Alistair materialize out of nowhere, shouting questions that don’t fucking matter. The rage hits like a switch. One masked bastard charges—his barrel rises—I cut him down with a burst to the chest. Another tries to flank me. I ram his own knife through his visor and twist until I hear bone crack.
“Clear a fucking path!” I bark. “Get to the roof. MOVE.”
Raze grunts and peels off, Alistair trailing with him. Dalton’s shouting something behind me.
I turn toward the far end of the warehouse and freeze.
Her.
Dragging the blonde through the crowd. Her voice cracks through the smoke.
“Roxy! We need to fucking go!”
But the blonde’s sobbing. “I need to find him!”
They’re right in the line of fire. My trigger finger tightens.
Movement. Left flank.
A mask lunges.
“Roxy! We need to fucking go!”
