Rogue picked off the one in the lead. The other man dropped where he was rather than risk being the next one hit.
Another round of cover fire erupted. Keira kept her head down, her eyes open. A movement from one of the vehicles further away caught her attention. A man pulled a fat weapon out of his vehicle and leaned across the hood.
“What the hell is that thing he’s aiming at us?” Jade asked.
Keira recognized the weapon from pictures she’d seen online, and her blood ran cold. “Cover your heads,” she cried out as a loud thump sounded. Moments later, the world behind them exploded, blasting debris in all directions.
“No!” Keira cried, her ears ringing. She turned to see the old station turned into nothing but a pile of rubble. “Rogue!”
“Keira!” Jade yelled. “We have incoming. Take the left.”
Keira swung back, raised her handgun and fired at the man twenty feet from her.” She hit him square in the chest, and he dropped.
Jade clipped the man to the right, hitting his arm holding his rifle. The rifle clattered to the ground.
Her heart squeezing hard in her chest, Keira forced herself to focus on protecting the girls. As the men moved closer, she and Jade aimed carefully and fired until her last magazine was empty. There were too many, and they would be on them soon.
A thumping sound beat the air overhead.
For a moment, Keira thought it might be the drone until she spotted the helicopter, slowly lowering to the ground.
A slim, athletic bald man stepped out of the chopper and stood with his hands on his hips, his chin raised and his eyes narrowed. “Jade and Keira, it’s time to choose a side,” he called out over the roar of the chopper’s engine. “Come with me now. Return to your home with Onyx.”
“So you can tell us more lies?” Keira shouted. “Brainwash us into believing our missions are all for the good of our country?”
“You used us,” Jade yelled. “Made us kill to satisfy your billionaire backers.”
“You’re no better than sex traffickers,” Keira said. “At least they didn’t gaslight us into killing their political opponents.”
“Fuck you, Viktor,” Jade called out. “And fuck Strickland and Marcus Kaufman. You don’t mess with my family.”
Rather than glare and curse, Viktor shook his head. “I had such high hopes for the two of you. Such a waste of all the training I invested in you. I covered for you when you didn’t complete your missions. I thought you two were special. I was wrong. I could only trust myself with the most important targets. Morales had to die. He would’ve destroyed all we’d worked for. The same with that federal prosecutor in Houston. You couldn’t complete the task, so I did. Now that you’ve made your choices, I have no further use for you.” He stared out at the tactical combatants surrounding the gas station. “Kill them all.” Then he turned and climbed onto the helicopter.
Keira’s heart sank to her knees.
Kill them all.
Out of ammo and out of time. She shot a glance behind her at the girls huddled together, sobbing. Was this how it would end? Everything they’d endured all culminating in a mass burial of girls who’d never done anything to deserve an end like this?
The helicopter hovered a couple of feet from the ground, Viktor sitting on the seat near the open door.
As the helicopter lifted slowly into the air, Viktor stared down at them, a sneer pulling his lip up on the corner.
The roar of the engine drowned out every other sound.
Suddenly, Viktor’s eyes widened. He slumped forward, the harness keeping him from falling out.
Keira could swear she saw blood blossoming across his chest. The helicopter continued to rise, then pitched north, disappearing into the sky.
The men in black tactical gear closed in, tightening the semi-circle around Keira, Jade and the girls.
Keira dropped the empty magazine from her gun and checked her bandolier again for a magazine she might have missed. Her hand came up empty.
Jade stared out at the men approaching. “You don’t have to follow his orders,” she shouted. “If you do, that makes you murderers of children. Can you live with yourself after killing children?”
The men didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate, just kept coming.
Keira and Jade slid backward beneath the SUV, retreating to where the girls lay huddled, shaking and silently sobbing.
