I meet his eyes. “And if we’re wrong?”
He looks back once at the burning hallway. “Then we fight our way through, burn our way through loud enough to shake the walls of hell. We don’t stop—not until we find her.”
76
Seth
“YOU’VE AWAKENED THE DAMNED KINGS OF HELL.”
The blade of my axe splits the bastard guard’s skull with a wet, meaty crunch. He doesn’t even get a scream out—just drops like a sack of meat, twitching as bone shards punch through his brain.
Next to me, Vincent cracks his fist into the second guard’s face. The man staggers, stunned. Vincent grabs his collar, yanks him forward, and snaps his neck with a clean, brutal twist.
We both crouch, grab their radios, and slide them into our belts. Static hisses in my ear.
“North sector, fire breach confirmed. All units reroute.”
Perfect. We’ll be gone by the time they get here. And Jude’s fire will take care of the rest.
The hallway is dim, concrete, and rusted metal. We descend an old cement staircase into something worse than a dungeon—a basement with maze-like tunnels that wind like veins under this goddamn hellhole.
Raphael is in front, silent but coiled tight like a bowstring. His knife is sheathed. His handgun stays at his side. But I know the second things get real, he’ll default to his bow. That’s when he’shimself. The predator. The killer. The angel of death, if we’re getting poetic about it.
I’m not.
I’m just pissed.
Can’t stop thinking about Briella. And Rory. My vision is bleeding redder by the second.
My grip tightens on my axe. The Prophet’s face is already clear in my head—sweaty, smug, holy-wicked. I don’t just want him dead. I want to take him apart, piece by piece, see how many bones it takes before he starts begging for mercy.
And then give himnone.
I want to unleash the hell of my blades on his rotting carcass and leave it for the buzzards.
We take a sharp turn and freeze.
There—at the end of the hall—double metal doors. Heavy. Secure. Posted with two guards in full gear.
They raise their rifles.
Raphael and I move at the same time.
They fire.
The muzzle flashes light the hallway. Bullets scream past my shoulder. One ricochets off the wall, close enough that I feel the heat skim my ribs.
My axe sails forward and buries in one guard’s forehead. Blood splatters the wall like paint. An instant later, an arrow punches clean through the other’s throat. He drops to his knees, gurgling.
I sprint forward, yank my axe free, but the doors slam shut before I can jam a boot in.
Locked. Bolted shut.
Raphael’s already at the panel, yanking wires out like they personally offended him. He growls low, sharp. “They sealed it. Blast-grade. Jude—we need the grenade.”
“No.” Jude moves in with that terrifying calm. He drops to his knees beside the wall, pulls out a bottle from his pack, a cracked jar, bits of cord.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
