Another set of footsteps closed in quickly from the front, the pace urgent and uneven. He picked up on the person’s scent when they were still several feet away.
Adrian.
Gage gritted his teeth but didn’t slow his strides.
“Gage, don’t do this. You can’t risk your life to—”
Valor reacted so fast it barely registered as motion. One moment, Adrian was in his path, the next, a hard thud hit the wall.
Gage couldn’t spare him a single thought, needing to keep his mind centered on one thing.
His heart.
In the armored vehicle, Roz’s voice returned. “Comms check.”
“Loud and clear,” he answered.
“Wrist interface and cam feed are live.” Roz paused. “You’re green to deploy.”
Up front, his field driver, Callahan, answered in a clipped, official tone. “Copy, Roz. GPS lock confirmed. Go for green.”
The Hummer surged out of the bay and onto the night streets with the route already pre-cleared and timed.
Twenty-six minutes later, the bass from the club rattled the vehicle’s bulletproof windows as Callahan pulled up to the front and let him out at the door.
They didn’t need to secure the perimeter or engage with tactical planning. These were ignorant men, with no real discipline or skills that could compete with their superior abilities.
Zorion shot an arrow at the door and blew the entrance open.
The frame splintered as metal buckled, projecting shards and dust outward in a violent spray.
The music stuttered, warped, and died, leaving only panic and the ringing aftermath of the blast.
Gage stepped through first.
Alone.
An offensive chaos of sound and scents slammed into him. Alcohol, sweat, cologne, perfumes, and heat from dozens of bodies moving.
Roz’s voice was there fast, transforming the madness into a map.
“Room depth sixteen yards. Two-tier layout. Bar to your left, ten o’clock, twenty-four feet. Pillars at two and eight o’clock, six feet. Seven hostiles clustered, eleven o’clock, sixteen feet. Onestairwell, close right, a corridor, immediate left. I got eyes on your target. Scar’s dead ahead, ninety feet.”
Gage tightened his grip on his cane.
Then he heard him. His voice, was rough and deep, cutting through the noise.
“It’s about damn time.”
White Ravens
Scar
The hardwood floor shuddered when the doors blew apart.
Scar felt the impact through the chair he was taped to, felt it in his teeth, in the bruised joints of his shoulders where his wrists were secured behind him.
The room erupted. People swore. Others screamed and scampered toward the back, hungry for violence but scared of being near it when it turned real.
