Ruby blinks. "Don't what?"
I drag in a breath that doesn't help. "Please just leave it alone."
Chapter 25
Knox
Thefirstthingthathits me is the taste. Smoke, concrete dust, hot metal, and blood. It coats my tongue, gets into the back of my throat like I swallowed a grenade that never quite finished going off.
My vision narrows. The ringing in my ears shifts frequency. For half a second, I'm not here.
I'm back in the Humvee behind Harris. Back watching the lead vehicle hit the IED. The pressure wave slamming through my chest, the heat, the air tasting like burning metal and diesel and flesh.
Harris screaming. Rodriguez not screaming anymore.
Then another memory layers over it, the way they always do. Kandahar. The compound. The interpreter's daughter, eight years old, pigtails, sitting in the dirt after they let the family go. Her father already gone because I followed the stand-down order instead of following my gut.
"Knox!" Nash's voice cuts through, sharp and close.
I blink. Garage. Holloway building. Mississippi. Not Kandahar. My hands are shaking. I force them steady, ball them into fists.
Nash is beside me, eyes sharp, assessing. "You good?"
"Yeah." The word scrapes out. "Let's move."
He doesn't look convinced, but there's no time. People are screaming. The work pulls me forward, muscle memory overriding the flashback. But it sits there, heavy in my chest. The taste. The sound. The way bombs don't care who they kill.
The lower garage of the Holloway building is a war zone. Lights flicker between too bright and too dark. Broken glass crunches under my boots. A car alarm screaming somewhere to the left, half-buried under people crying, coughing, shouting.
Victor is on his knees in the middle of it, hands slick and red. Olivia's blood. She'd been right beside him when the blast hit. Arden already got her out, half-carried her to a car and peeled away before the dust settled. Victor stayed. Then I see Leo, Victor's guy with the easy grin and sharp eyes, sprawled near the gate, blood pooling dark beneath his neck. His hand is pressed to the wound, but it's not enough. Not with the way the blood's spreading, too fast, too dark.
Arden is already there, crouched beside him, both hands clamping down on Leo's throat as if he can hold the life in through sheer force. His face a mask, emotion locked away, that eerie, unnatural stillness holding while the garage erupts around him.
Leo's eyes are open but glassy. His lips move, but nothing comes out except a wet, rattling sound.
"Knox, right side!" Nash barks.
I tear my gaze away. There's nothing I can do for Leo. Arden already has him.
I turn toward the work that needs doing. When I glance back thirty seconds later, they're both gone. Just blood on theconcrete. A smear leading toward the back exit. The body is gone. Arden is gone. What the fuck? Victor's security guy just took a bullet to the neck, and now there's no sign of either of them. Just tire tracks and a faint chemical smell that wasn't there before. I file it. Whatever Arden used to clean up, it wasn't bleach.
Lincoln's dragging a man with a shredded leg toward the stairwell, shouting for anyone who can walk to help. East is hauling a dazed security guard toward cover, cussing under his breath.
A woman is pinned under a collapsed support beam, blood running into her hairline. I crouch, check her airway, and listen. Shallow, but there.
"Hey. Stay with me."
I shout for Kyle, and between us we leverage the metal just enough for her to drag herself free. She screams, but she moves. That's what matters.
Sirens wail somewhere above, too far away and too damn late.
I straighten, lungs burning, ears doing that high-pitched ring they do when your body hasn't decided if you're in shock yet.
Donovan Castiel is sprawled on the cracked concrete like a discarded suit, blood pooling under his back. Victor's bullet hit center mass. The stain spreads with every sluggish beat.
"It's him," Kyle mutters.
"Eyes up," I snap, scanning for threats. "He might not be alone."
