God, I can even think of that because the claws of my PTSD want to drag me down into oblivion.
The building’s front door yields easily to my kick, and I enter. It’s four stories, but I have no idea which floor or apartment they might be in.
Ash, Bane, and Pix push in behind me.
“Pix, you check the first floor,” Ash takes control. “Bane, you take second; Army and I have the third.”
We don’t waste any time executing our tasks. I don’t argue with Ash about not needing a babysitter because that would waste precious time. But when I try to continue going up the stairs to the fourth floor, intending to check that floor while he takes the third, he shoves me down the hallway.
“We’re staying together.” His gravelly voice is low and lethal. “Don’t fucking challenge me right now.”
He starts to go to the apartment closest to us, but I see one down the hall that looks like it’s the only one with a shut door.
I race down the hall and try the door. Somewhere in the back of my mind is my training, warning me that I'm acting blindly and could get my head blown off, but rational, clear-headed thinking isnotprevailing.
The handle turns, but the door doesn’t open. I ram it with my shoulder, but it doesn’t budge. Nor does it move when Ash and I kick it together.
“It must be barricaded,” he says.
“Leeva!” I roar.
There’s no noise coming from the apartment, though. Nothing. No sounds in the building except for Bane and Pix clearing the floors below, and now, from the sounds of it, they’re racing up to us since they heard me.
My body shakes as the bloodlust to find my brother before he goes underground fades, and the reality of Leeva and that shotgun blast sinks in. Ash grips me to steady me, and Bane shouts, “In here!”
I realize he’s now inside the unit next door, kicking at the wall. He repeatedly kicks; his thick, long legs and boots acting like a wrecking ball, and he makes a hole.
I race toward it, dropping my shoulder to ram through the drywall and the splintered, rotting wooden beams, and stumble into a small bedroom that has a single bed.
A roaring sound fills my head, and my vision blurs at the edges as my mind wants to dissociate to protect me from what I might find, but my need to get to Leeva is stronger.
I stumble to the doorway and grip the doorframe to remain upright as I survey the scene in front of me.
The kitchen cupboards have multiple holes across the cabinet face from the buckshot, and blood is splattered on the wall. But it’s the pools of blood on the stained, cracked linoleum that draw my attention.
One of the pools of blood is disturbingly large, with raven hair fanned in it like it’s a grotesque live-art painting.
“Leeva,” I choke, running to her and falling to my knees. I don’t even care that the other body lying in a pool of blood is Guerilla. My hands shake as I touch her skin.
She’s cool when she should be warm. She’s still when she should be rolling over to smile at me.
“Leeva,” I choke again, gently turning her so I can see her.
“Holy fucking shit… It was Guerilla who was shot with the shotgun,” Pix says.
And my mind is zipping back online and into control as I see that Leeva is breathing. Shallowly. Weakly. She has a knife stabbed into her chest, still embedded.
“He’s not dead,” I hear Bane say as I scoop Leeva into my arms, careful not to dislodge or bump the knife.
“Keep him alive so Army has the pleasure of killing him,”Ash orders.
Then he lifts the slab of wood that’s across the door and opens it for me. We move as fast as we can without causing more injury to Leeva and get outside to my truck.
Ash jumps into the driver’s seat, and I lay Leeva across the backseat, and she groans. My heart is going wild, and my eyes frantically scan her as I crawl into the truck with her. But she’s still unconscious, her hair wet with blood, hanging over the side of the seat.
“Go, Ash,” I shout, even though he’s already cranking the wheel to do a U-turn in the middle of the street as I cram myself into the rear footwell to kneel beside Leeva so I can stabilize the knife.
She’s cool and clammy, and her breaths are shallow, weak pants, like she can’t get enough air.
