Chapter Seventeen
Liis
We opened the floor hatch to what looked like a vertical access ladder fitted with staggered grips instead of full rungs.
Kansas dropped in first, and I wondered how she thought it would be easier to lower an injured full-grown man down it than the other way until I saw her descend quickly and without effort.
The vertical ladder was narrower, tighter, meant for controlled movement, not speed.
But Kansas wasn’t built like most people, either.
Compact, strong through her center, trained to carry and descend without losing balance. It made sense.
I followed, hands and boots finding each hold without hesitation, Thomas close behind. When my feet finally hit the ground, I lifted my gaze and scanned the quad. It looked worse from here than it had from above.
Heat pushed through the soles of my boots, carrying the stench of burned fuel and spent powder as I trudged through the chaos.
A truck near the tower had been devoured by flames from the cab forward, smoke rolling low before it climbed.
A man lay beside the rear tire, facedown, arm stretched toward empty space, reaching for help that would never come.
Around him, everything kept moving. Marcel’s men dragged ammunition into new firing positions, hauled the wounded in the opposite direction, adjusted lines with control that only came with years of tactical training and live exercises.
We found Travis cutting between low concrete with Trenton offset behind him, both of them working to push back hostiles still coming in from the gap in the fence. Zeke, Taylor, and Tyler were working a new fire, motioning toward the bunker.
Bodhi wasn’t where we’d left him. He’d moved out from the door and into the fight, bracing a position with one of Marcel’s men, firing in controlled singles to anyone getting too close. He didn’t look polished, but not sloppy, either.
Naomi would be proud.
“You good?” Thomas called to him, crouching behind a structure.
Bodhi lifted a hand in acknowledgment, keeping low, his face coated in grit and sweat, focus locked forward.
“Where to?” I asked, adjusting to ease the pressure in my knees as I crouched.
“They’ve pushed the Carlisis this way, we should dig in here,” Kansas said. “North and West quads are controlled and garrisoned.”
I was moving before she finished, but Thomas pulled me back.
“Liis,” he began, already bracing for my response to what he hadn’t yet said.
“You should stay with Bodhi, near the bunker. They need the back up and”—he paused, seeing my expression—“Don’t give me that look.
If the platform had collapsed with both of us on it, our daughter would be an orphan right now. ”
“We discussed this,” I said.
“I know but…”
“Thomas, there are already so many of us underground waiting for the militia to save them. I’m not that girl. If you wanted that girl, you should’ve married that girl.”
Thomas’s concerned expression softened into a grin. “I married the girl I wanted.”
I pressed a quick peck to his mouth. “Good, it’s settled. Let’s go.”
We cut across the yard together, slipping behind a damaged utility vehicle and then a half-collapsed stack of cinderblock.
A burst of automatic gunfire tore through the truck bed behind us, metal screaming as rounds punched through.
I dropped without thinking, one knee hitting dirt, sending shots from under the axle while Thomas used the engine block to take the second man in the pair attempting to bracket us.
The first was already down. The second folded backward over the hood of a sedan and then disappeared behind it.
“Move!” Kansas ordered.
I scrambled up from the ground, Thomas pulling me to my feet as we ran low through a thick haze of residual smoke and dust, using whatever cover we could.
The distinction meant life or death. Wood failed, concrete held.
I cut right as he cut left, offsetting our angles without needing to think about it, then met him again behind a low retaining wall near the eastern lane.
From there, the problem came into focus. The Carlisis had found a seam. Marcel’s defense accounted for it quickly, positions adjusting, pressure building until the opening began to close.
“Three behind the loader,” I said.
“I’ll go,” Thomas said.
“Two more in the drainage ditch.”
Kansas crouched, moving quickly. “On it.”
Thomas worked the trigger, aiming at the men behind the loader, holding them in place. I cut behind, staying tight to their blind side as I closed the distance. As we’d hoped, they focused on Thomas, firing in short bursts, failing to check their rear.
I came up on them before either turned.
The first dropped where he stood. The second had just begun to pivot but didn’t make it through the motion. He fell on his face, so hard and at such an angle that it might’ve broken his neck were he not already dead.
Kansas focused on the ditch and engaged the pair there, forcing them off their approach. One tried to withdraw and took a round before he cleared the incline. The other flattened too late. A heavier caliber tore through their cover, mud and debris kicking up as he disappeared from view.
Kansas turned and smiled, seeing her sister, Spenser, standing a few feet away. A moment later, her smile faded, an insincere glare replacing it. “I had him, asshole.”
“Yeah, but I got ’em first,” Spenser said with a wink. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” Kansas said, pretending to be both disappointed and annoyed.
Spenser rushed away to her next position, leaving Kansas looking a bit lost. She snapped out of it the moment she heard Marcel’s voice.
The General had stepped into the open, his voice cutting through the gunfire as he called positions and drove his men forward. “Arizona Recon!” he yelled, drawing the last word out. “Right, hold and cover! Left flank, advance! Forward line, push them in!”
The response was immediate, units advancing in short bounds as the Carlisis gave ground across the breach and the interior positions began reclaiming what had been lost.
For a moment, I was hopeful, but the momentum didn’t hold.
Incoming intensified from the perimeter, heavier and more coordinated than before, and a fresh element pushed through the breach using smoke and wreckage to mask their approach.
Our forward drive stalled as Marcel’s men were forced to absorb the pressure, resetting under the weight as the advantage slipped back out of reach.
A vehicle barreled through, barely intact, one headlamp gone, hood crushed, front tire shredding itself apart.
Men poured off it before it stopped, and one of our defenders rose too high and took a round across the throat.
He dropped without sound, the man beside him hesitating just long enough to follow.
I grabbed the back of Thomas’s vest and yanked him lower as rounds clipped the top of the wall, spraying us with fragments.
“They’re trying to roll us toward the bunker,” I said over the noise.
“I know,” Thomas said, his expression severe.
“They know that’s where we’d be. I don’t know how, but they know,” I said.
“Sit tight, kids,” Kansas said, hunkering down next to us. “It’s all part of the show.”
“This isn’t a show!” I growled. “Our kids are down there and we’re out of time. If the Carlisis compress east and north, everything inside collapses with it. There’re too many converging lines!”
She studied the field for a moment, then keyed her radio and fed my assessment through. When she finished, she repositioned her rifle and waited for orders.
“Shit, we’ve gotta move,” Thomas said. “Go! Go!”
We lunged before the wall behind us gave way, then searched for hard cover that wasn’t crowded.
“That reinforced water tank base!” Thomas yelled.
He and I went first, Kansas covering until we found a new position. A round struck near my legs, kicking up dirt hard enough to sting through fabric.
Thomas grabbed a fistful of my pants with his free hand and jerked, furiously checking for injury. “You good?” he asked.
I heaved out a sigh. “Golden. Cover Kansas.”
“Naomi’s crossing too.” Thomas rose to draw hostile attention off the lane, placing just enough rounds to give them a window before ducking again.
Kansas and Naomi reached us seconds later, dropping in tight and out of breath.
Naomi was down to her olive-green T-shirt, tactical pants, and boots, the right side of her shirt dark and wet, fabric clinging where blood had worked through it.
It had spread past the seam, down into her waistband, leaving no clear source, only saturation.
Her lieutenant kneeled just behind her, catching her by the shoulder, attempting to pull her back.
“You’re gonna bleed out, Commander! Fall back and get patched up!”
Naomi tore free without turning, kept her sightline, and delivered two kill shots. Her breathing hitched once, then her leg buckled, just enough to drop her to one knee. She braced on it, jaw set, corrected her aim, and kept firing.
I stared at her over my shoulder for a moment, weighing whether to call for a medic. She was pale, but balanced and holding her aim, tracking targets, so I let her decide whether to stay in the fight, the same way Thomas had done for me.
“If you pass out, I’m calling it,” Kansas said.
“Lieutenant Jacobs, if she says one more word about me disengaging, shoot her,” Naomi said.
“Copy that,” Jacobs said, not at all serious but pretending to be.
A man in solid black fatigues rose behind the nearest cargo container, his weapon trained on Naomi.
I caught the movement the same instant Thomas did, but he was already firing.
His round punched through the man’s chest, snapping him back out of sight.
I looked back over my shoulder, past Lieutenant Jacobs to Marcel behind him, catching the approval in his expression.
“Hit the deck!” a militiaman yelled.
We braced, and in the next moment, a concussive blast flattened the smoke before it lifted again, debris flying in all directions.