Chapter 13 Skeletons #2
The explosion was enormous. A fireball bloomed outward from the impact point, orange and black, the shockwave reaching us a full second after the light—a deep percussive thud that I felt in my chest and teeth. The corrugated roof peeled upward like paper. The wooden supports cracked.
A body—large, unmistakable—launched from the platform, arms spinning, and hit the ground thirty feet from the tower's base.
Spur. Alive or dead, I couldn't tell from here. But out of the tower.
The tower groaned. The upper section, where the rocket had hit, was burning.
The structural supports on the impact side gave way, and the tower began to lean—slowly at first, then accelerating, the wood and metal cracking in a sustained shriek as the structure folded at its break point and toppled like a felled tree.
It hit the ground inside the compound walls with a crash that sent dust billowing outward through the fence.
"Blow the gates!" I dropped the spent launcher.
Drew the Desert Eagle. "Radio Tank—vans to the base of the hill.
We're going in!" I turned to Irish, crouched behind the rocks ten feet below us.
"Irish! Keep the last two RPGs. You and Declan stay as overwatch.
Fire only when we're clear of the blast zone, and radio before every shot.
You see Wolves heading back on that road, you signal immediately, fire, slow them down. "
Irish nodded. His green eyes flat and locked in.
"Declan—you know what to do."
"Already doing it." Declan's voice came from between the rocks. His eye was back on the scope.
Logan stood beside me. The rifle on his right shoulder. The bandage on his left was dark with dried blood.
"You should stay with Irish." I said it knowing the answer before the words left my mouth.
"No." His blue eyes held mine. "I can move my shoulder. Kai bandaged it. I'm not staying behind."
I didn't have time to argue. And I didn't want to.
"Stay with me."
"Always."
I led the ride to war.
The borrowed Harley screamed down the hill road at a speed the terrain wasn't built for, the suspension bottoming out on every rut, Logan's arms locked around my waist, his body leaning with mine through the turns.
Ghost rode alongside us, low over his bike. Behind us, Tank drove the same van that had carried Logan and the workers, with Axel riding shotgun. The van's rear doors were closed, the interior packed with every patched Phoenix who'd made the trip for a stealth operation and were now heading to war.
Vasquez's voice crackled through the comms. "Blade, we're almost at your position. ETA two minutes at our speed."
"Copy. Form up behind the van when you arrive."
The compound grew in my vision. The collapsed watchtower smoking. The walls intact except where the tower had fallen and punched a ragged gap in the eastern fence. The front gate still standing—heavy steel, designed to stop vehicles.
But not designed to stop rockets.
I keyed the comms. "Irish, fire!"
"With pleasure."
A beat of silence. Nothing but the engines and the wind and the road disappearing beneath my wheels. One second. Two. The quiet between order and chaos stretching wide.
Then the sky ripped open behind us.
The RPG flew past overhead in a white streak—a high, sustained whistle that cut through the engine noise. The missile crossed the distance to the front gate in just over a second.
The explosion blew the gates inward. Both panels—eight feet of steel—tore from their hinges and flew into the compound yard, trailing fire and fragments.
A fireball climbed skyward, black smoke rolling upward in a column that caught the morning sun and turned it amber.
The shockwave hit us at sixty yards—a wall of hot air and sound that pushed against my chest. Through the smoke and debris, I saw a body pinned beneath one of the fallen gate panels, the steel pressing it into the dirt.
Declan's rifle cracked from the hill. A Wolf who'd been running toward the breach spun sideways and dropped.
The hunt had started.
"Tank, go!"
Ghost and I split to either side of the road, opening the center lane. Tank's van surged through the gap between us, engine roaring, the heavy vehicle accelerating through the blown-open gateway.
Two Wolves waited inside, weapons up, firing at the approaching van. The rounds sparked off the hood. Tank didn't slow down.
The van hit them at forty miles an hour and sent them flying—one into the compound wall, the other underneath the wheels. The crunch of the body under the tires was audible over the engine.
Tank braked hard just inside the gate, swinging the van broadside.
A wall of steel between the compound interior and the road behind us.
The rear doors flew open. Phoenixes poured out—six men in two teams of three and Tyler, running to either side of the van, taking cover behind concrete planters, overturned barrels, the base of the collapsed tower.
Tank and Axel followed fast. Gunfire erupted from both sides.
Muzzle flashes flared in the compound's shadows. The Wolves firing from windows, from behind vehicles, from the rooftop of a low outbuilding.
I pulled the throttle hard and rode through the torn opening, the heat from the burning gate panels pressing against my legs as we passed. I braked before the van—already open, Phoenixes already deployed. Logan swung off behind me. We crouched together behind the van's engine block.
I looked at him. He looked at me. The rifle braced on his right shoulder. No words. Just understanding. We were fighting together.
We turned outward from the van. I went left. Logan went right. The Desert Eagle came up in both hands.
The first Wolf was behind a concrete barrier twenty yards into the compound, firing a rifle toward the Phoenix teams flanking from the south. I aimed. Squeezed.
The brutal caliber round punched through the barrier's edge and hit him in the chest, sending him off his feet backwards.
The Desert Eagle's announcement was enormous—deeper and louder than the rifle fire, a concussive crack that echoed off the compound walls and announced exactly what it was: a weapon designed to end arguments.
Logan's rifle barked beside me. Controlled three-round bursts. A Wolf on the rooftop of the outbuilding screamed, folded, and slid off the edge.
A group of five Wolves was advancing from the main building—a large structure at the compound's center, two stories, the front doors still intact. They moved in formation, firing as they came, their rounds pinging off the van and kicking dirt in front of our position.
Tank's driver door swung open. I saw his arm—massive, reaching out of the van—and his hand, holding two grenades. The pins already pulled. He'd been holding them.
He threw both in a single underhand motion that sent the grenades in a low arc toward the advancing group. One of the Wolves saw them. His eyes went wide.
"GRENADE!"
Too late. The pins had been pulled early.
The grenades hit the ground six feet from the group and detonated on impact—two overlapping blasts that turned the air white and filled it with shrapnel.
The concussion wave knocked me back against the van.
When the smoke cleared, the five Wolves were on the ground. None of them were getting up.
A group of Wolves broke formation. Firing as they ran—not toward us. Away. Back inside.
"Retreat!" A Wolf's voice, high and cracked. "Fall back! Fall back!"
I keyed the comms. "All Phoenixes, do not approach the main building. Take cover."
The response came in movement—men dropping behind barriers, pressing against walls, clearing what was about to be a blast zone.
"Irish. Main building front door. Now."
"Copy. Heads down, brothers."
The whistle came three seconds later—the RPG crossing from the hilltop in a streak of white.
It exploded against the main building's front doors dead on.
The doors disintegrated. The explosion blew a hole eight feet wide in the facade, the fireball rolling inward through the entrance and upward through the second floor.
The windows on either side of the doors blew outward in sheets of glass.
Wolves who'd been running through the entrance were caught in the blast—their screams cutting through the roar of the explosion.
The smoke poured from the hole. Black and thick and carrying the smell of burning metal.
I stood behind the van with the Desert Eagle aimed at the main building.
Not taking cover. On a hunt. I searched the smoke for Spur.
The watchtower had been his position. The RPG had thrown him from it.
But I hadn't seen his body since. Not during the gate breach.
Not during the firefight. Not among the dead.
Where the hell are you?
The Phoenix teams moved on the main building from both flanks—south team sweeping left, north team sweeping right. They converged at the blast hole where the front doors had been. Inside: smoke, debris, and the charred bodies of Wolves caught in the entrance when the RPG hit.
And deeper inside, visible through the haze—Wolves on their knees. Hands up. Rifles on the ground. Surrendered.
Our men went in hard. Shouting commands.
Kicking weapons across the floor. Forcing the surviving Wolves facedown on the concrete.
The Wolves complied fast—five men left standing, all of them choosing the floor over continuing to fight against RPGs and grenades and a team that had just blown their compound apart in under five minutes.
Axel directed three Phoenixes—"Montoya, Dan, Meat, cover the rear exits".
I scanned the compound. The collapsed watchtower. The burning gate. The bodies in the yard. The main building, half its facade blown open, smoke still pouring from the upper floor.
"I didn't see Spur." Logan's voice beside me. Low. He was scanning too. "He went off the tower when your RPG hit. I watched for him during the fight. Never saw the body near the base."