Chapter 37 – Ava Jade #2
Three more Kings exited the building and I recognized Maverick among them.
I set my sights on him, but his sights were firmly trained on my guys.
I watched him point their direction and the goons to either side of him raised their weapons.
I fired, and took out the one on Mav’s right, jerking back the lever to push another round into the chamber, but it made a metallic chckk in my ear and wouldn’t pull back the full way. I tried again.
“Jammed.”
Keeping an eye trained down the scope, I tapped my earpiece. “The door!”
Corv spun, firing, laying out the goon to Mav’s left.
Maverick raised his weapon and a fucking fresh army of Kings emerged from the smoke behind him. Way more than there should’ve been. Double the force we knew about. I worked mercilessly to unjam my gun, shouting at the other snipers. “The door. Shoot them down!”
My heart pounded in my skull as sloppy fingers worked to pry back the lever. Donny shot. One round. Then another.
“Where the fuck are they all coming from!” The other sniper to my left cried, reloading.
“I don’t know!”
The lever popped back, and I cried out in relief, dislodging the bullet. I reloaded and pried it back again, a cold shiver rushing down my back as I settled back into position, took aim, and fired at the first King I saw.
I chewed through all the rounds in a matter of what felt like seconds before I needed to reload again.
“There are too many.”
“Sparrow, there are too many,” Corvus’ gruff voice echoed my own words in my skull through the earpiece, making all my muscles seize and burn. “Hold them back!”
“Donny, why aren’t you firing?” I screamed.
“I’m out! I’m out!” he shouted back. “No more ammo. Fuck this, I’m going down.”
Before I could say a word to stop him, Donny was over the ledge and rolling over sharp rocks and loose dirt, all the way down to the bottom of the hill.
I finished reloading and started firing again, doing my best to hold them back.
Fearful faces lifted in our general direction as their brothers fell at their feet, .50 Cal rounds in the center of their mass.
“Sniper!” I heard someone shout far below, and the Kings crowding outside the entry scattered, some returning back into the building, others into the trees. Others right into the waiting lines of fire of Saint guns.
I picked off two who tried to escape to their cars before I was out of ammo again and reached for more only to find my canvas empty.
“Shit! I’m out!”
I looked down my sights again, trying to find my guys. To know which direction to head once I launched myself off this hill. I found Diesel and his men fighting the bulk of Carson’s force to the left, but where…
I found them.
Grey, Corvus, and Rook formed a tight circle, nearly back to back as they fought hand to hand against five Kings. Guns and shell casings littered the ground at their feet. Clearly everyone was out of fucking bullets.
Okay.
The other snipers and I managed to put a good dent in the extra men and from what I could see, despite their inflated numbers, we still had the upper hand. Though I cringed as I found several familiar faces among the dead.
I tapped my earpiece. “I’m coming down.”
But just before I moved my eye from the scope, I caught sight of a familiar head of dyed blonde hair, and I gripped the rifle tight, following him as he skirted the left side of the factory.
“It’s Carson!” I shouted, holding down the button in my earpiece. “Northeast corner of the factory, coming to the front!”
“Shoot!” I yelled at the other sniper. “There! The northeast corner of the factory! Take out his legs!”
He angled the shot and fired, missing Carson by a fucking hair.
“Again!”
“I need to reload.”
“Fuck!”
“Don’t,” came Grey’s voice, out of breath and muffled by the sounds of battle around him through the earpiece.
I found them again through my scope, and watched Rook dispatch his enemy and the one about to get a hit on Grey, bathed in blood. He put his hand to his ear. “Where?” he snarled.
I turned back to set my sights on Carson, just catching him as he doubled back and took off into the tree line to the northeast. “In the trees! Fucker’s running!”
But he wasn’t going to get away. Not this time. I stood, pushing sweat and hair away from my face as I assessed the drop one last time.
“Wait,” the other sniper called after me. “They’ll fucking kill me if I let you?—”
I jumped, managing to land on my feet. My heels dug into the loose dirt and stones, sliding down the slippery slope.
“Sparrow, stay fucking put!”
I cried out as a rock jabbed into the soft part of my foot through my boot and fell onto my side, rolling, rocks and debris scraping along my arms and across my cheeks.
My body was tossed from a sharp ledge at the bottom of the slope, and I landed hard on my stomach, crouching, tasting dirt on my tongue.
I lifted my hand to my ear to tell them to meet me at the northeast corner, but my earpiece wasn’t there.
It’d come out in the fall.
I reached for my phone in my back pocket. My fingers grasped at nothing but thick material and gritty dirt. I felt around me in case either landed nearby but came up empty handed.
“God fucking damnit!,” I coughed, pushing to my feet, the volume of the battle happening no less than forty feet in front of me so loud now it was near deafening.
My ears rang with it and my vision blurred as the earth heaved beneath my feet as I got my balance and the dizziness dissipated enough to move.
I drew two blades, ignoring how my left hand was slick with blood from where my still-fragile skin tore open in the fall, and took off after Carson. I couldn’t waste any time. We couldn’t let him get away this time. One way or another, this ended tonight.
I wouldn’t wake up to another message from him on my phone. I wouldn’t sleep with one eye open, worrying what he might have planned for my Crows. I couldn’t do it.
Narrowly missing running straight into a tree, the last of the dizziness burned off as my muscles pumped fire through my veins.
They know where I’m going , I told myself. I’d said northeast corner, right?
They’d be right behind me.
Fuck, maybe they were already ahead of me. Maybe they had him.
That thought made my chest vibrate with the feline purr of my darkness.
Running steps off to my right had me tucking behind a tree before I could round to the northeastern side of the building and follow Carson’s trail.
Damn.
I peered around the tree and looked down the barrel of a gun twenty paces away. It fired, and I just whipped my head back as tree bark exploded over my face. I bent low, rolling out from the cover of the tree, bullets puncturing the dirt in my wake. I threw.
His scream was abruptly cut off by a gurgle.
I leapt to my feet and ran, bending to tear my bloodied blade from his jugular to keep going. I’d never catch up with Carson if I didn’t push.
The crack of another shot glanced off a tree as I ran passed it, but I kept on, altering my running steps into a messy zigzag with no pattern as bark snapped and scattered over my path with each missed shot.
Once I had a good idea where the fucker was, I mentally kissed the blade in my right and turned to throw it, knowing I didn’t have time to retrieve it. It embedded in the burly chest of a King I didn’t recognize, but I didn’t wait to make sure he was down before I whipped my head back around.
I’d be too far from his line of sight soon, anyway.
I took a sharp left, going deeper into the national park where I saw Carson enter the tree line.
He could be so far ahead by now that I’d never catch up.
No, the darkness whispered. We’ll catch him.
Yes.
I will.
I was born to run.
I took the other crow-handled blade from my chest, the one strapped over my heart. The one with the onyx eye and pushed myself even harder, feeling more than knowing that he was there. Somewhere ahead. Just out of reach.
The clouds overhead shifted, uncovering the moon long enough for its light to spill over the forest floor in dappled patches. A trail. There was a trail back here. A narrow channel of red dirt that carved through the forest in an almost straight line.
A large shape far to my right had me pausing, panting, lifting a blade to throw, but the clouds shifted again and my heart sputtered. The large boulder squatted amid its wooden cousins, and it wasn’t the first time it’d tricked me into thinking it was something other than a harmless chunk of rock.
And suddenly, I knew where I was going.
Where he was taking me.
I raced for the rock, grimacing as I scratched a giant X into its face, blunting the edge.
Please find me.
I set my sights on the trail, finding fresh tracks in the dirt.
Got you.
I caught my breath before pushing myself onward, following Carson’s trail, marking several more trees with vicious slashes of my blades. Breadcrumbs for the Crows.
Until suddenly, there it was.
I skidded to a stop, falling onto my side in the dirt before managing to scrape back to my feet, huffs of moisture clouding in front of my face even though I was far from feeling cold. I was far from feeling anything except this burning desire to hunt. To kill.
The cellar door hung open in the middle of the small clearing, welcoming me into its dark depths with open arms. Smears of soot coated the wooden panels and filled the cracks and grooves in the cement steps.
My throat ached with dryness as I panted quietly, seemingly unable to make my feet move any closer to the door. The fire leaching from my arms, making my fingers stiff from an all-consuming cold.
I peered over my shoulder as if I could will my Crows into appearing, soaring through the trees to my side. The only sound was the whisper of the wind . the redwoods, and I gulped, knowing that the longer I gave Carson to prepare for attack down there, the worse my chances would be.
My grip tightened on my blades, and I pushed through the ice, letting my darkness melt it all away. One step. Another.