Chapter Twenty #3
Then shapes started to bleed back through the haze. The masked man had turned, looking over his shoulder toward the explosion behind the bunker.
That was all Jackson needed.
He exploded out of cover, mud spraying up behind him. “Jackson—” Avery tried to shout, but her voice was lost in the ringing. He was already moving, cutting across the clearing in a blur of motion, gun lowered, charging straight for the kidnapper and Riley.
A second flashbang went off. The blast hit like a shockwave, rattling the earth beneath her boots. Avery flinched, throwing up an arm against the flash of light. Her ears screamed.
Through the white haze, she caught movement to her left.
Darian.
He was up and moving, staggering toward Jackson and the others, his expression twisted and desperate. Avery’s gut clenched. She didn’t know if he was trying to help or finish what the Brotherhood had started, but either way, she couldn’t let him get there first.
“Noah!” she shouted.
Noah tried to rise, bracing on his prosthetic leg, but the ground was slick, uneven. He couldn’t sprint. Not fast enough.
Avery pushed up and ran.
Her boots pounded through the mud, lungs burning, the rain slicing across her face. The white smoke from the flashbang still hung in the air, thick and acrid, stinging her eyes.
Everything was happening at once. Mud, shouts, the ringing in her ears, the smell of smoke and rain. And in that breathless second, Avery knew whatever happened next would decide who walked out of this clearing alive.
Avery skidded to a stop just as Darian broke through the smoke. His face was pale, streaked with mud and rain, eyes wide with panic or madness. Maybe both. He lifted his arm, the glint of a pistol catching the light through the haze.
For half a heartbeat she froze, trying to read his aim.
Not at her. Not at Jackson.
At the kidnapper.
But there was no way to be sure. One wrong twitch and he could hit Riley or Jackson instead.
“Darian, don’t!” she shouted.
He didn’t stop.
Avery didn’t think. She acted. She raised her gun and squeezed the trigger. The shot cracked through the storm. Darian’s gun flew from his hand, spinning away into the mud. He staggered back with a curse, clutching his wrist, shock flashing across his face.
Before she could breathe, before she could process what she’d done, another flashbang went off.
Light ripped across the clearing, blinding white. The blast wave hit her like a physical force, slamming into her chest, stealing her breath. Her ears screamed with the pressure. No sound, no shape, just pain and brightness.
She hit the ground hard, disoriented, her vision swimming. The world went to pieces—Jackson, Riley, the kidnapper—all of them silhouettes caught in a haze of smoke and rain.
Avery blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. The flashbang had turned everything into static.
Somewhere ahead, someone was shouting. She couldn’t tell who.
The acrid tang of gunpowder filled her throat. Her heart was hammering, breath coming fast and shallow.
She clawed at the mud, forcing herself up onto her elbows, blinking through the spots that still burst across her sight.
Everything was noise and smoke and fear.
And she couldn’t tell, couldn’t see, if Jackson was still moving.
Avery blinked through the white haze left by the flashbang, her ears ringing and vision swimming.
The world snapped back into focus one jagged frame at a time.
Mud, rain, movement, shouts. Jackson straddled the masked man, his knee pressing into the attacker’s chest, one hand locked around the man’s wrist, forcing the gun down into the dirt.
Avery saw Riley still on the ground beside them, paralyzed in shock.
“Riley, come on,” she shouted.
Avery lunged forward, grabbed the young woman by the arm, and yanked her back from the fight. Riley stumbled, half falling against Avery, her whole body trembling. Avery wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hauled her toward the trees.
“You’re okay,” Avery murmured to her. “You’re okay. Stay low.”
Behind them, Jackson grunted, a hard, vicious sound as he fought to keep the man down. The kidnapper twisted beneath him, kicking wildly. Jackson slammed him back into the mud, the gun skittering out of reach.
Through the haze, Noah appeared, moving fast despite the slick ground. His weapon was up, aimed squarely at Darian.
Darian wasn’t moving toward them. He’d sunk to one knee, his face pale, eyes glassy. His right hand was bleeding where Avery had shot him. The wound ugly, raw, blood dripping down his wrist and mixing with the rain. There was blood on his sleeve too, dark and spreading.
He looked less like a soldier now and more like a man who’d just realized he’d lost everything.
“Stay down,” Noah barked. “You make one move, and I’ll drop you where you stand.”
Darian didn’t answer. He just stared at his ruined hand, chest heaving, the rain washing streaks of red into the mud.
Avery tightened her grip on Riley, pushing the woman behind her. Her pulse thundered in her ears, every instinct on high alert.
Jackson still had the kidnapper pinned, rain running off both of them in sheets. The man was fighting like an animal, desperate, but Jackson had him locked down, his expression grim and controlled.
Avery’s chest ached with adrenaline. The rain, the blood, the echoes of the flashbang, it all blurred together, a single moment balanced on a knife’s edge.
Jackson and the kidnapper were a blur of movement and violence in the rain.
Avery held Riley tight behind her, her gun up, but she couldn’t get a clean shot.
The two men rolled through the mud, locked together, grunting, fists connecting with dull, sickening sounds.
The ground around them was chewed up, rain mixing with blood and dirt.
The kidnapper drove an elbow into Jackson’s ribs, twisting to get free, but Jackson slammed him back down hard.
The man kicked, clawing for the pistol buried in the muck, and Jackson grabbed his wrist, wrenching it sideways until bone popped.
The scream that tore out of the kidnapper was raw and furious.
Avery’s breath caught. “Jackson—”
“I’ve got him,” Jackson growled through his teeth. He drove a knee into the man’s shoulder and pinned him flat against the ground. The masked man bucked once more, desperate, then went still except for the heaving of his chest.
Rain streaked through the air, catching on Jackson’s gloves as he reached down and tore the ski mask away.
Warren.
Avery’s stomach lurched. His face was pale beneath the mud, eyes wild and bloodshot. He spat, the sound feral.
“You think this ends with me?” Warren snarled, his voice hoarse and ragged. “You think any of you walk away from this? You’re dead, Avery. You hear me? You’re dead!”
He twisted, trying to lunge past Jackson, reaching toward her, his fingers clawing at the mud as if he could crawl through it to get to her. “You ruined everything,” he shouted, voice cracking with rage.
Jackson shoved him back down, pressing his forearm across Warren’s throat. “Stay down!”
But before Avery could move, before anyone could speak, a deep boom rolled through the ground beneath them.
She felt it in her chest first. A heavy, concussive thud that sucked the air from her lungs. Then came the sound.
The explosion ripped through the rain-soaked night, shaking the earth, turning the air into fire and noise.
The building behind the bunker went up in a flash of orange and white, a roaring ball of flame and smoke.
The shockwave hit a second later, flattening the grass, hurling debris through the clearing.
Avery ducked instinctively, dragging Riley down with her, arms over the other woman’s head. Heat washed over them, choking, blinding.
Jackson’s shout barely cut through the roar. “Get down!”
Warren laughed—a wild, broken sound—as the firelight lit his face. “Told you,” he shouted. “You’re all dead.”
Avery’s heart slammed against her ribs as the bunker’s roof groaned and the rain turned to steam.
The world was falling apart around them.