Chapter Twenty-one
Well, they sure as hell weren’t dead, Jackson thought. But it felt as if everything had turned into a giant fireball.
Jackson threw his arm around Avery and pulled Riley in close, hunching over both of them as chunks of burning wood and twisted metal slammed into the mud around them. The blast had blown through the clearing like a hurricane. Heat, light, and noise folded into a single deafening roar.
He could barely hear his own voice when he shouted, “Stay down!”
The ground shuddered again as something huge crashed into the trees behind them. Smoke rolled through the rain, thick and acrid, choking the air.
Riley was crying, her hands clamped over her ears. Avery was trying to steady her, but Jackson could feel her trembling under his arm.
Another piece of debris hit the ground a few feet away, half a concrete wall from the training building, still smoldering at the edges.
Then came the sound. Warren screaming.
Jackson turned his head just enough to see him through the haze. A jagged slab of building material had landed square on Warren’s leg, pinning him to the ground. The man was thrashing, clawing at the mud, his voice breaking into hoarse curses.
Jackson didn’t move. He felt no sympathy. Not for a man who’d kidnapped two young women and tried to use Avery as bait.
“You did this to yourself,” Jackson muttered under his breath.
He tapped his comm. “Garrett, Cal, status report. Do you copy?” Static hissed back at him, sharp and useless. He tried again, voice tight. “Garrett, Cal, talk to me.”
Nothing.
He glanced around the clearing, blinking through the haze. The firelight painted everything in hellish color, orange against the rain, smoke curling up toward the black sky.
He could see Noah moving through the debris, limping but upright, his weapon raised. Isla was with him, her arm around Megan, leading the woman toward cover. Both of them were coughing, soot and ash streaked across their faces.
But there was no sign of Cal or Garrett.
Jackson’s stomach dropped.
“Come on,” he muttered. “Come on, guys.”
He lifted his head just enough to scan the tree line, his heart pounding, the rain sizzling as it hit burning metal. Somewhere out there, the rest of the Brotherhood was either dead or regrouping.
And he needed to know which it was.
Static hissed through the comm before a voice finally cracked through it. “—son. Jackson, you copy?”
Jackson’s head jerked up, heart slamming. “Cal, that you?”
“Yeah.” Cal’s voice came in broken bursts, cut through with the hum of interference. “Garrett and I are all right. We went in through the back of the bunker before the explosion.”
Jackson exhaled hard, pressing a hand to the side of his comm. “Jesus, Cal. Thought you were under it.”
“Close enough,” Cal said, coughing. “The Brotherhood managed to get the door open. We used a couple of flashbangs to hold them back, buy time. Then…” His voice faltered, and when he came back on, it was rougher.
“Then somebody inside set off a grenade. Looked like an accident, but it hit a munitions crate. Chain reaction. There was ammo…ordnance…hell, probably fuel.”
A pause.
Jackson looked out toward the blazing ruin behind the bunker. Flames still snapped in the rain, pieces of the roof glowing red-hot before collapsing into the mud.
Cal’s voice steadied, grim. “There’s nothing left of the building. Nothing left of the men who were inside. It’s gone. All of it.”
For a moment, no one spoke. The comm filled with the soft patter of rain and the distant crackle of fire.
Noah’s voice broke the silence, rough and tired. “Copy that.”
Jackson lowered his hand from the comm, the sound of Cal’s voice still echoing in his ears. He looked toward the bunker, its concrete slab now half-buried in smoke and ash. Then, he made a sweeping glance around.
Yeah, a lot of people had died. But after everything—the kidnappings, the betrayal, the hell that had just ripped through Crossfire Creek—it felt like some kind of grim judgment. Fitting, if not merciful.
The debris finally stopped falling. The fire behind the bunker had dulled to a smoldering glow, sending thick smoke curling into the night sky.
Jackson pushed himself to his feet, every muscle aching from the blast. He crossed to Avery and Riley, scanning them quickly. Avery’s cheek was cut, and there was a raw scrape along her forearm, but she was upright, alert. Riley was shaking but alive, clutching Avery’s sleeve like a lifeline.
“You two okay?” he asked.
Avery nodded, voice rough. “Yeah. Banged up, but okay.” She looked at Riley, her tone softening. “She’s tough.”
Riley gave a small, broken nod. Her lip was trembling, but she held it together.
Isla emerged from the bunker’s side entrance, supporting Megan with an arm around her shoulders. Both were pale and streaked with grime, but Megan was on her feet, moving on her own.
When Noah came limping through the smoke toward them, Riley’s composure shattered. She broke free from Avery and ran straight to him, flinging her arms around his waist. Noah grunted, caught off guard, then wrapped his arms around her tight, pressing his cheek to the top of her head.
“It’s all right, kiddo,” he murmured. “You’re safe now.”
The words carried through the clearing, thin and hoarse, but they felt like a promise finally kept.
Jackson stood a few feet away, taking it all in. The wreckage, the smoke, the rain. The Brotherhood was gone. The fight, for now, was over.
But as he looked at Avery, mud-streaked, exhausted, alive, he knew the war wasn’t finished.
Not by a long shot.
The air still smelled of smoke and wet earth, thick enough to sting the back of Jackson’s throat. He watched Isla pull off her gloves and dig her phone out of a waterproof pouch, her hands trembling just slightly from the adrenaline still wearing off.
“I’ll call for an ambulance for Darian,” she said, glancing toward the man still sitting in the mud, his hand clamped against his bleeding wrist.
“Good,” Noah said, his voice hoarse. “Call Sheriff Chase, too. Let her know what’s gone down here.”
Isla nodded and stepped away, pacing toward the tree line as she lifted the phone to her ear. The glow of the screen lit the edge of her mask. She’d never pulled it off after the firefight, and in the flicker of firelight it made her look otherworldly.
Warren stirred in the mud a few yards away. He was still pinned, one leg crushed beneath the slab of concrete, but the bastard hadn’t lost his sneer.
Jackson watched him blink hard, focus sharpening when his gaze landed on Isla. For a moment, his expression twisted—confusion, disbelief—and then he barked out a laugh that was half pain, half mockery.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he rasped. “You couldn’t even face me yourself, Avery? Sent a decoy instead of taking the punishment you deserve?”
Avery stiffened beside Jackson, the words cutting through the haze of rain and smoke like a blade. She stepped forward before he could stop her, shoulders squared, eyes hard.
“Punishment for what?” she snapped.
Warren’s laugh turned low and ugly, echoing off the shattered concrete. “You really don’t know?” he asked, voice sliding into a sneer. “Figures. You and your perfect little team, pretending you’re clean. Pretending none of you deserve what’s coming.”
Jackson shifted closer, hand hovering near his weapon, not because Warren was a threat anymore, but because he didn’t trust himself not to end it right there.
Avery didn’t flinch. She took another step toward Warren, rain dripping from her hair, her gaze unblinking. “Try me,” she said.
Warren’s smile faltered, the edges slipping into something meaner, darker.
Jackson could feel it. The air tightening again, tension crawling back in despite the fire dying behind them.
Even beaten and broken, Warren was still dangerous. Still trying to poison the moment, to pull them all back into his chaos.
And from the way Avery’s jaw set, Jackson knew she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.
Jackson stayed low, watching Warren through rain-streaked smoke. The man’s face was pale, half-hidden in dirt, but his eyes burned with a cold, ugly satisfaction that made Jackson’s stomach turn.
“You gonna tell me it was because I was jealous?” Warren rasped, spitting mud. “Because you turned your nose up at me?” Jackson braced for that line, for the petty, twisted motive Warren might cling to, but the man kept going, and it got worse.
“It wasn’t about you, Avery,” Warren sneered, eyes flicking to her as if she were nothing more than a piece on a board. “It was about Haver. About what we were doing, what we could’ve done if the likes of you hadn’t tried to stamp us out.”
He spoke as if he believed it, as if the Brotherhood were some holy task force cleaning the filth away.
“We were building something. Protecting schools, supply lines, people fed,” Warren went on. “You think you ever gave a damn about the town? Haver did. He did the hard work. We tried to help.”
Jackson felt the bile rise at the way Warren framed murder as charity. “You call murdering people help?” he snapped, low.
Warren laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “Collateral,” he said flatly. “Evan was collateral. You want to kneel beside him forever, talk about love and memory—fine. But every revolution takes bodies. That’s the math.” He shrugged, as if naming a corpse was no different than listing supplies.
“And Charlotte?” Warren’s voice went cold and small with contempt. “She ratted us. She deserved—” He didn’t finish the sentence; the intent was there like a blade. “She betrayed the Brotherhood. Some things you don’t get to live down.”
Jackson’s hand tightened on his gun until his knuckles whitened. The words were poison, meant to justify, to wound. Warren wanted to twist the story so he could sleep at night. He wanted to make murder into martyrdom.