Chapter 29 – Lydia - Blood in the Walls #3
Silas tilts his head, listening. His grip eases just enough for him to reload, but his other hand doesn’t leave me. Not for a second. “They’re falling back,” he mutters. His eyes cut to Elias. “Means they’ve got something else waiting.”
“Outside,” Elias snaps. “They’ll circle the exits.”
My pulse kicks harder. Trapped inside Bellamy, with Drazen’s men outside waiting to finish the job.
Silas finally drags his eyes off me, sweeping the shadows with his gun raised. “Then we carve our way through.”
My lungs ache with every inhale of the polluted air, but I don’t let go of Silas’s sleeve. His shirt is slick with sweat, his arm tight with muscle, and for the first time since we got here, I don’t care if my grip looks like I’m weak.
He crouches low, scanning the rafters with predator’s focus. “They’re moving off the beams,” he mutters. “Regrouping. They’ll cut the exits.”
“Then we cut them first,” Elias says. His voice is flat steel, just like his pistol angled at the front door. He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t even glance at Jori’s body cooling on the ground. His whole focus is forward.
Jax spits into the dust, snarling. “Good. Let’s fucking end this.” His scar splits wide when he grins, a savage crack across his face.
Ren swallows hard, fumbling another mag into his weapon. His hands shake so badly he almost drops it. His eyes flick to Jori’s corpse, then snap away fast, like staring too long might make him next.
“Eyes up, not on the dead,” Silas growls, his voice hard enough to make Ren flinch. He leans toward Elias. “Back door or front?”
“Front,” Elias decides without hesitation. “It’s what they’ll expect, but it’s also where we’ve got the least choke points. Better to meet them head-on than die in a funnel.”
My mouth is dry, but I force the words out anyway. “What about the SUV?”
Elias smirks without humor. “If it’s still in one piece, we’ll find it.”
Silas’s hand clamps the back of my neck, steadying me as another burst of fire rattles the walls. His grip is rough, grounding, pulling me into his shadow like he’s daring anyone to pry me out of it. His voice is low, meant only for me. “Stay close. I don’t care if it means crawling.”
My pulse roars. I nod.
Elias signals with two fingers, then moves. We break cover as one, Silas shoving me low beside him, Jax charging ahead like a battering ram, Ren stumbling after. Bullets tear into the crates we leave behind, wood splintering into dust, but the real fire comes when the front doors slam open.
Drazen’s men pour through. Dark suits, masks, rifles spitting fire like they’ve been waiting all their life for this.
Jax howls, firing full-auto, his rounds chewing through the first wave. Elias moves smoother, each shot a kill. Silas drags me against the wall, shielding me with his body as he leans out.
It’s chaos. Shouts, smoke, muzzle flare. The stench of blood spreading fresh over old rot.
One of Drazen’s men bursts too close, rifle raised, eyes wild. I don't think.
I raise the Glock and I fire twice. Center mass. The recoil kicks up my wrists, the sound deafening in the enclosed space.
The man drops, his rifle clattering across the concrete.
My hands shake, fingers locked around the grip so tight my knuckles go white. The smell of gunpowder burns my nostrils, and for a second I can't breathe, can't process what I just did.
Then Silas is there, his hand on my waist, hauling me back against the wall. His eyes blaze as they sweep over me, checking for injury, then lock onto mine.
"Good shot." His voice is rough, threaded with something between rage and pride. "But you stay behind cover. You hear me?"
I nod, but we both know I won't. Not if it means watching him die.
“Keep moving. You don’t stop when I tell you to,” he mutters through gritted teeth, firing over my shoulder. “And you’ll be the end of me.”
Another wave hits the doorway, gunfire chewing the concrete to dust.
Elias signals to Jax. “Drag this one,” he says, pointing to the Drazen man I hit on his head. “He’s coming with us.”
Jax snarls, hauling the half-conscious man up by his collar. “He talks before he dies.”
We move, and somehow—between Jax’s brute force, Elias’s precision, and Silas’s brutal efficiency—we break through.
We spill out into the evening air, lungs heaving, the stink of smoke clinging to our skin. The SUV is there, two tires shot out, windshield spiderwebbed but still standing.
“Move!” Elias barks.
We pile in, bloodied, battered, shaking, but alive. Silas shoves me into the backseat first, his body covering mine even here, his gun still raised at the shadows, then Jax pushes in the prisoner as he sits at the door, ensuring the prisoner is trapped between Silas and himself.
Ren takes up the passenger seat.
Elias turns the key, the engine catching rough, and the whole frame lurches forward. The steering wheel shudders under his grip as the SUV screeches across the asphalt on two shredded tires. Sparks spit against the road, the rims shrieking like metal dragged to slaughter.
“We’re not making it far,” Silas growls, bracing a hand against the dash.
“Far enough,” Elias snaps, shoving the gear harder. The SUV bucks, the ride jagged, but the damn thing moves. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to get us out.
The warehouse shrinks behind us in the rearview, a hollow husk full of blood and echoes. Jori’s betrayal, Drazen’s ambush, the smoke—all left in the rear of Bellamy.
But none of it feels finished.
Because Drazen doesn’t play for blood. He plays for bone. And today, he just took a piece of ours.