4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Jensen
I drag Layla to the ground, the second-skin body armor I’m wearing offering us both some degree of protection, but the sound of shattering windows throughout the house promises Zodius soldiers will be on us any moment. Seconds tick by in slow motion as a foreboding silence settles around us and smoke rises in the air, flooding us with fumes and toxins meant to force Layla from the house. Julian can kiss my Texan ass. The only person leaving with Layla tonight will be me. As if mocking my vow, another smoke bomb explodes through the broken patio door, and then another.
“I can use some help here, anytime now, Maddox,” I murmur into the invisible mic I have tucked inside my ear, already pushing to my feet and taking Layla with me. Cursing when my second-in-charge remains radio silent.
“What’s happening?” She sucks in air and wheezes, her balled fist between her breasts, panic flaring in her eyes. “Oh, God. I can’t…breathe. We have to get out of here.” Her gaze flickers to the patio door a moment before she bolts.
I catch her wrist and drag her back to me. “Easy, sweetheart, you’re running straight to the enemy.”
“Let go,” she hisses, shoving against me, even as she tries to suck in more air and chokes on the smoke. “You don’t understand. My…I—”
“Can’t breathe,” I say, positioning her back to my chest and wrapping my arms around her before she can make a run for it. “I know, and so do the people who threw those bombs in the house.” I murmur low against her ear. “The same people who will kill you before they’ll let you help us with an antidote.”
“Kill me?” she gasps, trying to look over her shoulder at me. “They’re trying to kill me?”
“Yes. Kill you, kill us,” I say, making sure she understands the reason she has to wait on me. I rotate her to face me, my hands on her arms. “I’ll get you out of here safely. I promise you. But you need to do exactly what I say, when I say it.”
She nods in earnest. “Yes. Okay. I’m normally not so…I shouldn’t have panicked and run. Tell me what to do.”
I yank a towel off the counter and run water over it before offering it to her. “Keep your face covered.” I don’t wait for her confirmation, capturing her hand and then setting us in motion, but not toward the front door where she’ll be expected. We’ll go out a window in a bedroom, and I hope like fuck, we do it with Renegade support. I round the corner, and holy mother of Jesus, I can’t see squat for the suffocating smoke that consumes every flipping inch of the house, transforming the hallway into one big cloud of white and gray.
Layla coughs and then wheezes, telling our enemies exactly where we are, but more so, me and them, how badly she needs air right now. I pull her down into a crouch beside the wall in an effort to get beneath the smoke, only to discover there was no “below the smoke.” There’s only more smoke. “Are you okay?”
“Alive,” she whispers. “That’s what counts.”
Indeed, but with her medical condition, maybe not for long, and that’s enough to set me into action again, leading her toward the stairwell, still waiting for Maddox, or any one of the Renegades, in my ear. I head up the stairs, but Layla stumbles and almost falls. I wrap my arm around her, only to feel her go limp in my arms.
Fuck. She’s going to die on me if I don’t get her out of here. I drag her closer and thank God when I find a trickle of air at her lips.
Maddox’s voice sounds in my earbud, welcome as hell. “What’s your position?”
“Stairwell, and about damn time. I need a fast exit. Layla’s passed out and in trouble. I need oxygen, and I need it now.”
“Top floor. Bedroom to your left. Meet me at the window.”
Before Maddox even finishes that directive, I scoop Layla up and start running up the steps. Smoke pumps through my lungs like motor oil, but I don’t slow down. I’ll survive; I’ll heal. She won’t.
Visibility remains at near zero, but I don’t consider what might be hiding in the shadows for us. They’re outside, flushing us out, and Maddox’s reappearance tells me the Renegades are handling the Zodius. But they don’t have them under control, or I’d be headed out the front door. I cut to the left and kick open the bedroom door to find a thankfully smokeless room and Maddox leaning inside at the window.
“Zodius retreated or regrouped,” he says, motioning me forward and offering his arms for Layla.
Or waiting for Layla to come out of this house before attacking again , I think, hesitating to hand Layla over to him. My senses are going nuts with warning, and Maddox must feel it as well as he turns away to inspect what’s behind him, only to be attacked. The sound of battle follows—grunts, punches, and thundering jolts against the wall. Then a yell that grows distant before the silence that follows. Maddox and his attacker have gone over the edge of the roof.
I glance down at Layla’s pale face and nearly lifeless body, and I know even before testing for air that she’s not breathing. Shoving aside emotions, I force myself to act as the trained soldier I am. I take her down to the floor, the bed blocking us from the view of the door and the sight of the window. I set my two Glocks on top of the bed, within reach, and ready for action.
And damn it, I’m not a religious man these days, but I’m praying as I bend over her and press my lips to hers, and then begin pumping. “Come on, baby. Come on.” But nothing. “Fuck!”
There’s activity at the window, but I have no choice other than to tune it out, as every second lost could mean Layla never breathes again.
Breath, count the pumps, breath, count the pumps.
She gasps then, her lashes fluttering and then shutting again, and a rush of relief washes over me. Yes. Thank you, God, yes. It’s then, and only then, that the noise I’d heard at the window jolts back into my mind. My instincts kick back in, and I reach for my weapons.
“Don’t even think about it,” comes the growl from above.
I rotate in a squat to find myself staring up the barrel of a weapon held by Tad Bensen, the brawny bulldog, second-in-charge to Julian Rain. I’d known him well during our shared time at Groom Lake. I didn’t like him then, and I damn sure don’t like him now. “It’s not good to play with guns,” I say dryly. “You might get yourself shot.”
“Bravely spoken by the man without a gun,” he drawls. “Pick up the woman and carry her to the window. Hand her over to my man. Then, we’ll all head to Zodius City for debriefing.”
Translation—I’ll be tortured until I give up Renegade secrets. When donkeys fly.
Our eyes lock and hold. We both know there’s enough wind through the window to allow my escape, but taking Layla on that ride might kill her. Most likely will.
Tad jerks one of his weapons toward Layla. “My orders are to bring the woman back, dead or alive. Julian would rather have her alive, but either way works just fine by me.”
“Nothing like a man who knows how to please his man,” I say, taunting him and trying to keep the attention on me, not Layla.
It works better than expected. Tad growls, and without warning, shoots me in the fucking arm with Green Hornets, the only bullet that will penetrate my armor, and it damn sure rips through flesh and bone.
“Jensen!” she yells out.
“Get behind me,” I order, shifting my body to block hers, feeling her shift behind me, her hand closing over my wound to stop the bleeding.
Pain radiates from my arm to my damn teeth, but I’m not giving Tad the satisfaction of knowing it. “You should really work on self-control, Tad.”
“Take her to the window now, or I’ll unload a few more bullets in your chest and be done with you.”
“I’ll go,” Layla says quickly, and tries to move around me.
I catch her to me, blood gushing all over us both now, and I mouth, grab my gun , before eyeing Tad again. “I’ll carry her. She’s too weak to walk.”
With my eyes locked on Tad, I push to my feet, Layla rising with me, still behind me. I turn to scoop her up, offering her enough shelter to grab the weapon, which she hands off to me. I rotate, and I fire on Tad, planting a Green Hornet of my own in his belly. Layla grabs my second gun, but I scoop her up and head for the door, where I’m hoping the hallway will be clear.
We exit without delay, but by the time I’m on the stairs, Tad is shouting at me, firing at my back, and hitting my shoulder with at least two bullets. To my utter shock, Layla twists in my arms and leans over my shoulder, unloading her weapon on him, clearly trained to shoot, as she manages to halt the attack on us.
I reach the door and manage to grab the knob, using my foot to open it the rest of the way, and charge onto the porch. And thank fuck, Maddox is waiting on me. I am barely standing when I hand her over to him, all too aware that I’m in no physical position to protect her right now. I grab the doorframe, trying to hold myself up, dark spots filling my vision.
Blinking, I refocus, and to my horror, Maddox is nowhere to be found, but Layla is, and she’s in Tad’s arms. Maddox betrayed me. It can’t be. It just fucking can’t be. With a rush of adrenaline and a roar escaping my lips, I try to windwalk and fail. With frustration mixed with fear for Layla, I rush down the stairs, but a bullet rips through my knee, and I go down.
I’ve failed Layla yet again , is my last thought before the world goes black.