27. Lyric
CHAPTER 27
LYRIC
Explosions lit up the night sky in a deadly fireworks display as Nolan’s missions found their targets. The drones disintegrated in brilliant flashes, raining fragments of scorched metal and circuitry onto our position. My knees gave out, and I sank to the dirt to watch the show.
We were alive.
We had survived the unsurvivable.
I turned to Flynn, intending to throw my arms around him and kiss him?—
But he wasn’t beside me.
Where the hell had he gone?
I glanced around the canyon in shock and spotted him already charging down the stairs, dodging flaming debris, his attention missile-locked on Moreau.
Oh, fuck.
“Flynn, wait!” I called, but my voice was lost in the rotor noise as Nolan swooped by overhead. I scrambled to my feet and sprinted after him, weaving through the smoldering wreckage of Sentinel. The acrid stench of burnt electronics and melted composites filled my lungs as I ran.
Flynn was a man possessed, tearing down the steps with single-minded fury. I’d seen him angry before, seen him in combat, but this was different. This was raw, primal rage—the kind that burns rational thought to ash.
Moreau had reached the dock, his security detail forming a protective ring around him. The yacht’s engines were already running, the low rumble echoing up the canyon walls.
Oh, no.
Flynn was going to get himself killed.
I pushed harder to catch up to him, my legs burning, my body screaming in protest—cuts, bruises, and the lingering effects of the neural disruptor making every step agony. But I kept moving. Flynn wasn’t going in there alone.
“Mav,” I gasped into my comm. “Target the yacht!”
“No can do, Siren,” came the immediate reply. “Too close to your position. Risk of collateral is too high.” Nolan’s voice was tense, all playfulness gone. “I can’t make that shot without taking you both out.”
I swore and kept running. Flynn had reached the bottom of the canyon now, a hundred yards from where Moreau’s men were loading equipment onto the boat. One of the guards spotted him and raised his weapon.
“Contact!” I shouted, but Flynn was already diving behind a stack of supply crates as bullets splintered the wood around him.
I slid into cover beside him seconds later, breathing hard. “What’s the plan?”
“Kill Moreau,” Flynn replied, his voice unnervingly flat. His eyes were cold, focused, pupils blown wide with adrenaline.
“Flynn, we need to think this through. There are six of them, heavily armed, and we’ve got?—”
“I don’t care.” He checked the rifle he’d picked up from one of Moreau’s fallen guards. “He doesn’t leave this island.”
The yacht’s engines roared louder. We were running out of time.
“Cover me,” Flynn said, and before I could stop him, he was moving.
What he did next was nothing short of spectacular. He tore through those guards like they were paper dolls with toy guns. I barely needed to provide cover fire.
Then, with a yell that was all rage, he plowed into Moreau.
The collision sent them both crashing against the yacht’s railing. I scrambled down to the dock, my heart in my throat as Flynn’s fists connected with Moreau’s face—once, twice, three times in rapid succession. Blood sprayed across the polished deck.
“Flynn!” I called, but he couldn’t hear me. Or wouldn’t.
Moreau wasn’t going down easily. Despite his refined appearance, the man clearly knew how to fight. He twisted away from Flynn’s next blow, producing a blade from somewhere that glinted in the moonlight. Before I could shout a warning, he buried it in Flynn’s side.
“No!”
Flynn barely flinched. He grabbed Moreau’s wrist, twisted until something snapped, and headbutted him with enough force that I heard the crunch of cartilage from where I stood.
I vaulted onto the yacht, weapon ready, scanning for any remaining guards. The deck was clear, but that didn’t mean we were alone. I moved toward Flynn, who had Moreau pinned against the railing now, one hand around his throat.
“You’re dead,” Flynn growled, pressing the muzzle of his gun under Moreau’s chin. His finger tightened on the trigger.
But he didn’t fire.
Moreau smiled through the blood dripping down his face from his broken nose. “Do it,” he wheezed. “Show your lady what kind of animal you are.”
Flynn’s hand trembled. The rage in his eyes was primal, unfiltered—a darkness I’d glimpsed before but never seen unleashed.
“Flynn,” I murmured, approaching them slowly.
He didn’t look at me, but I knew he heard me. His breathing had gone ragged, uneven.
Moreau’s eyes flicked to me, then back to Flynn. Despite the blood and the gun at his head, he still managed to look smug, almost amused. “Your woman was so compliant when paralyzed. So helpless while I explored what was mine.”
Flynn went rigid, his whole body tensing like a bowstring pulled to breaking. His finger tightened on the trigger, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. I could see him fighting himself—the professional operative against the man who wanted nothing more than to splatter Moreau’s brains across the dock for what he’d done to me.
Then he saw me standing there, and something shifted in his expression. Without a word, he stepped back and extended the gun toward me, grip first
“Your body, your choice,” Flynn said hoarsely, extending the gun toward me.
Our eyes met, and in that moment, I understood. This wasn’t only about giving me agency or control; this was Flynn recognizing his own darkness and choosing not to surrender to it.
I took the weapon from him, my fingers brushing his. The metal was warm from his grip.
Moreau’s eyes widened slightly as I leveled the weapon at his head, my arm steady despite everything my body had endured in the past eight hours. He tried to maintain his arrogant composure, but I saw the first flicker of genuine fear in his eyes.
“How does it feel to be completely helpless?” I asked. “To know your life depends entirely on someone else’s mercy?”
“You won’t shoot me,” Moreau said, though his confidence was cracking around the edges. “Your people need me alive. For information. For?—”
“No,” I interrupted, taking another step closer until the barrel of the gun rested against his forehead.
His throat worked as he swallowed. “Ms. Renard, be reasonable?—”
“You put your hands on me while I couldn’t move.” The memory of his touch crawled across my skin like insects. “You thought that made me yours.”
Behind me, I heard the rest of the team approaching—Ethan’s voice calling out orders, Trent’s heavy footsteps hitting the dock. But they seemed distant, unimportant. There was only Moreau’s fear-filled eyes, the warm metal of the gun in my hand, and the absolute certainty of what needed to be done.
I fired.
The gunshot echoed across the water, a sharp crack that hung in the air before fading into the distant sounds of chaos still emanating from the compound. Moreau crumpled, his body making a dull thud against the deck. The neat hole between his eyes leaked a thin trickle of blood, surprisingly little for the damage the bullet had done going out the back of his skull. I lowered the gun slowly, my arm feeling strangely heavy now that the deed was done.
“Lyric.” Flynn’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. He stood beside me, swaying, his complexion pale beneath the mixture of blood and grime. What was left of his shirt was soaked through with blood where Moreau’s blade had caught him.
His legs gave out.
“Flynn!” I let go of the gun and dropped down beside him, cradling his head in my lap.
The knife wound was deep, still seeping blood at an alarming rate. The neurodart puncture in his shoulder was swollen and angry, the flesh around it discolored from the agent’s effects. His injured leg was trembling with fine muscle spasms—neural pathways still misfiring from the drug.
“‘M fine,” he mumbled, clearly not fine at all. “Check the case. Make sure… intact.”
“The case doesn’t matter. Sentinel’s gone,” I told him, tearing a strip of fabric from my already ruined dress to press against his bleeding side.
He hissed in a breath. “Doubt it. More… of those… fuckers… out there… somewhere.”
He was probably right, but I didn’t care. “Shh. Stop talking and stay still. You’re losing too much blood.”
His hand caught mine, grip still strong despite his condition. His eyes, although clouded with pain, focused on my face with fierce intensity. “Are you hurt?”
The question nearly undid me. After everything he’d endured, his first thought was still for my safety. I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak as a wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm the clinical detachment I’d been holding onto.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t protect you.”
I knew he meant what had happened when we were both paralyzed, helpless. The violation I’d experienced while unable to move or resist. The memory was there, a dark shadow at the edges of my mind that I’d have to face eventually. But not now. Not here.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” I brushed my fingers through his sweat-dampened hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “We’re alive. We completed the mission. That’s all that matters.”
But it wasn’t all that mattered, and we both knew it. I’d been so close to telling him I loved him before the drones attacked. The words were still there, waiting to be spoken, but I couldn’t get them past the growing lump in my throat.
Alistair dropped to his knees beside me and ripped open his medical kit, his expression shifting from one of professional assessment to alarm as he took in Flynn’s condition. “Jesus Christ.”
“You should… see the… other guy,” Flynn replied weakly, attempting a bloody smile that turned into a grimace.
“You’re a comedian.” Alistair moved fast as he cut away Flynn’s blood-soaked shirt to access the wound beneath. “Trent! I need the trauma kit from the chopper! And tell Nolan to prep for immediate evac!”
Years of ops together showed in the way the team spread out, securing the scene, gathering intel, locking down our exfil route.
I started to move back, to give Alistair room to work, but Flynn’s hand caught mine in a grip that belied his weakened state.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised, squeezing his hand. And I meant it in ways that surprised even me.
“Hang in there, Shep,” Alistair said, prepping an IV. “We’ll have you patched up in no time. Lyric, keep pressure on his wound. He’s bleeding too much.”
God, that really was a lot of blood. I pressed harder as, above us, Nolan’s helicopter circled, preparing for landing on the yacht’s helipad. The wind from the rotor whipped my hair around my face and sent ripples across the dark water.
“Princess.” Flynn’s fingers tightened around mine, drawing my attention back to him. “Does this… count as a successful date? Explosions, gunfire, saving… the world from autonomous… killer drones?”
The joke was weak, but I rewarded it with a small smile anyway. “If this is your idea of a date, Shepherd, your standards are concerningly low.”
“High standards,” he corrected, wincing as Alistair inserted the needle for the IV. “Just… unconventional taste.”
“Next time, maybe just Thai food and a movie.”
Next time. Two simple words that should have made my heart rate pick up, my flight instincts kick in, but they didn’t.
“Deal,” he said on a breath of sound. “Though fair warning… I have terrible taste in movies.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”