Chapter Sixteen Jonah
Six operatives. Full tactical gear with weapons raised and pointed at our chests.
And Alfred Webb, smiling like Christmas came early.
My brain processes this in fragments. The blinding lights. Jagger's body going rigid beside me. The cold weight of the gun in my hand that suddenly feels like a toy compared to the assault rifles pointed at our chests. The smell, fuck me, the smell. Fear. True, uncompromising fear.
"Weapons down," Webb says pleasantly. "Hands where we can see them. You know how this works, Jagger. Don't make it messier than it needs to be."
Jagger doesn't move. His gun is still raised, barrel pointed directly at Webb's face. I can see the calculation happening behind his eyes. Six operatives. Two of us. The math doesn't work. But math has never stopped Jagger before.
"Your brothers are already in custody," Webb continues. "Alive, for now. Their continued survival depends entirely on your cooperation."
That's a lie. I can see it in the way Webb's eyes flicker, the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his weight shifts to his back foot like he's ready to run. He doesn't have Jace and Jinx. He's bluffing.
Which means they're still out there. Which means we have a chance.
"Jagger," I say quietly. "He's lying."
Webb's smile tightens. "The asset speaks. How charming. I was hoping we'd have a chance to continue our work together, Mr. Doe. Your memories have been causing quite a bit of trouble. All those fragments floating to the surface. All those inconvenient truths."
"My memories are the least of your problems."
"Big words from a man with six guns pointed at him." He gestures to his operatives. "Take them. Alive if possible, but I won't lose sleep over—"
The operative closest to me shifts his weight. Left foot forward, right hand adjusting grip on his rifle. He's going to move in the next three seconds. I've seen that stance before, in footage I studied for articles about police shootings. The moment before violence.
I don't think. I just act.
I throw myself sideways, crashing into Jagger, taking us both to the ground as the first shots tear through the space where we were standing. The noise is deafening, bullets punching holes in the wall behind us, plaster raining down like snow.
Jagger rolls, comes up firing. Two shots, two operatives down. Clean headshots that paint the wall with red.
I scramble behind a heavy wooden cabinet, raising the pistol, my fingers finally remembering how to work as they tighten around the trigger. I fire at the nearest shape, miss, fire again. This time the operative staggers, clutching his shoulder.
Webb is screaming orders. The remaining operatives are spreading out, trying to flank us. The room is chaos, muzzle flashes and screaming and the copper smell of blood already thick in the air.
"Kitchen!" Jagger shouts.
I don't question. I run.
Bullets chase me across the room, chewing up the floor at my heels. I dive through the doorway, hit the tile hard, feel something crack in my shoulder. Pain flares white-hot, but I keep moving.
Jagger is right behind me. He slams the door shut, shoves a heavy butcher's block against it. It won't hold for long.
"How many?" I gasp.
"Four left. Plus Webb."
The door shudders as someone throws their weight against it. The butcher's block scrapes forward an inch.
"Back door," Jagger says. "Move."
We run through the kitchen, past gleaming appliances and copper pots hanging from the ceiling. The back door is ahead, a rectangle of darkness promising escape.
I reach for the handle.
The door explodes inward.
I'm thrown backward, debris slicing my face, ears ringing. Through the smoke and chaos, I see shapes pouring through the ruined doorway. More operatives. Webb had backup waiting outside.
Three of them. No, four. Spreading out, rifles raised, moving with coordination that says they've trained together.
I fire from the floor, hitting one in the knee. The kneecap explodes in a spray of bone and cartilage. He goes down screaming, clutching the ruin of his leg, and I roll as his partner returns fire, bullets sparking off the tile inches from my head, shards of ceramic slicing my cheek.
Jagger is already moving. He crosses the kitchen like a ghost, silent and lethal, ducking under a spray of gunfire that punches holes in the refrigerator behind him. His knife appears in his hand, blade catching the light, and then it's buried in someone's throat, severing the jugular.
Blood sprays across his face in an arc. He doesn't blink.
Just rips the blade free, spins, and drives it into the next man's eye socket without a word. The operative convulses, hands scrabbling uselessly at the handle protruding from his face, and then goes limp. There’s a wet squelch as Jagger pulls it out of his eye.
The third operative swings his rifle like a club, aiming for Jagger's skull. Jagger ducks, comes up inside his guard, and the next three seconds are a blur of violence I can barely track.
Elbow to the throat. Knee to the groin. The operative doubles over, gasping, and Jagger grabs his head and slams it down onto his rising knee. The man's nose caves in, blood and teeth spraying across the tile floor.
But he's not done. He comes up swinging, catching Jagger across the jaw with a wild haymaker. They grapple, crashing into the counter, knocking pots and pans clattering to the floor in a cascade of copper and steel.
I try to get a clear shot, but they're too tangled. If I fire, I might hit Jagger.
The operative pulls a knife. Short blade, serrated edge, meant for close work. He drives it toward Jagger's stomach.
Jagger catches his wrist with one hand, twists until the bones grind together, and forces the blade around in a slow, inexorable arc. The operative's eyes go wide as he realizes what's happening, as his own hand drives the knife toward his belly.
"No, please, don't—"
The blade sinks in. Jagger shoves it deeper, angling up, and I watch the life drain from the operative's face as his internal organs are shredded by his own weapon.
He lets the body fall and turns to me. His face is a mask of blood, red dripping from his jaw, pooling in the hollow of his throat. But his eyes are calm. Focused. Like he's completed a task and is ready for the next one.
"You okay?"
"Shoulder's fucked. But I'm moving."
"Good enough."
The operative I shot in the knee is still alive, still screaming, dragging himself toward the door. Jagger walks over, places his boot on the man's back, and puts a bullet in his head. The screaming stops.
The door to the main room crashes open. The remaining operatives pour through, Webb behind them, his face twisted with fury.
"Kill them both!" he screams. "I want them dead!"
Jagger grabs my arm and pulls me toward the ruined back door. We stumble into the night, cold air hitting my face, and then we're running.
Behind us, gunfire erupts. Bullets whine past, one so close I feel the heat of its passage. My lungs are burning, my shoulder screaming, but I don't stop. Can't stop.
The tree line is fifty meters away. If we can reach it—
Something hits me from behind.
Not a bullet. A body. One of the operatives tackled me, drove me face-first into the frozen ground. My gun goes flying, lost in the darkness. I try to roll, to fight, but he's heavy and trained and I'm already hurt.
His hands close around my throat.
Stars explode across my vision. I claw at his fingers, kick uselessly, feel my consciousness starting to slip away. This is it. This is how I die. Strangled in the dirt outside a safe house in Geneva, while Jagger—
The pressure vanishes.
I gasp, sucking air, and look up to see Jagger standing over me with a dripping knife and a corpse at his feet. The operative's throat is a red ruin, blood still pumping onto the frozen grass.
"Up," Jagger says, hauling me to my feet. "We need to—"
The shot comes from nowhere.
I see Jagger's body jerk. See the red bloom spreading across his collar bone. See his eyes go wide with surprise.
No.
No.
Everything slows down. I watch him stagger, watch his hand come up to touch the wound, watch his fingers come away slick with blood.
"Jagger—"
Looking where the shot came from, I see a gun raise, pointing directly at Jagger. This one's meant for his head.
I move without thinking. Throw myself in front of him. Feel the impact like a hammer blow to my side, just below my ribs.
The pain is extraordinary. White-hot and all-consuming, blotting out everything else. I'm on the ground, I think. I can feel cold grass against my cheek. Can hear someone screaming my name.
But it sounds very far away.
Jagger's hands are on my face. His voice is in my ears, desperate and broken.
"Jonah. Jonah, stay with me. Open your eyes. Look at me."
I try. It's hard. Everything is fuzzy, floating. There's something warm and wet spreading across my stomach, and I know distantly that it's blood. My blood.
"You stupid fucking—" His voice cracks. "Why did you do that?"
"Couldn't let them..." I cough, taste copper. "Couldn't let them take you."
"I'm not worth dying for."
"Disagree."
More gunfire. Close. Jagger's head snaps up, and I see something change in his face. Something that goes beyond rage, beyond fury, into a place that's cold and empty and absolutely terrifying.
"Stay here," he says. "Don't move. Don't die."
"Not planning on it."
He stands. Picks up a rifle from one of the fallen operatives. Checks the magazine with mechanical precision.
Then he walks toward the gunfire.
I should be scared for him. Should be terrified of what's about to happen. But I've seen what Jagger Harrison can do when he's in control. I've never seen what he can do when he's not.
Part of me wants to watch.
The rest of me is busy trying not to bleed out.
I press my hand against the wound, feeling the hot pulse of blood between my fingers. The bullet went through. I can feel the exit wound in my back, ragged and wet. That's good, I think. Better than having the bullet still inside.