Chapter Nine #2
They go down hard, smashing into a steel table stacked with plastic-wrapped bricks of powder. The impact sends supplies flying, the table screeching across the wet floor. Hoodoo wrestles for control, fists swinging as the bird shrieks, her knife clattering on the concrete.
She scrambles for it, but Hoodoo grabs a metal tray off the floor and swings it like a hammer. It hits her square in the side of the head.
The sound is sickening—a hollow, wet crack.
She drops, twitching, blood oozing into the water and spreading out like a blossoming flower.
She’s not dead.
But she won’t be getting up anytime soon.
Grit stumbles, panting, sweat pouring down his face. “She was playing with me,” he mutters. “Like I was nothing. What the fuck?”
Before I can respond, Raid barrels into the room, his left arm soaked in red. He’s holding his shoulder, blood dripping through his fingers. “One’s down,” he growls. “One took off, fast. And the third? She’s not done. She’s stalking the evac route. Probably planning to sabotage the ladder out.”
A low rumble slithers up through the soles of my boots, subtle at first, then grows into something primal and violent. The floor quakes beneath us. A deep, guttural growl swells into a thunderous explosion that detonates through the underground.
The blast isn’t just loud, it feels alive.
A shockwave slams through the corridor, throwing us off balance as the concrete walls tremble with a sickening groan. Cracks zigzag through the ceiling.
And then, it bursts like a severed artery, spraying a wild, uncontrollable surge from the heavens, a sudden monster in the dark.
Overhead, the pipes rupture, splitting open with a metallic scream as they tear apart. Water spews out in blinding jets, slamming into the floor with relentless force. In seconds, we’re drenched, the corridor transforming into a cold, howling wind tunnel of chaos.
I hurl myself against the wall for support as the ground bucks violently beneath me.
Lights flicker, then burst overhead in a strobe of sparks and shattered glass.
Plaster and steel rain down in a storm of debris.
A section of ductwork slams into the floor, inches from where Hoodoo just stood.
A jagged pipe spears the concrete with a clang, steam hissing from its ruptured edge.
“The fuck was that?” Grit shouts, his voice half-drowned by the loudness of sounds, eyes wild as he scans the flooding hallway.
I don’t have an answer, only the truth that hits us like a freight train.
This place is hemorrhaging. Dying. And it’s trying to take us, and the drugged women with it.
Water surges through the corridor like a tidal wave uncoiling. It’s not just rising, it’s devouring. Blood smears vanish under the torrent. Drug packets float like bloated corpses. The bodies of guards we took down are dragged by the current, their limbs knocking against walls.
And the women, Christ, the women.
Their screams echo as cold water soaks through tattered clothes, their panic rising with the flood.
We’re not in a fight anymore.
We’re in a race against time.
And we’re still buried beneath the city.
I meet Bayou’s eyes. We don’t speak. We don’t have to.
We wade, as fast as we can, through the water.
“Ladder. Northwest,” Raid pants. “Storm drain. Three blocks out.”
“Get them movin’,” Hurricane orders. “Everyone cover the evac. I’ll stay back with the stragglers, make sure they get out.”
I catch his arm, my eyes meeting his. “Pres, keep an eye out. There are still Cartel and birds in here. Watch your six.”
He claps my shoulder, his eyes focused on me, a serious expression crossing his face.
“We get these women out. No matter what, we get them home. Understand me, VP?” He’s telling me something, but I’m not understanding, and I don’t have time to figure it out as he shoves me toward the rest of our brothers to usher the women out.
An unsettled churn coils in my gut, thick and acidic, as I watch Hurricane vanish down the flooding corridor. His broad frame disappears into the steam and flickering lights, his voice lost in the roar of rushing water and rising panic.
He’s going back for more women…
Because of course he is.
That’s who he is.
The kind of man who runs toward the fire when everyone else flees.
But I can’t follow him.
I want to scream for him to stay, to let someone else take the risk, to let me take it.
For him to stay here and give out orders.
But there’s no time.
No room to be selfish or for fear.
I have to focus.
I have to lead when Hurricane can’t.
Because we need to get these women out.
Now.
The water is up to our waists, churning with sludge, blood, and debris.
It claws at us with every step, thick as molasses, cold as betrayal.
The women scream, their voices hoarse with panic, their movements frantic and jagged.
Some are climbing onto overturned crates and shelving units to stay above the rising flood.
Others are clawing at one another, teeth chattering, eyes wild, each desperate to be the next lifted to safety.
Their trauma is layered, fresh terror buried beneath days, weeks, months of captivity, and the chemical haze they have been subjected to.
Hoodoo stumbles past me, a woman draped over each shoulder like dead weight. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t falter. Just keeps pushing forward, gritting his teeth as one of them sobs into his neck.
Bayou and Grit wedge themselves in beneath the ladder, creating a makeshift platform. One crouches, the other hauls. Hoodoo balances above, catching the victims as we pass them up. A human chain, fueled by muscle and pure fucking will.
I wade into the chaos, grabbing the nearest woman. Her eyes are wide, unblinking, her skin cold as ice. She doesn’t resist as I lift and place her into Grit’s waiting hands.
Another follows.
Then another.
A rhythm builds, fast and desperate.
And then we all jerk as gunfire gains our attention down the corridor.
A sharp, detached roar rips through the air.
The water lights up in bursts of white flame as gunfire reflects off the flood.
The orange flashes explode down the hall, bouncing off the concrete, deafening in the confined space.
Bullets chew through the walls, spraying sparks across the surface of the water.
The women scream again, sharper now. Pure animal fear, as everyone drops with terror.
“Get down,” I bellow, shoving two of the women behind a crate and spinning toward the source.
A full squad of Cartel soldiers floods the hallway from the far end. Five, maybe six of them, dark silhouettes backlit by chaos, wading through the rising water like fucking reapers.
They don’t even aim, they just fire. Blind and indiscriminate, hoping to kill something.
Someone.
Anyone.
I drop, water slapping up around me, and fire two controlled bursts. One drops immediately, his head jerks back like it’s been snapped on a string. The other spins as another bullet punches through his side, sending him colliding into the wall, then he slides, disappearing beneath the surface.
Behind me, someone yells, “Reloading!”
Another round punches into the wall inches from my head, the impact thundering in my skull like a sledgehammer.
Concrete explodes beside me, shards slicing across my cheek in a hot, stinging spray.
The prickle burns, but I don’t have time to register actual pain.
I duck my head, shoulder scraping against wet concrete as I shrink behind a half-submerged crate, gasping for breath I don’t have time to take.
Everything is noise, gunfire, screaming, the pounding rush of water crashing through ruptured pipes. A woman behind me shrieks, her hands tangled in her wet hair, blood smearing her temple where debris must have caught her.
When suddenly, Bayou storms into the corridor like a force of nature, a war cry tearing from his throat so primal it seems to shake the air itself.
It’s not a sound of fear. It’s fury. The kind of scream a man makes when the people he loves are under threat and there’s no line he won’t cross to protect them.
His Glock is already up before he’s even stopped moving, sights locked. He fires twice. Two sharp, efficient pops. The first Cartel soldier jerks mid-step, blood seeps from his chest, and he crumples sideways, splashing face-first into the rising flood.
The second is mid-turn when the bullet pummels straight into his forehead, snapping his head back, his body crashing like a lead weight into the water.
Blood spreads like wildfire across the surface, thick, black in the low light.
But Bayou doesn’t slow.
He doesn’t flinch.
He barrels through the waist-deep water, each step sending shockwaves outward, his boots churning through the filth.
Bullets rip past him, one clipping his shoulder, but he doesn’t even register it.
His only focus is Hoodoo, who has just finished heaving another semi-conscious woman toward the ladder and is too exposed, too damn vulnerable.
Bayou raises his arm again, then lets off another burst. Controlled and surgical. Two more flashes, and another soldier drops.
Steam curls through the air. Light flickers overhead. The corridor smells like blood, gun smoke, and sewer water. My heart is trying to tear through my ribs with the adrenaline while I hike another woman up the ladder.
“Move!” I roar, hoisting up another. One clings to a metal shelving unit, frozen in place, eyes so wide they look like they might split her face.
So, I grab her, gently, but urgently, my voice softer this time, a thread of calm in the chaos. “We’ve got you. I know this is scary, but you have to let us get you out of here. Do you trust me?”
She trembles in my arms, her eyes wide, flooding with tears, and she slowly nods. I guide her forward, one step at a time, toward the ladder. Her legs keep buckling under her, but I don’t let go.