Chapter Nine #3
Over my shoulder, the corridor turns into a war zone. Bayou and Hoodoo shoulder to shoulder now, laying down cover fire, buying us precious seconds that feel like a fucking lifetime.
But we’re running out of both.
Fast.
And in the back of my mind, a thought worms its way through, Where the fuck is Hurricane?
Then, from the shadows, a blur darts, and as if conjured by sheer will, Hurricane appears.
He’s not just wading through water, he’s driving five terrified women forward, one hand outstretched, the other waving them ahead.
Soaked to the bone, blood streaking down his arm, and yet, his voice rings out like a damn battle cry.
“City, grab ’em! Get ’em out,” he shouts, his boots crashing through the rising tide.
He said he’d find the stragglers.
And the fucker always keeps his damn word.
The women stumble toward me, eyes wide, limbs shaking, but they’re moving, because he made them believe they could. I wave them forward, grabbing the closest by the waist and hoisting her up toward the ladder.
“C’mon, get your ass over here, Pres,” I shout, voice cracking with urgency. I catch sight of his wild grin flashing through the steam and chaos as he charges forward to join me.
But he doesn’t make it.
From above, a shadow drops, a fucking bird assassin, moving like a phantom.
She lands on his back with a shriek, blade already raised. It gleams under the flickering emergency lights, ready to carve. Before I can even shout his name, they crash beneath the water in a brutal tangle. A violent splash, then nothing but the roiling surface.
“Fuck! Hurricane!” I lunge forward, but a panicked woman grabs me, fingers clawing at my vest, using me like a foothold to climb. I nearly go under as she clambers toward her escape.
She’s desperate.
They all are.
I don’t blame her.
But it costs me precious seconds I don’t have.
By the time I tear free and stumble toward the fight, blood is already billowing into the water like red ink.
My stomach twists.
It’s impossible to tell who’s winning.
Then, suddenly, Hurricane breaks the surface. He’s gasping, his face pale, a knife buried in his side, but the bird floats to the top, limbs slack, her eyes wide in frozen surprise.
He took her out with nothing but his bare hands.
I stagger closer, my breath shaking. “Jesus, Pres… you scared the hell outta me.”
He coughs a wet, painful laugh. “Always like to keep things interestin’.” Then he groans, bracing against the wall. “Get the women… out. I’ll be there… in a sec… just need… to catch my… breath.”
“I’m coming, let me help you—” Hurricane holds up his hand to stop me.
“VP, it’s your job to get those women out. I just need… a second. Focus on the job… we came here to do.”
“I can do both. Help you and them—”
“That’s an order, brother,” he demands, his expression serious as he leans against the wall, still trying to catch his breath.
I hesitate as Bayou pops his head down from above, peering at his twin. “Everything good?” he asks.
Hesitating, I nod, swallowing the dread trying to climb up my throat.
The guilt is eating at me for thinking anything bad about Hurricane today.
But he’s my president, and while I wanted him to dish out orders, the motherfucker just gave me one.
I hesitate for a few seconds, grit my teeth, but then I turn and keep moving, working hard to get the last of the women out.
Just as Hurricane ordered.
But the seconds are running dry.
Somewhere deep within the walls, the ticking continues. Silent and unforgiving, just like a countdown to the end of everything.
The ceiling groans. A guttural sound of strained steel and cracking concrete trembles through the chamber.
It is almost as if the building itself is mourning what’s coming.
A thunderous crack rips through the chamber, and concrete shears away in jagged chunks.
A steel support beam, thick and rusted, plummets like a guillotine, falling directly in the middle of the fucking corridor.
We all duck as it swings and then slams onto Hurricane with a sickening crunch.
The impact echoes louder than the blast.
Louder than the screams.
Louder than the blood rushing in my ears.
“Pres!” I rush through the churning water, half swimming, half stumbling, and grab the beam, muscles screaming as I attempt to lift it off him. “Fuck. Fuck!” My boots slip against the slick, wet concrete. My arms quake, my hands slick with water and blood and panic.
But the beam won’t budge.
Hurricane’s face twists in pain, but he doesn’t cry out. His jaw clenches so hard I swear I hear his teeth grind. One hand clutches his side where blood pulses through his fingers. The other tries weakly to push me away.
“City… there’s… no time,” he growls through gritted teeth. “L-listen to me—”
“I’m not leaving you, you fucking cunt.”
“You d-don’t have a choice!” His voice cracks, raw and fierce. “There’s a fuckin’ b-bomb. It’s still t-tickin’.”
I shake my head, vision blurring, understanding flowing through me why he stayed back and wouldn’t come further. He was always going to give us the time we needed to get out.
Fucking asshole!
“We can get you out, we just—”
“You’ve got fuckin’ seconds, City…” His breathing grows shallow. “She was rigged. The bird. She had a vest… when I killed her, the timer started… I’d say you guys have ’bout sixty seconds… maybe less now. I need you to go!”
The world tilts.
Every instinct inside me screams to fight harder.
To lift.
To pull.
To fix it.
But the water is rising, the women are still climbing, and the man who taught me how to lead is dying right in front of my eyes.
He looks toward the ladder, the women, and our brothers, all escaping.
This was the mission.
And with his bloodied hand, he reaches for mine.
“Go, brother. Take care of ’em. Take care of Kaia. Take care of my k-kids…” His voice falters, his eyes misting as he sniffs back his emotion. “Even if I didn’t meet ’em yet… they made me whole.”
“Pres—”
Hoodoo appears beside me, panting as he takes in the scene, dragging his fingers through his hair. “Fuck, Pres.”
“Hoodoo, we don’t have time… you gotta get City outta h-here… this place is rigged to go up,” Hurricane orders, and I grit my teeth, leaning down, putting all my force back into lifting this fucking beam off him.
I let out an animalistic growl as Hoodoo wraps his arms around my body and drags me back. My boots scrape against the flooded floor as I fight him, raw grief clawing at my throat like it wants out.
“C’mon, VP. I fucking hate it, but we gotta g-go,” Hoodoo states, his voice breaking at the end.
“Wait, there’s still more,” Grit roars, bursting into the corridor like a man possessed. His face streaked with grime and blood, his arm reaches out, cradling one woman while two more stumble in behind him, soaking and terrified. “Move, move, MOVE!”
I twist out of Hoodoo’s grasp just long enough to help hoist a trembling woman up to the base of the ladder. “Go! Grab the next one,” I yell, turning to see another appear in the water, guiding another two. One’s limping, the other barely conscious.
The ladder groans beneath the weight as Grit and Bayou pull woman after woman up to safety. My muscles scream with exhaustion, but I reach down again, hauling one last terrified girl into my arms when Hoodoo shoves her forward.
Hoodoo helps lift the last one. “That’s it. That’s everyone!”
“Then go!” I scream, giving him a shove.
We scramble up the ladder like hell is on our heels because it is.
I twist one last time, desperate for a glimpse, and the sight almost cripples me. Hurricane, half-submerged, pinned, watching us ascend with a look that fucking breaks me open.
He lifts a hand, just once.
A goodbye.
A command.
A fucking legacy.
And the fucker smiles. “Tell Bayou he’s a pussy for me,” he calls out, loud and clear, his voice ragged but defiant.
Inhaling sharply, I dip my head at him, turn, feeling like an asshole for leaving him, and I make my way up the ladder.
The last man to emerge.
Bayou furrows his brows before checking back down the ladder. “Where’s Hurricane?” he snaps.
Hoodoo rushes for him, grabbing Bayou as I signal for us to start leading the women away.
Bayou’s eyes widen, anger crossing his features.
“No. No fucking way—” He breaks free from Hoodoo racing for the ladder when the earth shatters.
The detonation doesn’t just sound, it rattles our very foundations.
A thunderclap of fury ignites beneath us, so violent it feels like the planet cracked in half.
A blinding flash turns the darkness into day.
A wall of heat slams into our backs, knocking the breath from our lungs and sending water flying upward in a furious torrent.
The tunnel screams, concrete and steel tear like paper, shockwaves rippling up through the very bones of the building.
Flames race along the earth, hungrily devouring everything in their path.
I lurch forward as the ground beneath us gives way, and I stumble, rushing to find solid footing.
My ears ring. My limbs go numb. The pressure feels like a fist around my skull.
The world tilts sideways.
Screams flood the air and then…
… darkness.
Water rushes past us, no longer rising, but draining. A smoking hole yawns where the ground used to be. It’s jagged and violent, edges blackened from the blast.
Beneath it, silence.
No movement.
No Hurricane.
Just the echo of a man’s final stand.
Fighting to catch my breath, with dust and grit in my eyes, I find my feet and glance around at the destruction. A gaping hole sits where the Cartel’s operation used to be.
Now a burial site for our president.
But above ground is our club, and the women we just saved.
All of them safe because Hurricane gave his life so they could get theirs back.
Coughing and spluttering, one by one, everyone rises to their feet, except Bayou, who’s kneeling at the edge of the abyss.
Limping over to him, I gently rest my hand on his shoulder, and he slowly glances up at me, devastation plastered across his face. “How the fuck do I live in this world without my twin?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how any of us live without him, Bayou. He took up so much space. He wasn’t just a hurricane by name but also nature…” The rest of our brothers circle around us, all peering down into the gaping hole.
Bayou scrubs at his face with his hands. “Kaia’s fucking pregnant. Jesus! He’s never gonna meet his twins.”
None of us says anything in return as the sound of blaring sirens sounds in the distance.
But I know now the burden of authority hangs heavy on my shoulders.
Reaching for the radio, I hesitate, taking a deep breath as I watch my brothers grieving over the gaping hole in the New Orleans landscape, and the gaping hole in the NOLA Defiance brotherhood.
With a heavy heart, I key the comms. “L6, this is N3 reporting in… packaged delivered.” I take a deep breath, my hands trembling as I glance back down into the gaping chasm.
“We have sustained injuries, and…” I pause, not wanting to say the damn words.
“Go ahead, N3, we’re receiving,” L6 chimes down the line in her kind voice.
Clearing my throat, I swipe my hand over my face, dropping to my knee as the emotion hits me full force. “We took a heavy hit… our Pres is gone, L6,” I somehow manage to grit out, before dropping the radio to the dusty ground.
Static blasts through the comms as Hoodoo grips my shoulder supportively, my eyes still focused on the damn hole where whatever is left of Hurricane remains.
“Sorry… can you repeat, N3? It sounded like you said you lost your president?” the voice chimes, an edge of disbelief in her tone.
My stomach churns, a wave of anger rising through me as I reach for the radio, pick it up, and begin pacing with the fury of a raging bull.
“I don’t know how much fucking clearer I can be…
Hurricane is dead for fuck’s sake!” I bellow down the line, then hurl the radio down into the fucking gaping pit with as much force as fucking possible.
I faintly hear it crackle and her replying, “Please take care of your—” But the crashing sound of the radio as it finally smashes into whatever is at the bottom of the abyss cuts her off.
We helped Los Angeles take down this part of the Cartel operation, and helping these women gain their freedom was paramount, but as we stand here, staring at what literally looks like the end of the world, I can’t help but think a big part of NOLA Defiance’s world ended in this gaping chasm here today.
And I doubt we will ever fully recover from it.