Chapter Fifteen #2
“Cameras disabled. Motion sensors looped,” Kite confirms from her cover position.
Nighthawk steps up, pulling a small device from her belt pouch, an EMP—electromagnetic pulse—burst pack the size of a deck of cards. She attaches it near the keypad and taps her tablet. Suddenly, a pulse emits with a soft thud.
We hesitate, all of us glancing around, waiting for movement.
But we’re clear.
“Firewall bypassed,” she murmurs, tapping code after code, fingers a blur. “Initiating magnetic override in three… two…” And the lock clicks. “Showtime,” she chimes, pushing the door open.
I grin, knowing that I instructed her in all things EMP back in the day.
The birds flow into the giant mansion like smoke through cracks in various locations around the building. We’re trained to be swift, smooth like silk—invisible.
But we know Javier won’t go down without a fight.
And almost immediately, his traps begin.
“Watch your step,” Kite whispers over comms. “Pressure plate on the landing, just saved Starling from becoming ground meat.”
Starling’s voice comes through breathless, “Thank God Kite saw it before I did. That’s one way to get my steps in.”
In the west corridor, Kestrel hisses, “Tripwire, real subtle.” I can hear the sarcasm in her tone. “Got it disabled though.”
The moment we pass through the foyer, automatic oscillating turrets pop down from the ceiling, sweeping red targeting beams across the marble floor.
“Down!” I raise my voice just above a whisper, before I dive and roll, coming up behind a pillar. Bullets rip past as Rosella swings out from behind cover and fires a magnetic grenade. The turrets explode in a burst of sparks, raining flashes and dust to the floor.
“No one said Javier was subtle,” Magpie quips.
Cartel soldiers swarm the halls like insects, dressed in tactical gear, full armor, and brandishing military-grade rifles.
Magpie swoops in, yanking a blade from its holster on a guard’s thigh, and then slicing it across his throat before the guard can even react. Blood paints the wall like a mural as she lets out a battle cry. “Let’s go, motherfuckers!”
Barn Owl drops from a vent, slicing through two throats with her twin karambit knives.
Peacock vaults over a table, tossing flashbangs with a manic grin.
Kite fires precision shots from the rafters, taking out another two guards, their bodies jolting and exploding with the force of the high-power weapon.
Rosella, eyes blazing, charges headlong, screaming bloody murder, unloading her twin pistols into the guard’s knees before jumping and slamming her boot heel into his already fucked knee cap.
Then, as he falls to the floor, screaming in agony, she yanks out her blade, forcing it down into the side of his neck, dragging it to split open wide.
Blood flows out like a river as he garbles out some kind of cry, his hands rushing to his throat.
But there’s no use. He’s going to be dead in a matter of moments as she cackles at the top of her lungs, standing over his dying body.
Typical Rosella carnage.
I duck beneath a wild swing, a blade whistling past my ear, and I drive upward before the bastard can recover. My combat knife punches through layers of flesh and sinew, sliding between his ribs with practiced ease. His eyes flare as I twist deep, pushing hard and fast.
Without guilt, without care.
I simply need him dead.
His weight collapses against me, and without a second thought, I shove him off, his body crumpling into a heap on the floor.
I wipe his blood on my leather pants, letting out a small chuckle while another guard barrels toward me, boots slamming across the tiled floor.
I bring my hands up in a ‘come get me’ gesture, but there’s no time for him to dodge when he lunges at me.
I raise my Glock and fire once, clean through the center of his forehead.
The shot echoes like thunder, and the fucking idiot falls mid-stride, skull smacking the marble with a wet crack, blood pooling like a beautiful canvas beneath his dead body.
“They’re always so fucking cocky,” I mumble. My pulse steady. My vision sharp.
Violence doesn’t shake me.
It sharpens me.
It fuels me.
If anything, it excites me.
I know, I’m a freak. But that’s why Alpha is going to marry my crazy ass.
To my left, Nighthawk becomes death incarnate.
She moves like water, graceful, lethal, impossible to predict.
One guard lunges at her with a stun baton, but she spins low, using his momentum against him.
Her boot connects with his knee, shattering it sideways with a sickening crunch.
He screams, and she cuts it off with a knife across the throat.
The flow of blood across the floor in a chaotic pattern as another comes at her with a tactical blade.
Oh, dude. Bad idea!
She blocks his first strike, pivots in, and wraps her arm around his neck, yanking him into a rear chokehold. Her legs coil like a python, and he’s trapped. She jerks sharply, his vertebrae snapping with the pressure. His body slumps to the floor in silence.
Standing back with a proud smile on my face, I start a slow clap as she rights herself, glancing at me like I’m breaking her flow.
“You good?” she mocks, breath steady, flicking blood from her blade like it’s rainwater.
“Never better, just having a proud mama moment,” I answer, scanning for the next threat.
Nighthawk scoffs, flipping me the bird before she takes off ahead of me, raring for another kill. I chuckle and race up behind her. The corridor ahead is chaos with gunfire, shouting, and alarms. Peacock, Barn Owl, Rosella, Kite, and Magpie are wreaking havoc in front of us.
We’re carved from the same maker, fueled by rage. We survived the worst. Now we are the worst they’ll face.
One of Javier’s soldiers storms out of a nearby door, shouting orders in Spanish.
I don’t give him the chance to finish. I sprint forward, leap, and tackle him into the wall so hard that his ass breaks the plasterboard, and he falls, pushed back through it.
My elbow flicks up, shattering his nose while he tries to grapple, but I beat him to it, my fist slamming into his temple.
Bringing my knee up, I slam it into his gut with as much force as I can, causing him to hunch over trying to catch his breath.
With a smirk, I grab a knife, then drive it into his clavicle and rip downward.
My chest squeezes in delight at the push and pull of sinew as I drag.
He gurgles, trying to scream, but blood pools from his mouth, then he slumps, and I pull him from the wall, spin him, and with my boot, I kick him in the back. His limp body falls to the floor.
Another one bites the dust.
Suddenly, a flashbang goes off ahead, Magpie’s doing, no doubt, and the hallway floods with light and commotion. Through the smoke, silhouettes begin to appear. Kite grabs my wrist and hauls me sideways into a room before a hail of bullets chews through the wall where we were standing.
“Timing, as always,” I murmur with a tight smirk.
She grins. “You’re welcome.”
Before the dust clears, we’re back into the fight.
Nighthawk is beside me quickly, and we move as one, covering each other’s blind spots, anticipating the other’s rhythm.
We learned this together, in a place worse than hell, but it’s second nature now.
Nighthawk distracts with a flash of steel, and I finish with a bullet to the spine.
I draw fire from a sniper post, Nighthawk finds the angle and takes out the shooter with a clean headshot through reinforced glass.
Our knives are extensions of our arms.
Our guns speak fluent vengeance.
And behind every move, every breath, we feel it.
This is for Poppy.
For every young girl they took.
For every nightmare we turned into fuel.
By the time we reach the inner sanctum, blood stains the marble. The hallway is littered with broken bodies, some still twitching, others already cold.
But we don’t stop to count.
We don’t look back.
Nighthawk wipes sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist. “He’s close. I can feel him.”
“So can I,” I murmur. “Let’s finish this.”
We fight back-to-back, our rhythm so familiar it feels like breathing. Blood sprays the walls. Screams echo off the marble. Javier’s house trembles under the fury of our assault.
He knows we’re coming for him.
Then an ear-piercing scream floods the halls. I spin around just in time to see Barn Owl engulfed in a flash of white-hot light. A rigged thermite trap hidden behind a false wall.
“Barn Owl!” we all call as static floods the comms.
But her body ignites in the fire, and there’s nothing we can do.
“Goddammit! Fuck! She’s gone. I should have seen it,” Kite whispers, disbelief in her eyes.
“You can’t predict everything, Kite,” I tell her, placing my hand on her shoulder for comfort.
“But we can make ourselves feel better,” Peacock states, grabbing the guard she’s already half mangled, and throws his body into the pit, keeping his head out.
His screams filter through the hall as he slowly burns to death while we all stand, birds united, taking what small vengeance we can for our fallen sister.
The guard slowly stops screaming, his head flopping as the rest of his body turns to ash, then Peacock shoves what remains into the inferno.
“What’s going on over there?” Egret calls through comms.
We all look at each other and nod in solidarity.
The grief is a blade to the chest, but we don’t stop.
We can’t.
“Barn Own has flown. What’s your status, Egret? You and Starling securing the children?” I ask.
All of us are anxious about how the extraction is going.
“Almost home. Let’s get this done.”
Straightening my shoulders, I signal to the other birds as we turn back, focusing on the task at hand.
Javier fucking Rojas.
He’s here.
Waiting.
Hiding like a little bitch.
And I can’t fucking wait to get my hands on him.