CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Aoife
THE SOUND THAT comes out of me isn't a word.
It's something raw and involuntary, torn from the bottom of my lungs.
My hands hit the top of the wall, and I'm hauling myself over it before any conscious thought enters my head.
There is no decision. No calculation. There is only the space where William was and the space where he isn't, and the need to close the distance between those two things before the worst becomes real.
Raven grabs at my leg. "Aoife, don't! Don't!"
I'm already over. Already running.
The gravel is sharp under my bare feet because somewhere in the chaos, I lost my shoes.
I don't feel it. I don't feel my shoulder or my head or the smoke that's so thick I'm breathing more of it than air.
I can taste it, chemical and bitter, coating the inside of my mouth.
Bullets snap past me. I don't know how close.
I don't care. The only things that exist are the place where the explosion hit and the prayer I'm repeating inside my skull, which sounds nothing like any prayer I was ever taught.
Please. Please. Please.
A shape in the dust. On the ground. Moving.
William is getting up. He's on his hands and knees, his head hanging, shaking it like he's trying to clear his vision. Blood on his face. Dirt in his hair. He pushes himself to one knee and sways, and for a horrible second, I think he's going to go back down.
I reach him. My hands close around his arm, and I'm pulling, dragging him sideways, and he's heavy, so much heavier than I expected, and my shoulder screams back to life, but I don't let go.
I haul him behind the section of garden wall that's still standing, and we hit the ground together as a burst of gunfire chews into the stone where he was kneeling a second ago.
Chips of rock spray across us. I throw myself over him, shielding his head with my arms, and the absurdity of it almost makes me laugh because I weigh half what he does, and my body would stop nothing.
The firing moves on. Passes over us.
William rolls onto his back. Blinks up at me. His eyes take a moment to focus. Then they lock on my face, and he stops blinking.
"You're bleeding." He sits up fast, too fast, and grabs my chin, turning my head to the side. His fingers find the cut at my temple, and I flinch. "What happened? Where else are you hit?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're covered in blood." His hands are moving. Down my arms, across my shoulders. He finds the right one, and I hiss and pull back. "What is this? When did this happen?"
"The rocket hit near us, and I went into a tree. It doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter?" His voice rises. He looks at my bare feet, cut and bleeding on the gravel, and his jaw goes tight. "Where are your shoes? Where is Raven? Who the fuck let you out here?"
"Nobody let me. I came because I saw you go down and I thought..." I stop. Swallow. "I thought you were dead."
"So you ran across an open field in the middle of a firefight. Barefoot. With a head wound." He's still holding my chin. His thumb is pressed against my jaw hard enough that I can feel his pulse through it. Or maybe that's mine. "What the fuck were you thinking?"
"I wasn't thinking."
"No. You weren't." He tilts my head again, checking the cut. His fingers are rough, but the touch is careful. "It's not deep. But your shoulder..."
"I can move it. It's fine."
"Stop saying fine." He lets go of my chin. Looks at me. His breathing is ragged. There's dirt in his hair and blood drying on the side of his face and he's furious with me. Completely, visibly furious. And his hands are shaking.
He grabs my face with both hands and presses his forehead to mine. His palms are rough and hot against my cheeks. I can feel him shaking.
"Stay behind me," he says. His voice cracks on the last word. "I mean it. Right behind me."
I nod. My forehead still pressed to his. Not ready to let go yet.
He pulls back first. Gets to his feet. Reaches down and pulls me up after him.
We move together. Along what's left of the garden wall, toward the sound of voices I recognise.
Aidan shouting commands. The gunfire around us is changing.
Less coming from the grounds, more concentrated toward the edges of the property.
Whoever the families sent, it's enough. The fight is moving away from us.
William fires over the wall. Twice. I hear a shout. He fires again, and there's nothing.
A body on the lawn to our left. A man I don't recognize, lying on his side with his arm bent at the wrong angle and his eyes open. I don't know whose side he was on. I look away. Keep moving.
More bodies. Near the gate. The ground is chewed up from the rockets, craters in the lawn that glow orange at the edges.
We reach Aidan's position. He has blood on his hands and a rip in his shirt but he's standing and directing. When he sees William he nods once, sharp.
Then he sees me.
The color leaves his face. His gaze goes past me, searching the dark behind us, and I watch the moment it hits him. Raven isn't with me.
"Where is she?" His voice is different. Louder. Sharper. "Where is Raven?"
Guilt hits me so hard my chest caves. I left her.
I left her behind that wall with a bleeding arm, and I ran, and I didn't think about her, not once, not for a single second.
I was so consumed with getting to William that I abandoned the only other person in this fight who is as defenceless as I am.
"Behind the stone wall." I point toward the western tree line. "Matty got us out. She's hurt, her arm, but she's alive. She's behind the wall."
Aidan is already moving. William catches his arm.
"Aidan. I need you here."
"Get your hand off me." Aidan's voice is low and dangerous and nothing like the man who was teasing Raven about burned carrots an hour ago.
"She's behind cover. She's safe. I need you here to finish this."
Aidan's jaw works. He looks at William's hand on his arm, then toward the tree line.
Then Matty steps out of the dark. Blood on his hands. That same blank expression. He looks at Aidan.
"Raven's been moved to the vehicles," he says. "I went back for her after I got them to the wall. She's with two of your men. Her arm needs stitching, but she's fine."
Aidan stares at Matty. Then his shoulders drop, and he turns back to the line.
Jason is reloading. He glances up, sees me behind William, and looks back down at his weapon.
"They're pulling back," Aidan says. "The eastern side is clear. The north is still contested."
William turns to Jason. "How many more does Viktor have in reserve?"
Jason shakes his head. "This was it. He threw everything into a surprise assault. He doesn't have reinforcements coming."
"Then we push them off the property, and we don't stop until they're gone." William checks his weapon. Chambers a round. He turns to Matty. "Get her out of here. Get her to the vehicles and stay with her."
"William, I'm not..."
"Now, Matty."
He doesn't look at me when he says it. He's already turned back to Aidan, already moving. And that's worse than if he'd argued, because it means the decision is made and I'm not part of it.
They move. William and Aidan and Jason and the men behind them, pressing forward through the smoke and the firelight and the receding gunfire.
Matty takes my arm, firm but not rough, and steers me away from the line.
"You should have stayed behind the wall," he says.
"So I've been told."
He doesn't respond. He walks me around the side of the house, away from the fighting, through a passage between the kitchen wall and what's left of the outbuildings.
I can't see where we're going—just Matty's back and the dim glow of fire reflecting off stone.
My shoulder is a deep, constant ache. My head throbs with every heartbeat.
My bare feet are cut and bleeding on whatever surface is underneath me, and I didn't notice until now, with nothing to distract me from the inventory of what hurts.
Everything hurts.
We round the back of the house, and the service road opens up ahead of us.
Vehicles lined along it, engines running, men moving between them.
Matty opens the door of the nearest one, and I sit down on the edge of the back seat with my feet on the gravel because I don't have the energy to pull them inside.
The smoke drifts past the open door. Somewhere on the other side of the house, men are shouting to each other—more headlights on the road. More cars are arriving.
Matty looks at me once. Then he's gone, back toward the house, back to whatever needs doing.
I think about the lamb. The overcooked lamb and the burned carrots and Aidan's toast and William's hand on mine under the table.
That was an hour ago. It feels like a lifetime ago.
The gunfire dies. Isolated shots now, far off. Then nothing. Just the crackle of fire from the east wing and voices carrying across the ruined garden.
He's alive. They're all alive. Jason and Aidan and William and Matty and Raven.
I sit in the open doorway of the car, and I try to stop shaking, but I can't.
Footsteps on the gravel. William. I know his walk before I see him. He drops to one knee in front of me. Blood on his face, dirt in his hair, his shirt ripped open across the chest. His eyes find mine.
"You alright?"
"I'm alright."
He looks at my temple again. The bleeding has stopped. Then my shoulder. My feet. He reaches down and lifts one of my feet off the gravel, turning it to see the cuts on the sole. His thumb brushes the arch, and I pull it back.
"We need to get you looked at," he says.
"After. Tell me what happened."
"We pushed them off the property. Conor's men are pursuing what's left." He pauses. "Viktor wasn't with them."
The words settle cold in my stomach.
"He sent his men, but he didn't come himself?"
"No."
Which means this isn't over. Viktor is still out there.
"We need to move to a new location," he says. "This house is compromised. Everyone moves tonight."
"Where?"
"Jason has a place. Somewhere Viktor doesn't know about." His jaw tightens. "Apparently, he's had it since before he left the country. A contingency."
He kneels in front of me. I lean forward and press my face into his shoulder. His hand comes up to the back of my head and holds it there. He smells like smoke and sweat and blood, and I don't care. He's warm and solid and alive.
"The Brennans lost four men," he says quietly. "Three of Aidan's security are dead. Two of Conor's. And one of ours I haven't been able to identify yet."
Nine dead. Nine men who were alive an hour ago. Who had families. Who came when William asked.
"Viktor lost more," he says. "Matty's doing a count."
I pull back. "We need to go."
"I know." He stands. Gently lifts my feet off the gravel and sets them inside the car. The soles leave bloody prints on the carpet. Then he moves me across the seat, careful with my right side, and slides in beside me. Pulls the door shut. The noise drops by half. Muffled now. Almost bearable.
William leans forward and knocks on the partition. "Signal the front car. We're moving."
The driver reaches for his radio.
Jason opens the front passenger door and gets in. He pulls it shut and looks straight ahead.
"Everyone's out in twenty minutes," he says. "Aidan's handling the rear guard. Conor's men will hold the perimeter until everyone's clear."
William reaches over and takes my hand. My bloody hand in his bloody hand. He holds it on the seat between us and doesn't let go.
The car pulls forward. In the side mirror, Aidan's burning house shrinks until the road curves, and it disappears.