Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
GRACE
The moment AB said incoming, the air around us snapped tight like someone had cinched the world one notch smaller. Lunchbox shifted his stance. Bones’ grip on the spotter became something carved out of iron. Goblin pressed against my leg—silent, focused, all business.
And I?
I was doing my best not to show that my knees felt like someone had swapped them for wet cardboard.
“We move,” Bones said. No raise in volume. No worry. Just a simple declaration everyone obeyed—even me. We all fell into step as soon as he finished the second syllable. Well, Spotter McSpotterson didn’t. Not on purpose, anyway. Bones jerked him forward by the arm and his feet scrambled to follow.
“Grace,” Bones added, “with me.”
There was no room for argument. Not from him, not from me.
I kept my hand on Goblin’s harness and followed as they cut us off the boardwalk and down a narrow maintenance path that ran between the admin building and a long line of recycling dumpsters.
The tourists faded behind us, swallowed by distance and the roar of the cranes.
My pulse thudded in my throat.
Voodoo dropped back just long enough to brush his fingers against mine—a single second, quick, grounding, before he passed in front of me again to take point.
“Eyes up,” Legend murmured from behind. “Grace, don’t look at the ground. Watch shadows. Corners. Head on a swivel.”
“I wished that helped more,” I whispered.
“Not trying to help,” he replied, all teeth. “Trying to keep you alive.”
Fair.
Bones hauled the spotter down the side path with the efficiency of someone dragging a bag of laundry, except this bag was sweating and breathing fast and trying really hard not to stumble.
The guy didn’t seem like he was a fighter—not a real one.
He was wiry, jittery, dangerous in the way of someone who carried a gun he didn’t really know how to use.
His eyes flicked everywhere except at us, and I saw the moment he realized he wasn’t getting rescued by whatever team he’d hoped was nearby.
“Please,” he whispered, voice cracking. “You don’t understand—”
Legend snorted. “Buddy, we don’t understand? You tried to report her.”
His head snapped toward me, desperation flaring. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—”
“Save it,” Voodoo said. Calm. Cold. “Where we’re going? Talking is optional.”
I swallowed. My voice would’ve shaken too if I tried to speak, so I didn’t.
Bones finally slowed as we reached the back edge of the admin building where a chain-link gate stood half-obscured behind a dumpster and a maintenance truck. A faded sign hung crooked on the fence:
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY – UTILITY ACCESS
Voodoo popped the lock like it was an inconvenience more than an obstacle and shoved the gate open. Bones guided the spotter inside, then glanced at me.
“Grace. In.”
I stepped past the dumpster wall and entered a narrow gravel alley that ran between two electrical sheds—the kind of place no tourist would wander, no worker would bother checking unless a circuit blew.
Goblin stayed glued to my knee, alert, tail stiff.
Once we were all inside, Voodoo closed the gate behind us and tucked the busted lock back into place to make it look shut.
Bones pushed the spotter to his knees on the gravel. Not hard. Not gentle. Just unavoidable.
The man winced. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t going to hurt anyone—”
“You were going to talk into that radio,” Bones said, crouching eye-level. “That’s enough.”
The spotter swallowed and stared at the ground. Sweat dripped from his temple even though the wind was cold.
Voodoo stood on the other side of him, camera bag slung across his chest, eyes sharp and bright in that unnerving way he got when he was running all the possibilities. “Grace,” he said gently, “you okay?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted it to sound steady.
“Yeah,” I said. It didn’t.
The truth was clawing up my throat. The man had seen something. He’d recognized something. He tried to report me.
Bones must have read it in my face. He always did. “He doesn’t get another look at you,” Bones said, voice low enough the threat seemed to vibrate within it. “Not one.”
That helped. More than I expected.
“Alphabet,” Lunchbox said, tapping his earpiece, “talk to us.”
AB’s voice came through thin, breathless. “Team of four—maybe five—moving out of Pier C now. Fast. Not subtle. They’re looking for the spotter. And probably whoever was with him.”
“ETA?” Voodoo asked.
“Two minutes, tops. You need to relocate or dig in.”
Bones looked at Voodoo. Voodoo looked at Bones. Some silent calculus passed between them.
“We extract the spotter first,” Bones said. “We can’t have him screaming when they fan out. Or recognizing Grace again.”
The guy jolted upright. “I won’t say anything—just let me go—”
Legend squatted behind him and clamped a massive hand around the back of his neck, not squeezing, just controlling. “Man, don’t beg. It’s awkward for everyone.”
I exhaled slowly, trying to anchor myself. Goblin pressed against me, sensing the tremor I didn’t realize I’d let slip.
Voodoo stepped close to me—not touching, but near enough that his warmth cut through the wind. His voice dropped so only I could hear. “He’s scared because he should be. But we’re not hurting him, okay? We just can’t let him make our lives harder.”
My chest eased. A little.
The spotter looked between the four of us, eyes darting like a trapped animal. “Where are you taking me?”
Bones answered simply. “Somewhere quiet.”
Not threatening. Not reassuring.
Just true.
Voodoo jerked his chin at Legend. “Bag him.”
Legend pulled a spare beanie from his jacket pocket—it looked like something he’d either stolen or knitted himself—honestly, if one of them turned out to knit it really wouldn’t shock me—and yanked it down over the man’s eyes. Darkness. Panic. A stifled sound.
Bones stood, hauled the guy to his feet again with one hand, and looked at me.
“Stay between me and Voodoo,” he ordered. “Lunchbox rear.”
“I’m not helpless,” I murmured, though I still moved instantly into place.
“Never said you were,” Bones said. “But you’re ours and you’re protected.”
Those words hit a very stupid, embarrassing place in me. Particularly from Bones, because my boney boy had held himself back for so damn long.
No time for that.
AB’s voice crackled back in. “They’re splitting—two taking the west dock, two moving toward the admin building. One holding back by Pier C like a coordinator.”
“Then we move now,” Bones said.
Voodoo gave him a curt nod. “Utility corridor to the service road. Then behind the seawall.”
“Copy.”
We started moving—quick, controlled, silent. The spotter stumbled blindly between Bones and Legend while Voodoo kept an eye on every exit point like he’d memorized the place weeks ago instead of today. Goblin flowed at my heel like smoke.
My heart pounded hard enough it felt like my ribs were vibrating.
Up ahead, Voodoo lifted a hand—a silent stop signal.
We all froze.
Footsteps.
Not ours.
Close.
Coming down the other end of the alley.
Bones turned, grabbed the spotter, and shoved him tight against the wall, one hand clamped over his mouth over the beanie. Legend braced beside them, ready to quiet the man if he panicked.
Voodoo drifted backward until he was inches from me, positioning himself between me and the approaching shadows.
He didn’t even look back. He just said, low and calm, “I’ve got you.”
And I believed him. I believed all of them. The footsteps drew nearer, slow and searching. We held our breath.
The hunt had found the trail. Unsurprisingly, we were the trail. The footsteps came closer. Slow. Careful. Someone sweeping the alley like they expected rats. Or bodies.
Voodoo’s body blocked half my field of view, but not his peripheral awareness—he kept his weight on the balls of his feet, shoulders angled, hand near his camera bag like the thing doubled as a weapon.
Legend tensed behind me, and based on his whitened knuckles, Bones’ grip on the spotter’s mouth tightened.
Then—
The footsteps stopped.
A man’s voice—low, irritated—muttered something in Spanish I didn’t fully catch, but between what words I did hear and the tone, it was most likely, Where the hell is he?
A second voice answered from somewhere farther down the dock, it was clearer if barely audible but still in Spanish. He stopped responding. Sweep wide.
My stomach dropped.
They were hunting their missing spotter.
Bones’ lips moved in a faint whisper we could hear through the comm, “Two inbound. One ahead, one right.”
Voodoo’s posture shifted—so small I don’t think I would have noticed it before, but I did now. I knew him, how he moved, how they all moved. I’d learned the difference between soft tension and lethal readiness.
He was ready.
“Grace,” he breathed without turning, “when we move, follow me. Don’t stop.”
I nodded, then said, “I will,” in the barest whisper I could manage because he wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t realize until that second that my hands were shaking.
Which was when the first man stepped into view.
Tall. Broad. Gray tactical jacket. One hand in his pocket like a guy walking to grab lunch. As casual as he was trying to appear, it registered as wrong. Not just because of the way predators moved before they struck, but also where we were.
He scanned the alley.
His gaze was about to land on Bones. On the blindfolded spotter. On us.
Bones moved first.
He exploded sideways off the wall, one hand grabbing the man’s wrist while his other slammed into the base of the man's skull. Fast. Brutal. Quiet.
The man sagged before he could make a sound.
Bones caught him, lowered him to the gravel, and dragged him into the shadow of the dumpster.
My breath caught.
Then the second man rounded the corner.
This time we weren’t in position.
“Contact—rear!” AB snapped in my ear. “He’s fast. He—”
But he was already here.