28. Chapter 28
Maddox
My blood goes cold as the smoke parts enough to reveal Kael standing in the wreckage with a grin split across his scarred face. Vex saunters up beside him, amusement on his tatted face.
I look to Kael’s left and find Teeth twitching with restrained excitement.
It feels like everything happens in slow motion as I shove Arwen behind me and draw my gun.
Gunfire erupts before anyone else speaks. I fire twice at Kael’s approaching team, while grabbing Arwen’s wrist and hauling her toward the nearest stack of steel crates.
Bullets spark against metal around us. One ricochets inches from her head. She stumbles with me behind cover as the dockyard erupts into full chaos.
Duval’s men pour from nearby buildings, weapons drawn. Kael’s forces answer with a barrage of gunfire. Workers scream and dive behind forklifts, shipping crates, vehicles—anything they can find.
The entire yard becomes a battlefield in seconds. I grab Arwen’s shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “Stay here.”
Her face is pale but furious. “You know I can help—”
“You don’t know the way they fight. Stay here where you’re safe, bonded. No arguments.”
I don’t wait for her reply before turning and charging back into the fray where my men are already engaging alongside Duval’s. I drop one of Kael’s shooters with a clean shot to the head before sliding behind a forklift for cover.
Then something strange happens. Bullets stop. They just… fall.
Enemy rounds flying toward our line suddenly drop to the ground midair like they’ve struck something solid and invisible.
A wall.
No—
A shield.
I turn and see Duval striding forward through the gunfire like a tank, jaw set, expression carved from stone. His men move with renewed confidence behind him as round after round pings uselessly against the unseen barrier surrounding our part of the battlefield.
So that’s his power. Absorption. Force meets his shield and dies there.
He catches my eye for half a second. A silent message.
I chose my side.
Good. Now I know he didn’t set me up. I can’t say it wasn’t in the back of my mind. There’s no doubting his loyalty now.
“Push left!” I bark to my men as they move to a more offensive position. Duval’s shield advances with us as cover while we press forward.
Teeth shrieks something manic and starts draining power from one of his own men—his guard visibly withering as Teeth glows with stolen strength.
Psychotic bastard.
I fire at him.
He ducks. Kael bellows and charges into the open, gun in one hand, knife in the other, laughing like this is the best day of his life.
The dockyard devolves into hell with gunfire and screams. Blood hits the concrete all around me.
And through all of it, one thought pounds in my skull. Keep Arwen safe.
We try to push forward inch by inch, but the math is against us. It’s three gangs against two. They came prepared.
Even with Duval shielding our line, they keep forcing us back through sheer numbers. Taking out those outside the shield’s barrier.
Gunfire cracks overhead as a man to my right goes down screaming. Vex’s team flanks wide, trying to split our formation while Teeth’s press from the front with reckless aggression.
I turn, firing twice at a rushing attacker before slamming the butt of my gun into another’s jaw hard enough to drop him.
Out of nowhere, a feeling claws up my spine. Wrong.
Something is wrong.
I run back toward the barricade where I left Arwen to find it empty. My blood turns to ice in my veins.
No…
I spin wildly, scanning through smoke and screaming civilians. Then I see her and my heart damn near stops beating.
She’s moving through the chaos with trembling hands raised in front of her, panic and determination written across every line of her body.
Building power.
“Arwen—!”
My gaze follows hers, to where Kael stands thirty feet away amid the smoke, blood on his face, grinning like a madman. He spreads his arms wide, urging her on.
“Come on then, sister!” he bellows. “Show me what all the fuss is about!”
The realization hits me. It’s a trap.
He wants her angry and reckless.
“ARWEN, STOP!”
But it’s too late.
Her power detonates from her hands in a violent burst of black hunger. The void tears across the dockyard like a living thing.
Kael dives aside at the last second as the blast misses him.
My stomach drops as the void slams into the shipping containers behind him. It’s like everything freezes as the sheer brunt of Arwen’s power takes center stage. The metal vanishes as steel disappears into nothing.
Followed by a scream.
A raw and agonized scream.
Arwen goes completely still, processing what just happened.
“Fall back!” Kael roars as the enemy gangs take their opening to bail.
Arwen makes a sound I never want to hear again.
“NOO—!” She yells in pure despair. But she’s not looking at Kael or the retreating gang.
Behind the shredded remains of the containers, a civilian, an older man, has collapsed onto the pavement, clutching his leg… or what’s left of it. He must have been hiding, using the container for cover.
Blood pours onto the concrete in horrifying sheets from his knee, where it looks like his lower leg has been ripped clean off.
She sprints and falls to her knees beside the man.
“No, no, no, no, no, no—” Her hands shake so badly she can barely tear the bottom material of her shirt free. She presses the fabric against the wound with blood-slick fingers, sobbing.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please—please stay with me—”
The man screams and her entire body jerks with each sound. I reach her just as one of Duval’s medics slides in beside them.
“Move!” he snaps.
She’s frozen in horror, still pressing against the wound as if she just holds hard enough she can undo it. I crouch and grab her shoulders softly to pull her away.
“Arwen…” I murmur.
She fights me while I gently continue to pull her back.
“No! No, I can fix it—”
“You can’t. Let the medic do his job.”
Her face breaks. “I… I did this.”
The medic shoves in, hands glowing over the ruined limb which can never be restored. She collapses against me, trembling as she stares at the scene in mute horror. A broken sound tears from her throat again as sobs wrack through her, hard enough to shake us both.
I turn her away from the scene and pull her into my chest, holding her as tightly as I can while blood stains both our clothes.
She grips my shirt with desperate fists. Tears stream down her face. “I hurt him.”
My throat tightens so hard it burns as dread settles heavy in my chest.
Because I know Arwen. Know the way her mind works. Know how merciless she is with herself.
This—
This might destroy her.