JAX
You could hear a pin drop.
My heart slowed, my vision sharpened. Every part of me was coiled and ready to spring where I was crouched beneath the stairs on the second landing. The waiting part was always hard. I wasn’t a fan of edging, and here I was, constantly on the fucking edge.
“They’re in,” Zola whispered, so softly that it could’ve been a caress beside me.
Another stretch of unnerving silence followed.
The mansion was built to contain, to keep quiet.
The windows were soundproof, potentially bulletproof, though we’d had no way to test that theory.
They were also an illusion, a pretend freedom, looking out but never in, holding my reflection and keeping me on display.
Exhibition, my mind supplied. The ghost of me stared back.
“Okay, we have movement.” Zola paused, watching intently from the control room. “The girls are secured.”
My chest loosened slightly. At least that part went off without a hitch.
“They’ve noticed the power off,” Zola said sharply. “They’re headed to the fuse box now. Get ready.”
In my head, I saw it unfold—the men approaching the basement, wrenching open the wine rack, triggering the wire connected to the dye packs. There would be a sharp snapping sound right before they were hit with the neon dye, marking them as glowing targets in the dark.
And then Callum and Nate would strike.
I braced myself for the sound. I shut my eyes like that would make it come quicker. I wrenched them back open at the first gunshot, the sound muted and far away. Too fucking far. It was a testament to my messed-up head that I wanted to run toward gunfire and not away from it.
I dug my nails hard into my neck, into the brand behind my ear, until it anchored me.
Over the years, we’d learned and accepted our strengths and weaknesses. I was a good shot, but not as good as Callum and Nate. Ryle was our runner, our hyperactive rabbit capable of slipping behind enemy lines. Madoc was a calculated sniper who liked to play with his prey.
My gut swooped when I heard Callum’s voice: “Two down. One escaped. Comin’ your way, Alpha.”
I wrenched up my mask, becoming the cold-blooded assassin in the shadows. Pounding footsteps came up the stairs, a flash of neon pink splattered across a broad chest. My finger curled on the trigger. My mark was panicking, startled like a racehorse, boots heavy on the wood.
When he came to the second landing, his ankle snagged on the barbed wire, causing him to topple over with a startled grunt. I sprang forward, and he sensed me in the dark, already scrambling for his gun.
Too late.
I shot him in the chest, right in the splatter of neon pink.
Bullseye. He gasped wetly, fingers clenching on the trigger.
His gun fired, sporadically, aimlessly, shattering something behind me.
I rushed him, stepping hard on his arm until it cracked.
He cried again, the sound like gurgling paint.
The whites of his eyes flashed up at me as I leveled the gun at his head and fired.
“Alpha?”
“Clear,” I grunted out, my voice hoarse, my mask hot and sticky on my face.
“The alarm’s been raised,” Zola said, trying to maintain her calm. “Ginger, Scooby—go in, go left. Hurry, or you’ll be caught in the open.”
“Roger.”
I knelt and searched my dead mark. His gun was semiautomatic; his gear was low-quality—not a valuable asset, then. With a sneer, I fingered around his bleeding skull, finding the small radio device in his leaking left ear. Carefully, I wiped it clean on my chest and slotted it into my other ear.
My brain scrambled at the immediate flood of foreign voices and shouted commands. The two frequencies—my crew and the enemy—disoriented me so much that I had to take a step back and find my equilibrium. The loudest, most pressing noise won out.
“…girls…ambush, si! Come, come quickly!”
“…shoot on sight!...”
“?Sí, girls! Shoot them!”
My heart stopped. Then, a pulse of pure, animalistic terror took over.
Ripping out the foreign bud from my ear, I clenched my weapon and sprinted down to the basement. Sensing my urgency, or perhaps tracking my movement on the monitors, Zola snapped: “Alpha? What’s happening?”
“They’re taking out the girls.”
Zola sucked in a sharp breath. “Shit.” Fingers clacked on keys. “That’s why they changed course—shit, shit. Scooby, Ginger, pull back. Find the girls. Alpha—”
“Coming.” I pushed myself harder, taking the stairs four at a time, slipping on blood and dye and whatever else was left behind in the ambush.
The basement looked like an alien threw up all over it—splatters of pink and green neon dye all over the walls and ceiling, bodies sprawled like chunks on the floor. I didn’t stop, launching over the corpses and lunging down the dark tunnel, relying on memory alone.
The sound of rapid gunfire echoed around me. Callum was breathing heavily in my ear—Nate was suspiciously silent. Not them, not them, not them.
Snarling, I swung around the corner, my gun raised. But it was too dark—bodies moved intermittently against the flashing backdrop of gunfire, indistinguishable. Dangerous. I growled in frustration, the sound tearing from my throat.
Fuck.
Pain lanced through my forearm as metal pinged beside me, a bullet ricocheting. I needed cover. Shoving my shoulder into the nearest door, fingers slippery on the latch, I wrenched it open and stepped inside. There was a tiny startled sound. I spun, finding a shivering form on the bed.
My anger, momentarily dulled by the panic, became fucking nuclear.
“It’s okay,” I said gruffly, not moving, trying not to spook. I knew I looked like a nightmare—masked, bloody, eyes wild and hungry beneath my sweat-slick hair. The girl made no other sound, trained to be quiet.
I took a deep, fortifying breath. I was going to murder these fuckers.
When I spoke, my voice was flat and controlled. “Crows, find cover. Nova, turn on the lights.”
Zola launched into action. “Roger, Alpha. Sunshine is headed to the fuse box.”
Five heartbeats later, the lights blinked on unceremoniously, a muted yellow like rot that filled the cell around me. I purposely didn’t look at the girl, keeping my eyes trained on the door.
The gunfire ceased abruptly. Marks were exposed in the open. I called for Callum and Nate, and they responded in tired chirps.
Alive, alive, alive.
There was no time for relief.
I dug into my pocket and pulled out the palm-sized metallic egg. Visibility was both a blessing and a curse. My mind crunched over the numbers—six hostiles, two dead in the basement, one upstairs, three remaining.
“One left,” Callum corrected me, half-imbedded in my thoughts, tuned with the same battle instincts. “Bastard’s locked himself in a cell. He’ll take the hostage.”
My jaw clenched. “Which one?”
I followed Callum’s instructions down the tunnel, veering right.
When I saw them—Nate, leaned against the gritty wall, face ashen and blood spattered, Callum standing firm on his feet—my chest seized up like a heart attack.
Both of them jolted when they saw me, their eyes raking over my body with the same clinical relief.
Without speaking, I lifted the device in my hand.
Callum nodded, then pointed down at my left thigh. Crowbar.
I handed it to him, then risked a peek into the room through the tiny window.
My lip hitched into a snarl. The man was huge, easily Callum’s stature, and was facing the door, holding the frightened girl in front of him like a shield.
His gun was pressed to her temple, his hand unsteady.
When our eyes locked, he bared his teeth in challenge.
The violence in me surged, fire meeting fire.
I stepped back and nodded to Callum. He hooked the crowbar beneath the latch, then waited, biceps tensed in preparation.
Nate pressed to the left side, so he wasn’t in the direct firing line.
I took the right side, covering the bases, my thumb clipping the tiny pin in the device in my hand.
We needed to be quick. No margin for errors.
Counting together, we matched our breaths, our blinks, our fucking souls. On the third blink, Callum wrenched downwards and kicked the door open, and I tossed the device across the floor where it burst with a deafening bang.
A blinding flash, then smoke, smothered the room in a thick curtain.
Nate and I moved in as one unit, guns raised.
Our mark was easy to find—big, stooped, covering his eyes with a howl.
The girl was on the floor, unmoving. Callum lifted her easily and tossed her over his huge shoulder, exiting the room in three strides.
There was a gunshot, a scramble, and for a heart-stopping moment, I thought Nate spasmed, as if hit. He recovered a second later, lifting his gun and shooting twice at the bastard.
I added a third to his lower half, and finally, finally, he went down with a groaning gurgle. The smoke was suffocating, pawing at my senses. I reached for Nate at the same time he reached for me, gloves slapping flesh. We guided each other out of the room.
I slammed the door behind me, containing the smoke. Then I flipped around and shoved Nate against it, my hands patting him down, searching him fervently.
“I’m good, Ja—Alpha. I’m good.”
“Shut up.” My hand brushed his hip, and he stiffened, hissing. Giving him a flat look, I peeled aside his vest.
Blood oozed from a bullet wound on his hip, just below his belt.
For a second, I just stared at it, mind blanking.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” Nate insisted, grimacing. “Doesn’t even hurt.”
“That’s not a good thing.” My voice was small. Fuck. I swallowed around the bile, the lurch of anguish already trying to take over.
I had to fix it.
“Scooby is hit.”
There was a sharp, wretched silence. Then Zola’s voice cracked: “What?”
“We need a med kit—”
“I told you, I’m fine—”
I slapped his cheek, softer than I normally would. “I said shut up. Sunshine, bring the med kit to the war room. We’re going up.”
Callum stepped forward, the girl now conscious, and latched onto his arm like a nervous passenger. She had big, round eyes and short, reddish hair that I hoped was natural, not blood-soaked. “The girls,” Callum reminded me gently.
“Open the doors but keep them here until we take the beach.”
“Roger.” Callum didn’t move right away, his eyes lingering on Nate behind me. For a second, his face cracked, furious and devastated and vengeful, before he reined it in. With a brisk nod, Callum turned to the girl at his side.
“Let us free the others now, lassie. Come on.”
The girl blinked up at him, then stubbornly shook her head. “Schwester.”
“Eh, what now?”
“Meine Schwester.” She tugged on Callum insistently. At our blank looks, she exhaled in frustration and carefully formed her words. “My…sister…is…boat.”
“She was in the boat?” Callum translated slowly.
But the girl shook her head again. She pointed down the far end of the tunnel, toward the east entrance. “Still. Still.”
“Still in the boat?”
The girl nodded.
Footsteps pounded around the corner, revealing Zola, her face stricken as she rushed to Nate’s side. Nate batted her away half-heartedly, but he was starting to sag.
I locked eyes with Callum, a terrible fizzling understanding between us. I pressed a bloody finger to my ear.
“Sparrow. Come in.”
No response.
My tongue lashed over my dry lips, doom tart in my mouth. “Princess? Talk to me.”
Radio silence.
Zola turned to me with glistening eyes. “They’re out of range.”
And we were out of time.