9. Anna
ANNA
Riot wanted me inside the Serpents Wraith compound while he rescued my brother. I wanted to ride into the maintenance depot with weeks of fear behind me. We compromised because neither of us was willing to confuse trust with obedience.
We stood in the main room while Mace and Havoc checked weapons at the long table.
Rook remained in church with Saint, directing two other teams that would watch roads without entering Gravewater territory.
Dare loaded medical supplies into an unmarked utility truck.
Nobody acted as if finding Crow alive meant bringing him out would be easy.
“He may not trust Wraiths if he’s injured or drugged. I can keep him from fighting the men trying to save him.”
“You can also give Stone’s men the target they tried to kill yesterday.”
“I’m going.”
Riot’s face went hard. “You’re not entering that building.”
“You don’t get to decide I stay behind the gates while my brother is an hour away.”
“And you don’t get to walk into gunfire because you’re scared.”
Mace looked at the ceiling while Havoc concentrated very hard on the magazine in his hands.
Riot planted both hands on the table. “You gave me the information. Trust me to do the part I know how to do.”
“Trust doesn’t mean becoming passive.”
“No. It means accepting I know how to clear a building and you don’t.”
Rook came from the hall. “Perimeter compromise. Dare holds the truck at the west service road, outside the fence and behind solid cover. Anna stays with him until Riot confirms the interior threat is down. If the route becomes exposed, Dare leaves with her whether Crow is out or not.”
“I won’t leave my brother.”
“If the extraction fails, giving Stone both you and Crow doesn’t improve it,” Rook said. “Those are the terms for using club resources. Choose.”
Riot waited, hating the compromise but leaving the decision with me.
“I stay with Dare until Riot clears the interior,” I said. “If Dare calls an exit, I go.”
Riot came around the table. “You follow it exactly.”
“So do you. No getting killed because you think protecting me afterward will be somebody else’s problem.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
I caught the front of his cut and kissed him. The men at the table found other places to look, though Havoc muttered that the building would be easier to breach than this conversation.
We left twenty minutes later.
The county depot sat beyond a disused truck wash and a line of scrub pine, exactly where Hale’s contact said.
Chain-link fencing enclosed three low service buildings, a salt shed and a yard filled with dead plows.
Sodium lights burned despite the afternoon sun.
A black utility truck stood outside the center building.
Dare parked behind an abandoned weigh hut with the utility vehicle facing the service road. From there we could see the west gate without exposing ourselves to the yard.
Riot got out first. He wore a plain jacket over body armor, no cut, but nothing could make him look civilian. Mace and Havoc joined him beside the truck. Riot checked my position one final time.
“Wait for my voice on Dare’s radio. Nobody else.”
“I know.”
He pressed his thumb beneath my chin. “I’m bringing Crow out.”
“Bring yourself too.”
Riot held my gaze, then left with the others.
They moved along the drainage ditch and disappeared behind the salt shed. I listened to the radio clipped to Dare’s vest while he watched the west gate through binoculars.
Waiting was harder than I expected, but I stayed behind the concrete because that was the plan I’d agreed to.
Dare kept his attention on the gate without trying to reassure me.
“How long?” I asked.
“As long as it takes.”
He adjusted the radio wire. “Riot knows you’re here. He won’t rush, but he won’t forget it either.”
The radio hissed once and went quiet again. Somewhere beyond the fence men were moving toward Crow, and every instinct in me wanted to cross the yard after them.
I stayed where I’d promised to stay.
That didn’t make me passive. It made me part of a plan that gave Riot one less person to worry about while he did what I’d asked him to do.
Dare glanced at me once, seemed to decide I was holding together well enough and returned his attention to the gate.
Two suppressed shots sounded from inside the property. A third followed, louder.
The radio clicked. Mace said, “Left building clear.”
Havoc answered from somewhere closer to the center. “Two moving rear.”
Then gunfire cracked through the maintenance yard.
Dare pushed me lower behind the weigh hut and aimed his rifle at the gate. “Stay on the wall.”
I obeyed.
An engine started inside. A Gravewater bike shot from behind the east building, crossed the yard and swerved toward the west gate. The rider wore a black-and-silver cut and leaned low over the tank.
Dare keyed the radio. “One coming west.”
The gate stood partly open. The bike struck it hard enough to widen the gap, metal shrieking against pavement, and came through. The rider lost control in the gravel. He went down thirty yards from us, rolled once and came up with a pistol.
Rusk.
“Down!” I shouted.
Dare turned as Rusk fired. The bullet hit the concrete edge and threw chips across us. Dare returned two shots. Rusk disappeared behind the fallen motorcycle.
“Anna, truck. Now.” Dare kept his rifle trained on the bike while I moved toward the passenger side. The engine was already running. He shifted to cover my path.
Rusk had circled through the ditch.
I saw the movement behind Dare and hit his shoulder. “Left.”
Dare spun. Rusk struck the rifle barrel aside and drove into him. The two men went down in gravel. Rusk’s pistol skidded beneath the truck. I opened the passenger door to reach it.
He caught my ankle.
I kicked back, heel connecting with his cheek. Rusk released Dare and dragged me away from the truck. My hip hit the ground. I clawed for the doorframe, but he caught the back of my jacket and hauled me upright against him.
“Crow’s bitch sister,” he breathed. Blood ran from his nose where I had kicked him. “You should’ve died on County 14.”
The admission was almost lost beneath Dare’s shout. I drove my elbow backward. It struck Rusk’s ribs without freeing me. His forearm crushed across my upper chest while his other hand reached beneath his cut.
I hooked one boot behind his knee and dropped my weight. We staggered. Rusk swore and pulled a knife.
“Riot!” Dare shouted.
Rusk put the blade against my side. “Tell him to put the gun down.”
Riot stood at the break in the fence, pistol aimed with both hands. Blood marked one side of his jacket, though I couldn’t tell whether it belonged to him. His face held no panic now, only the lethal focus of the Wraith enforcer.
“Let her go,” he said.
“Back up or I open her.” Rusk pressed the point enough to pierce my shirt. “Stone’ll trade Crow for her.”
Riot didn’t look at me. He watched the knife hand, Rusk’s feet and the section of body exposed beyond my shoulder.
I understood what he needed.
My heel was still behind Rusk’s knee. I slammed the back of my head into his mouth and kicked forward at the same time. His leg folded. The knife jerked away from my side as his grip loosened.
I threw myself right.
Riot fired once.
The round hit Rusk high in the chest. He fell backward, knife dropping beside him. Riot crossed the space and kicked it away, then aimed down as Rusk’s hand crawled toward his cut.
“She was never yours to use,” Riot said.
Rusk tried to draw a second weapon.
Riot fired again. Rusk stopped moving.
The shot echoed once across the yard. I flinched at the sound, then looked at Riot and found him already moving toward me.
I’d seen club violence before, but never with my life at the center of it. Riot didn’t look triumphant. The second Rusk stopped being a threat, his attention came straight back to me.
He holstered his weapon and reached me. His hands covered my shoulders, ribs and face, checking without asking because fear had arrived now that the shooting was done.
“Knife get in?”
“Barely. I’m fine.”
He lifted the torn edge of my shirt. A shallow red mark showed where the knife had broken skin. Riot checked it once, then hauled me against him, one arm locked around my back.
“You followed the plan,” he said into my hair.
“Mostly.”
“Close enough.”
Dare stood, blood at his temple but no serious wound. “Interior’s clear. Mace has Crow.”
My knees nearly failed.
Riot kept one arm around me as we crossed the yard. Two men lay zip-tied near the first building. Another was dead beside the center door. Havoc covered the vehicle exit while Mace came from the maintenance bay supporting a man who looked too thin to be my brother.
Crow’s beard had grown long and uneven. Bruises yellowed one side of his face. One eye was swollen, his wrists wrapped in filthy bandages, but he walked under his own power and turned at the sound of my boots.
“Anna.”
I reached him before I knew I’d moved. Mace transferred his weight carefully and Crow folded both arms around me. The strength wasn’t what it had been, but it was his. He smelled of dust, blood and the antiseptic somebody had used badly on his wrists.
“You’re alive.” I said it into his shoulder because nothing else would come.
“Hard to kill.” His voice broke. “You shouldn’t be here.”
I laughed and cried at the same time. “That’s the first thing you say?”
“Had weeks to think about it.”
Riot stood close without intruding. Crow looked at him over my shoulder. He took in the pistol, the blood on Riot’s jacket and Rusk’s body beyond the gate.
“That Rusk?” Crow asked, looking past me.
“Was,” Riot said.
Crow’s attention moved to my hand, which had found Riot’s without conscious thought. Understanding passed across his bruised face.
“We’ll talk about whatever the hell this is when I’m not seeing two of you,” he said.
“You don’t get a vote,” I replied.
“Good to know captivity changed nothing.”
The faint humor vanished when Mace asked about Stone.
“He arranged all of it,” Crow said. “Ambush on Canal Cut too, I’m sure of it. I started pulling at the men he promoted and he moved before I could prove enough. He kept me breathing to name who’d resist him and to pressure old brothers through their families.”
“Why move you here?” Riot asked.
“Temporary hold before he staged the ending he wanted. He had outside help. Man never showed his face, but he knew your routes, ride habits and dead zones better than a rival should. Knew the old Wraith calls too.”
Riot and Havoc exchanged a look. Before either could ask more, a radio clipped to one of the zip-tied guards crackled with a voice from the road. Backup was already coming.
Engines sounded on the quarry road.
Havoc went to the west gate and raised his binoculars. “Four bikes, maybe five. Two minutes.”
“Stone’s?” I asked.
“Nobody else should be coming this fast.”
Mace and Dare moved without discussion. Mace brought the utility truck around while Havoc covered the west gate. We had minutes at most before Stone’s men reached the property.
Crow held on to me for one extra second. His hand shook against my back, and I pretended not to notice.
Then he straightened as much as he could and started asking who was down, who had escaped and how fast we needed to move.
Crow tried to walk unaided and nearly folded. I caught one side, Riot the other. My brother started to object.
“Save the president act until you can feel your feet,” I told him.
“Still feel enough to know this is undignified.”
“You can issue a formal complaint when you aren’t wearing one shoe.”
Crow looked down as if the missing boot were new information. Riot’s mouth shifted, the brief expression the closest he’d come to laughing while enemy engines approached.
We got Crow into the back seat. I climbed beside him with the medical bag while Riot took the front passenger position and Mace drove.
Havoc and Dare left on bikes, splitting at the first junction to create two visible routes.
The incoming Gravewater riders reached the broken gate as we entered the quarry road, but the truck stayed below the tree line and turned west before they could see it.
Crow’s hand closed over mine during the first hard bend. His pulse was weak but steady beneath the bandage at his wrist. Riot checked us through the mirror, then watched the road behind until no headlight followed.
Riot reached one hand between the seats. I took it with my free hand while I held Crow with the other. Crow saw and said nothing.
We brought him out together.