Chapter Thirty-Four #2
“No,” I disagree. “You need to be doing what you’re best at. Nobody shoots like you, Maximus, and I need your fucking skills. Am I clear?”
Max’s jaw clenches. He glares at me, but gives a nod. “Yeah, you’re clear. I’ll get it done.”
“Good. As for you imbeciles,” I turn back to my unit, “Tobias, I need your computer open and near you. There are a bunch of nasty tricks that the HQ building has. Use any at your disposal. Pull up security feed, and take as many Widowers out as you can.”
Tobias shifts his weight. “I can get into the system, but using machine guns in the walls is dangerous. I could accidentally kill you. We don’t have earpieces.”
“That’s why you need to be on security feeds. Do your best. Ultimately, if one of us dies to save the rest, that’s the risk we have to take. Does everyone understand me?”
Bryan and Elijah turn to look at each other. After a moment, Elijah says, “I’ll cover Toby. You’re better at hand to hand than I am, so you face ‘em up front.”
Toby nods. “Yup.”
Pride swells in my chest, but it’s tempered by the urgency that yet another blast causes. I hear the front door creak under pressure. We have moments before we’re invaded, which means we needed to be in our positions five minutes ago.
“Take what you can and give nothing back,” I say. “See you fuckers on the flip side.”
I slap Max’s shoulder, put on my gas mask, and head to the entrance.
The marble pillars provide solid cover; I get behind the one nearest to the door, and take one of the canisters in my hand.
It’s possible that my gas mask will fail and I end up killing myself along with the goddamn Widowers… but now’s the time to take that chance.
A final blast blows in the door. Superheated air sweeps through the entrance hall, and I duck beneath the pillar to protect my exposed skin from getting burned.
Rubble falls from overhead, and a few seconds later, a portion of ceiling above the door collapses, forming a natural barrier.
I hook my finger around the pin of my canister and wait, watching the entrance through the slitted holes of the mask.
5… 4… 3… 2…
One man carefully hops over the rubble, holding an AR. He has night vision goggles on, and after glancing around the room, he removes them and motions behind him with his hand.
Three more shooters enter behind him, and then another two. Jackpot. As soon as the fucker gets too close for comfort, I pull the pin and toss the cannister at the entrance.
A small explosion follows, dispersing shrapnel in a ten-foot radius, and then the gas comes, filling up the entryway.
Gunfire follows as the first Widowers inside freak the fuck out…
and ten seconds later, it ends. Several thuds sound.
I peek out from behind the pillar to see the Widower nearest to me on his knees, clutching his neck, eyes bulging.
I jog past him, pausing to deliver a harsh kick to his throat that’ll collapse his trachea.
My next move is risky, but necessary. I make it as close to the collapsed door as possible, pull the pin on my second canister, and toss it outside.
As expected, gunfire follows, spraying all around me. I sprint back to cover, but can’t avoid the bullet that grazes my arm, and the other that grazes my side.
Fuck. No time to plug the wounds or even check them now.
If the shots hit any arteries, I’d already be down, so I should be fine.
I have to be fine, because I have to get back to my Flower.
Protecting my woman, my queen, isn’t an option; it’s a fundamental instinct, an insatiable impulse.
If I fail, she gets harmed, and I will die a thousand deaths before allowing that to happen.
I sprint my way to the dining hall, leaving the door open a crack, and hide directly behind it. Elijah’s flattened against the wall across from me, rifle already in position. I tear off my gas mask, clip it onto my belt, and jerk my chin at him, silently telling him to be ready.
Ear-piercing gunfire sounds from the entry hall, nearly as loud as the alarm was. With a hand gesture, Elijah asks me how many I took out. I hold up six fingers for confirmed kills, and make another gesture for possible unconfirmed ones. He nods.
Amidst the rapid fire from beyond the door, I make out single shots being fired from a different vantage point, followed by thuds. Max is doing his job and he’s doing it well, but he’s the most vulnerable out of all of us because he doesn’t have backup.
A suspended beat of stillness passes before something’s tossed through the crack of the door.
A grenade. Elijah and I lock eyes, then move in tandem, sprinting to get behind the nearest makeshift barricade of tables, but we barely make it.
I get there a tad faster than him, ducking beneath three stacked tables just before the explosion goes off.
He doesn’t, and the impact sends him crashing into the tables in front of me.
He's unprotected and likely disoriented. Possibly injured, but I don’t think he was close enough to the blast radius to be killed.
As soon as someone makes it through the door, though, he’s the first kill.
I curse under my breath, peek out from the sides of the table, and grab the idiot by the shirt collar, dragging him behind the tables with me.
He’s alive, face flushed from the heat, but not bleeding from anywhere.
I slap his cheek twice. “Man the fuck up. Now’s not the time.”
He starts to gain his bearings, blinking blearily and haphazardly reaching for the gun at his waist, but he doesn’t get there fast enough.
A spray of bullets dents the tables in front of us.
I glance behind me to make sure Toby and Bryan are sufficiently covered—they’re well-hidden behind a much larger barricade, and I see the barrel of Bryan’s sniper rifle peeking out from the side.
For now, they’ll be fine… as long as I don’t fail.
I wait for a pause in the gunfire, take a single deep breath, and peek my head out from the barricade. A bullet nearly blows my brains out, so I duck again.
Elijah has regained enough consciousness to pull a grenade out from beneath his belt. I take it from him and wait for the sound of footsteps. As soon as I count three pairs advancing into the room, I pull the pin and toss it.
Seconds later, blood sprays and body parts go flying. I chance another glance over the table to see two dismembered widowers on the floor.
My confirmed kill count is now up to nine. We’re over halfway there, and the numbers on either side of the battle are starting to even out. Hopefully, Max has taken out some more—
All hell breaks loose. A spray of bullets punctures through the table. One buries in the center of my vest, knocking the wind out of me. Another makes Elijah’s body jerk.
I grab him by the collar again, heedless of the pain radiating through my chest from the bullet’s impact, and drag him to the next barricade back, firing my AR blindly in the interim, hoping to fuck I hit at least someone.
It’s a miracle I get Elijah and I behind the next set of tables in one piece. There, I give myself five seconds to check him over… and I wince. He’s leaking from a hole in the bottom left of his torso, right beneath the vest. If he doesn’t get medical attention soon, he’s dead.
If I don’t find a way to kill these pricks soon, I’m dead. And then, Scarlett’s dead.
No. That’s not how our story ends.
“You’re losing a lot of blood,” I tell Elijah. Something blooms in my own chest—not from the bullet that’d have taken me out if it wasn’t for the vest, but a dark, dreary emotion. Hopelessness.
We’re cornered. We’re outnumbered. The tables aren’t doing what they should. We’re all maybe a minute away from death, and I don’t know how to get out of this fucking situation. I don’t see a path forward.
I shouldn’t have limited us to the fucking dining hall. I should’ve positioned all of us at different vantage points throughout the first floor. I should’ve done anything but what I did.
I’m going to fail my men. I’m going to fail the Nighthawks, and Scarlett.
Cain, much as I hate him, will fail as a leader because of me. He won’t have a fortress or headquarters to return to.
The realization that I’m through sinks in deep, gutting me.
The knowledge that I probably won’t see Scarlett, the only woman I’ve ever loved, decimates me.
Failure descends on me like a thousand-pound weight, making my AR sag in my hands.
For the first time since my initiating op, tears prickle at my eyes.
More gunfire sounds from the door, but it’s different this time. The bullets have another cadence. Then, a familiar voice calls out, “Mask up!”
Max’s voice. A heartbeat later, gas fills the room.
I suck in a deep breath before I lose it, slap my mask on Elijah, protecting him, and scramble to the back of the room, tugging Elijah with me and getting behind the final barrier.
I barely get a glimpse of Toby and Bryan, both scrambling to get their gas masks on, before I squeeze my eyes and cover my ears.
If the nerve gas hits even my nostrils, I’m fucking dead…
But I can’t think about that now. Max will protect Scarlett. Her survival is my endgame, and he has enough honor to ensure it.
Two minutes is the effectiveness period of the gas. I have maybe thirty seconds before it gets to me and probably kills me.
In those thirty seconds, an entire lifetime plays out across my mind’s eye. My shit childhood, made better only by Sam. Losing Sam, and finding Scarlett. Scarlett’s hair, her eyes, her sharp tongue, her wit, everything about her.
The image of her, the memories I made with her, make my final seconds in this world worth it. Maybe she’s already pregnant, and my legacy will live on. At least she’ll have a few good memories with me…
Hard material touches my face. A strap is secured over the back of my head, and someone shakes my shoulders with jarring strength.
It’s a fucking gas mask.
…how?
If Elijah gave me his, I’ll fucking kill him—
But when I open my eyes, I don’t see Elijah unmasked. I see a thatch of Max’s red hair, and his eyes staring at me from behind his own mask.
He must’ve brought an extra with him. The bastard is always known for being overprepared...
Relief suffuses me as my burning lungs get their first breath when I thought I’d taken my last one. A single tear rolls down my cheek, and I’m so damn grateful no one can see it.
“Three left,” Max says, shaking my shoulders again. His voice is slightly muted, but I can still make it out. Three left. That means he killed four men on his own.
There’s a reason both of us are in leadership positions; next to Cain, we’re the best the Nighthawks have. And today has only proven it.
“Greyson!” Max gives me a jarring rattle. “They’re going upstairs, man. Luther fucking Sharpe and the two surviving Widowers. They’re going to find Scarlett—”
“Toby and Bryan,” I bark. “Keep Elijah alive. Max, you’re with me.”
I will breathe in nerve gas a billion times, will bleed out on the ground, will do anything to keep Scarlett from her father.
“Good news and bad news,” Toby says. “I activated the machine guns in the walls of the stairwell to get one of the three—he’s not dead, but he’s injured. That’s the good news.”
“Max, find him and kill him,” I command. I swallow harshly, gazing at Toby. “And the bad?”
“Luther Sharpe and the man who pinged facial recognition for his right-hand just got out of the stairwell, on your floor. There isn’t anything I can hit him with in living quarters—”
I’m sprinting out of the room before he can finish his sentence.