Chapter 28 #2
“Brexley, please!” Tears spilled down his cheeks, and for a moment, all I saw was the man who had stitched up my knee, who was there every time I fell or fought too hard in training.
But then he was also the man who turned his back on me, looking at me like I was an animal when they realized I wasn’t totally normal.
Bang! A bullet went through his forehead, blood spurting as his eyes glossed over, his body slumping. A cry caught in my throat as I swung around to the assailant.
Warwick stood there, his hate and disgust centered on the dead man before his gaze went to me, softening the moment our eyes found each other.
My mouth opened to speak, my head shaking in incensed disbelief. I was supposed to kill him. After all he had done . . .
Warwick’s shadow gripped my face, forcing me to look into his eyes, no longer seeing the dead man I had known all my life.
“If I could take all the weight you carry, all the death, heartache, and pain, I would.” His mouth brushed mine.
“He didn’t deserve to be on your conscience, princess.
He wasn’t worthy of one piece of your soul. ”
I gasped, feeling like he was the air I breathed.
Pop! Pop!
Bullets cracked a tank near our heads, hunching us down below the tables as water poured out, cutting off our link.
“Come on!” Warwick’s hand grabbed mine, yanking me with him, our forms hunching and keeping out of the direct line of fire. “We need to do this now.”
My backpack and Warwick’s had been filled with grade-A bombs, the quality and technology coming straight from the king. Olek told us these had timers on them, giving us about thirty seconds to get out before they exploded.
The door we entered started to slide open. My head jerked when I spotted soldiers already packing the entrance, ready to protect Markos’s investments.
“Scorpion!” my shade screamed at him as he shot at a technician with one hand, the other still trying to keep ahold of Hanna. “The door!”
He instantly swung to it, seeing a few wiggle in. I could feel his internal debate happen, his emotion simmering through our link.
“Forgive me, little viper.” He whirled on Hanna, his mouth claiming passionately, kissing her deeply.
Before she could react, he pulled back, pinching her right in the vagus nerve.
Her body jolted and crumbled to the ground.
Sorrow flickered over his face as he watched her drop.
For her survival, he had to take her out of the equation like I had to do to him that night in the Games.
He whirled around, shooting at the enemy coming in, dead bodies lying at the entrance.
“Kovacs?” Warwick’s voice shot me back to him, his hand pulling out the small black discs, slapping them on tanks as we passed. “Hurry!”
The gunfire and alarm shrieked through the space like a banshee, dancing on my nerves, my hands shaking as I stuck an explosive to a tank, not looking at the lives inside we were about to take.
My gaze went to the fae on the tables, a few hands weakly reaching up for me.
Bile burned through my stomach and twisted me in grief when I noticed they weren’t just strapped down. They were chained and cuffed.
We wouldn’t be able to save them.
“Don’t.” Warwick’s shade stood before me, his gaze burrowing into mine.
“You can’t think of that. You have to think of the ones you will save by destroying this place.
Their essence is drained. They are too far gone.
They would not survive anyway. I need you, Kovacs.
With me. Fighting.” His eyes held mine with his unsaid question until I nodded.
The real man flicked the timers on the bombs.
“Ash!” Warwick bellowed at his friend, fighting alongside Kek and Lukas. Scorpion was at the main entrance. Caden had already gone after his father, though that didn’t mean he was safe from danger.
“Scorpion?” I shouted at him, feeling every second ticking down my vertebrae as Warwick whirled me toward the door Dr. Karl had been heading for, shoving his dead body out of the way. “Go!”
Everything was set on fast forward but also felt in slow motion, every beat of my heart like the ticker on the bomb.
I yanked open the door, ready to sprint as fast as I could, but my lungs and feet came to an abrupt halt, a cry hitching up my throat.
It was a closet.
“Fuck!” Warwick roared. We had no way out of here. Any other exits were blocked or too far away to reach in time.
Warwick didn’t hesitate, shoving me inside as Ash, Kek, and Lukas ran in after us, bullets spraying on their heels, Warwick about to shut the door.
“Wait! Scorpion! Where’s Scorpion?” Panic shoved me through the group.
Warwick tried to grab for me, but I slipped through his fingers, swinging the door back open, reaching out through our link.
“Scorpion!” I spotted him barreling for us, Hanna over his shoulder.
Every second, I waited for the light to flash and the bombs to detonate.
“Brexley!” Warwick cried out, trying to grab for me, yank me back in.
“Scorpion! Hurry!” My shadow shoved Scorpion from behind, his feet crossing the threshold into the room. The door shut us into complete darkness right as Warwick grabbed me, diving for the ground, his body covering mine.
BOOM! BOOOOM! BOOOOOOOM!
The multiple explosions shattered my eardrums, the sonic wave bursting across my bones, ripping the air from my lungs.
Warwick cocooned me under his huge frame, holding me for dear life as the world around us came to its knees.
I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. My senses were traumatized by the assault.
All I could feel was Warwick, his breath steady against my neck, his body warm and solid over mine.
He was the only thing that kept me from falling, twisting and turning into the brutal violence.
The tether that prevented me from floating away.
He kept me in the gray. Anchored to consciousness.
A few more moments passed before Warwick lifted his head, and I realized it wasn’t his body that had blacked out any light. I expected the cupboard we were in to be demolished, only a skeleton left, but it held strong around us.
“You okay?” his shadow muttered against my ear.
Still in shock, all I could do was nod. His exhale was felt inside and outside my body, curling through me with relief.
He lifted himself off, allowing me to see the faint forms stirring in the room.
The door had buckled at the top, letting a little light seep into the closet.
My attention went to the thick door and the reinforced walls.
It wasn’t a closet. It was a bomb shelter.
Many underground bunkers were supposed to be made to withstand bombs from above, not from inside. This room had been built to be almost impregnable. Probably why Dr. Karl was coming here—to lock himself inside and wait until the danger passed.
Ash rose to his feet, helping Kek and Lukas, the three of them the closest to the exit. Using his shoulder, Ash shoved at the door. It took a few tries, but it finally cracked open, flooding thick gel-like water into the room, almost rising to my knees.
The substance from the tanks poured out like waterfalls.
Sparks danced and hissed off the equipment, the power cords sizzling and popping, flickering light through the vast space.
Trudging farther out of our sanctuary, my attention scanned the room, bile coating my throat.
It was nothing but devastation and wreckage, but the eerie stillness still buzzed with sounds, ringing like death in my ears.
The absence of life shivered over my skin.
There were no ghosts hovering close, as if their souls had long ago departed, leaving the skins of their beings behind.
It was a sea of dead bodies and equipment, floating and bobbing in pieces and parts like a shipwreck scattering the ocean.
Half the ceiling had buckled, crushing anything underneath.
No one survived. Not even the soldiers trying to get in.
One body clogged the doorway, not allowing it to close, letting the thick water seep out.
A loud boom shook the ground beneath us. An explosion echoed from the main area in the bunker where our friends were on their own mission. My stomach dropped to my toes.
They wouldn’t be that early to set them off unless something had gone terribly wrong.
“Kovacs!” Warwick’s voice thundered in my ear, cutting off all other thoughts as his arms wrapped around me.
CRACK!
The rest of the ceiling gave way, coming down and crushing out the light.