“Quinn.” Elijah’s tone was a warning to back off, but Quinn wasn’t joking and he wasn’t backing down. There was too much going on for them to deal with these soldiers. If they tried any of the tricks the last men did, he would just bury them. His magic was already whipping around, proving who the most powerful person in the group was. Elijah wanted him to calm down.
“Let’s move,” Vincent called, breaking the entire affair up. “Team, I would like all of you close with me.”
“I’m sending the animals out. Will you send Kaar out to scout?” Quinn asked him. Vincent only nodded, his eyes becoming unfocused as he drew closer. Pushing on his bond with the wolves, Quinn sent the orders. Look, but don’t engage. Observe and be ready to launch into an attack when needed. Through the wolves, he knew Sombra got the orders, the black jaguar jumping up and melting into the night without anyone saying a word to her.
The journey would be long. As the group began to move, Quinn counted every step. They were a decent distance from the compound they were raiding tonight, which was for the best. They couldn’t meet up too close or they could have been ambushed. But the long walk in the cloak of night was hard. Well, for everyone except Quinn. He didn’t mind it too much. He heard Elijah curse once. He heard another person stumble - probably Jasper, since the terrain was unfamiliar. He heard whispers from Zander about venomous snakes and how he hoped they didn’t run into any.
Surprisingly, the soldiers were silent and focused, their weapons drawn as they crept forward, branching out from the team on either side, hidden in the bushes and trees nearby.
“Do they ever talk?” Elijah asked, looking between the team in the dark.
“Every member of IMAS Spec Ops has telepathy. They’re having conversations in their heads,” Jasper reminded everyone. Quinn nodded slowly. “It’s what makes them so efficient.”
“Not a bad idea,” Vincent murmured. “They don’t announce that, do they?”
“No,” Jasper confirmed.
“We’d rather if some agent didn’t blast our secrets either,” one of the soldiers commented. Quinn bristled at the superiority of the comment. Some agent? Jasper was a fantastic Magi and his packmate, not just some agent.
“Well, it’s good for me to know. I have telepathy. So does our healer, Zander. If you need anything, you can get in touch with one of us. You should have made sure to tell me when we started.” Vincent’s words were harsh and unforgiving. Glad that someone was sticking up for the team, Quinn kept moving forward, but not before using some earth to trip up the soldier who made the comment.
It was several minutes later when Zander made the anxious comment that was weighing on everyone’s mind. “We’re taking so long to get there. Is Sawyer okay?”
“I can’t say anything to her,” Vincent reminded him. “I can’t distract her. She’ll get in touch when she has a safe moment.”
“What if she’s hurt or…” Zander’s anxiety began to climb.
“I would know. Sombra would know as well. The wolves are keeping me updated on any big changes in her behavior.”
“That’s right.” Zander sounded appeased by that. “After the last…”
“Yeah, we’re all thinking about the Amazon right now,” Elijah muttered. “This is just too damned similar.”
The slow walk continued for five minutes when they finally got what Zander had been asking for.
“Vin, I’m in. Going dark.”
Quinn stopped walking as her voice came from the tiny little earpiece. Everyone on the team had. She was going dark and was in the compound. She had them by fifteen minutes, maybe more. She wasn’t being slowed down by the group.
“Glad we got that news,” Vincent said with a sigh. “Keep moving, everyone, and let’s pick up the speed. We have someone in there with no backup yet.”
And they started to walk faster, nearly breaking out in a jog. The soldiers picked up the new urgency quickly. And it only took ten minutes for them to reach the compound instead of fifteen.
Too bad. The moment Quinn saw the fence, gunfire lit up the night - and it wasn’t from his side. Three guard towers were holding soldiers and there were more behind cover, waiting on them.
“Everyone get down!” a soldier roared. Quinn ducked as he threw a wall of earth in front of the team as they scrambled to get cover and return fire.
“How did they see us this far out?” Vincent yelled. “In the middle of the fucking night of all times!”
“We might have missed some security out in the woods! Cameras or something!” Jasper answered. “We need to get inside!”
Gunfire was chipping his earth wall, but no other Magi dared to try and bring it down. Quinn used it to push forward and raised it higher to stop anyone from seeing over it.
“Everyone, stay with me!” he called back, motioning for the team to follow him. The soldiers weren’t his problem.
Vincent was at his back the fastest, sublimating to close the distance. Elijah, Zander, and Jasper were close behind him.
“What’s the plan?” Vincent asked quickly.
“I’m bringing it down,” he snarled and shoved against his earth wall with a force of magic that had Vincent stumbling back. Quinn hadn’t held back. It caused the earth beneath them to rumble harder than any earthquake.
And the earth wall came down, collapsing onto the fence and several enemies, many of whom screamed as it fell to crush them. It took down one of the guard towers that had been hiding others.
Without pause, and leaving his team in shock, Quinn opened the earth beneath another tower and watched it fall so deep that it disappeared. Then he closed it, killing anyone stupid enough not to run.
“We need some alive, Quinn,” Vincent screamed. The IMAS team was now flooding into the compound as well.
“FIND SAWYER!” he roared back. If the soldiers had been waiting on the team, that meant they could have found her already. She was somewhere in this and he was having too much difficulty parsing between all the magical signatures around him. He was enraged that he couldn’t pinpoint her exact location, only knowing she was alive and somewhere nearby.
But where?
“Sombra!” he called out. “Find her!”
Yes, her jaguar would find her.
While the feline ran in to do that, his wolves jumped into the fray, taking down a paramilitary thug between them. Quinn crushed a man raising his weapon to shoot his boys and then flung a massive rock at another running out of a smaller building. The rock slammed into something electrical and sparks flew.
And the compound’s flood lights died.
Quinn grinned viciously. Now they were all fighting in the dark - and he, for one, was completely okay with that.
He focused harder on finding her. Inside the big building, along with another Magi that seemed just as strong as her. He snarled. He wanted to tear down the building to stop her enemy, but he knew it would only injure her as well. He was better in large spaces, not enclosed hallways. But she was good in the dark. He hoped she was taking advantage of it.
“Quinn, contain this!” Vincent ordered, firing on another man.
With a single nod, Quinn did just that. He summoned more of his strength and threw up earth walls following the line of the metal fence, throwing it out of the ground and replacing it with something he controlled. Now he would know if anyone tried to run from his team.
“Good! Now, capture as many as you can!” Vincent glared at him.
Quinn bared his teeth, realizing Vincent wouldn’t allow him to slaughter the entire enemy pack - and if he did, it would be unforgivable. He began pulling the soldiers down into the earth, where he would leave them until the team had time to restrain each one. It was bothersome, annoying work, but he knew he couldn’t just kill anyone who stood between him, his pack, and Sawyer.
He wanted to, though.
Once he was done with this, he was going to get to her. Maybe seeing her alive would make him feel less bloodthirsty.
20
&
nbsp; Sawyer
Her elbow connected with his jaw, flinging him back. He was able to connect a punch to her ribs as he staggered. She ducked as he swung another for her head, sending two quick jabs into his gut.
He grabbed onto her shirt and blinked, taking her on a journey. She wasn’t able to anticipate being swung into a wall. She looked up, blinking them over the desk and slamming him down next. She held him down for a second to slam a fist into his face, as he kneed upwards and caught her in the crotch.
That brought a groan from her. That shit was painful no matter what someone had between their legs.
The door swung open as he shoved her off and jumped up. She moved in time for the knife not to land between her eyes, instead grazing her ear. Gunfire made the world explode in sound. She figured he used his telepathy to tell his men she was there.
She took cover behind his desk as bullets rained into the room. She closed her eyes for a second to find him, and noticed he was making distance. He was running, that shit. She could hear more gunfire outside. The guys must have shown up with backup.
A snarl and a scream. She felt Sombra brush the bond between them.
“Damned cat,” Sawyer hissed. “I wanted you to stay out of the middle of this shit.”
The next time a gun went off, it wasn’t in her direction. That made Sawyer jump up and over the desk and rush the first guy she could get her hands on. She knocked him out efficiently as Sombra appeared and jumped on the next one. She blinked past her cat and tackled the next one, who was trying to raise his gun again to shoot her jaguar.
It took seconds and Sawyer was left standing among bodies, both dead and unconscious. Sombra licked her own jaws, and Sawyer saw the thick blood dripping down from her fur on to the floor.
“Good girl,” she murmured. “Now we need to catch him. Ready to help?”
Sombra’s answering growl was impressive, and the cat took off in a full run. Sawyer ran after her, blinking to close the distance as Sombra jumped out of a window. She followed out the window, running after the jaguar. Sombra was following his scent while Sawyer kept her mind focused on the Magi’s Source, not letting him out of her sixth sense.
They ran out of the compound right as the floodlights died and the world became dark. Not even a tiny bit of light from the moon or stars could get through the dense vegetation.
Sawyer immediately felt more at ease. Sombra paced away. They were both solitary predators, but they had practiced hunting together. Games in the woods with Quinn and the wolves. Sombra caught the scents of two other unknowns with their target and was going to head them off while Sawyer came from behind.
Perfect.
They moved fast, ducking and dodging every single obstacle. Sawyer didn’t know the Congo as well as she knew home, but she was now practiced enough to manage. It wasn’t long until she could hear Leonard and his two loudly running ahead of her. Their boots crunched the earth and vegetation.
“We need to get to the helicopter,” Leonard ordered. “I’m not dying tonight, do you hear me?”
Sawyer grinned. No, he wasn’t. She wasn’t going to kill him unless she had no choice. She wanted all of them in cells around the world, thinking about every mistake they’d ever made. Every piece of arrogance they ever showed, thinking they could hide behind Axel, thinking they could kiss his feet and hope for power. She didn’t want any of them dead. If she had to live with every decision she ever made, then they did too.
She knew Sombra was already between them and their goal. Already in her spot. The two men with Leonard were non-Magi. Child’s play.
Sawyer kept moving and went up into the trees. She blinked from branch to branch.
“Fuck,” Leonard snapped as she watched the group slow down ahead of her. He turned slowly to her, but she knew he couldn’t see her, just like his men couldn’t see Sombra right in front of them. “Come out and fight me!” Leonard dared, looking towards her spot.
She blinked to another tree branch, one closer, but it left him scrambling to catch a read on her again, to find the source of her magic. She blinked again and kept it up, leaving him confused as her magical radiation was just left all around them in the dark, haunting him. She needed him confused and paranoid. She needed to be able to attack from any position without him expecting it. If she stayed still for too long, he would find her with that sixth sense Magi had for each other.
Sombra snarled as a soldier tried to move away from the group. Like her, the jaguar was circling dangerously around the group. They had cornered their prey, now they just needed to find the best way to attack.
Sawyer made the decision.
She blinked onto a branch above Leonard. She hadn’t wanted to blink directly in his space since he was expecting it.
She just dropped down on him, slamming him into the earth with her weight.
Sombra took that exact moment to jump out of the night onto the back of one of the soldiers, silencing a scream before it could truly form.
Sawyer pulled her cuffs out and slammed one on Leonard’s wrist while Sombra jumped off her first target and went for the second. The non-Magi fired and Sawyer snarled to cover the pain of Sombra being hit as she got her kill. Immediately, the bond was filled with assurance that Sombra was okay. Just a scratch. An image flew through Sawyer’s mind of two massive cats fighting. Sombra had worse injuries before. It would be okay. Just lick it clean later.
Well, Sawyer wasn’t going to lick it clean. She stared down at Leonard as Sombra stalked around, still moving fine with the graze on her side.
“Are you ready for what’s next?” she asked softly, leaning down into his face.
“Yeah.” Leonard sounded bitter and pissed off. She was fine with that. At least he wasn’t begging for her to come to his side like a coward trying to get out of it. He knew what he was, what he had done and what he deserved.
She moved off him and hauled him up, spinning him to finish handcuffing him. She pushed him back into the direction of the compound, where there was still fighting going on. She could hear it louder and louder with every step they took.
As the compound came into her view, she decided to use the comms. She was thankful her eyes adjusted well in the dark since she could see the IMAS soldiers coming towards her. She raised her hands in peace, shoving Leonard closer.
“Shut this down. I have Leonard. We’re done here.” She said it to both the soldiers and her team through the ear pieces.
“I’ve got Quinn on it, but a lot are still hiding in the main building.”
“Bring it down,” she ordered Vincent softly.
It took a split second. One moment, the building was there, standing tall in the night. The next it was a pile of rubble. It was that fast for Quinn’s magic to lash out and demolish the building. She wondered if it was even a challenge for him. Probably not.
She walked closer and frowned as she walked over the rubble towards the team. She could hear something strange. Someone talking. She looked back to Leonard, who was trying to reach something while a soldier held him. She stomped back to him and reached into his pocket, pulling out a cellphone.
“You’ve kept him on hold this entire time and then, let me guess, it hung up on him?” she asked softly. “Stupid. No one puts him on hold, and now…” Now he was calling back to find out how his investments were doing.
She didn’t finish, putting the phone up to her ear as she hit the button to answer the ringing.
“Good evening, Axel,” she said softly. Her comms were still on and she knew her entire team heard her say those words. She caught Vincent’s eyes across the compound and he was at her side faster than she expected. He used his sublimation to make time, of course.
“Ah. I figured if anyone could deal with you, it would be Leonard. I guess not.”
“If this is increased security, you need to tell your men they should work harder. They’re underestimating me. I’m not sure if that’s insulting to me, or…insulting to you, since you’re the one who made sure I
was this good.”
“Always taunting,” he murmured. “Tell me, what do you get out of this?”
“A pardon,” she answered. “Freedom.”
“I heard rumors, but I couldn’t be certain. The WMC has been very close-lipped, even with their aides, and thanks to you, I lost my only paid Councilman.”
“You’re welcome. He wasn’t hard to deal with.” Even talking with him was like a verbal chess game.
“And what will you do with this freedom? Stay with Vinny? Oh yes, I have heard all about that. The entire IMPO is abuzz with the team that’s fucking their criminal. Really, Sawyer, I know everyone called you my whore, but I never expected you to spread your legs and actually be one.”
Her hand tightened on the phone to the point she was worried she would break it. “Says the man who can’t keep any of his whores in line.”
“Missy.” He got that message from her loud and clear. She had meant herself, but if he was guessing the doppelganger, she knew he already had figured it out. “Thanks to her, you’ve gotten your hands in all my businesses, and I don’t want you there. So you should thank her when I tell you that I’ve left a little something for you to be distracted by. You know what’s so interesting about you being outed?”
“I don’t, but I have feeling you’ll tell me.”
“Hmm. Yes, your friends came out of the woodworks too, and none of them are nearly as threatening as you are. I was coming to visit one tonight, to leave a little gift, actually. I figured you were still in California with Alfie, but the Congo is even better.”
She heard an explosion in the background.
“Cute, hiding in plain sight like this. I decided to try it myself, and funny enough, it works really well. Though I won’t be in New York by the time you get back. Until next time.”
He hung up on her and her world began to fall apart. Vincent took the phone from her and shouted orders as her mind raced to figure out exactly what had just happened.
Friends coming out of the woodworks. New York. Charlie.
A Night of Redemption (The Redemption Saga Book 5) Page 20