by Kit Rocha
So what the fuck were they doing?
It hit him in a rush that drove an instinctive noise of protest from his throat. "The tunnels. Is there access in that building?"
Six shook her head. "The tunnels in this part of the sector are a mess. Half of them have collapsed, or they lead to dead ends."
That meant half of them might still be passable. In the Special Tasks squad's shoes, when measured against certain death, those were odds Ryder would take.
Jasper had obviously come to the same conclusion. He turned to Cruz. "I probably don't need to ask, but those guys carry C-4, right?"
Cruz nodded. "Enough to blow their way through a wall. Or the floor."
If the squad made it into the tunnels… "So we move fast," Ryder said.
"I want in." A woman with brown hair streaked with red stood in the doorway. She wore handguns on her hips and tucked into thigh holsters, and balanced a wicked looking rifle on one shoulder.
"Laurel." Bren scrubbed a hand over his face. "Who's watching the south side of the building?"
"Kay has it under control." She strolled into the room, kicking a broken brick out of her way. "And I mean it—if you're going in, I want a piece of the action."
Bren turned to Six, who jerked her head in a nod as she checked her own gun. "You can come, but you stick with us and cover our backs. No superhero shit, chasing down Special Tasks soldiers on your own. You hear me?"
Laurel handed off her rifle, a tiny smile forming at the corners of her mouth. "Yes, ma'am."
Jasper squared his shoulders and surveyed the room, looking every inch the military tactician that Dallas O'Kane had molded him into. "Bren, when we get in there, I want your sole focus to be whoever might have a detonator in his goddamn hand. No one's getting blown up today, all right? Everyone else—eyes on your targets. It might be close quarters, so watch your asses."
Six started passing out tiny earpieces, identical to the ones she and Bren already wore. "We only have a few—"
"Give one to Ryder," Jasper instructed as he accepted his own. "He'll take point."
So much for generals staying off the front lines. But Ryder was glad—both for the vote of confidence and for the chance to play an active role. He situated the earpiece, then flashed Six a thumbs-up as her test whisper carried clearly through the device.
Jasper exhaled sharply. "Let's move."
They filed out the side entrance as quietly as possible, Ryder and Six at the head of the group. Their boots crunched on the cracked, debris-strewn asphalt, and a volley of shots rang out from a broken window, the one where the Special Tasks soldier had taken up position. Six muttered a command, and her people inside the building responded with suppressing fire. Ryder ran across the street, trusting them to cover him.
They made it safely to the corner of the building, and the gunfire died away as they surrounded the south entrance. Jasper held up one finger, then a second. Before he could finish his count of three, a thundering explosion shook the ground beneath them.
They were out of time. Heedless of the fact that the squad might very well have rigged the door to blow as well, Ryder kicked it hard, sending the dented metal slamming in against the interior wall. It left Six with a clear line of sight to the soldier covering the window, and she took it, bringing the man down with one clean shot to the head.
After that—chaos. Three of the men dove for the gaping hole in the middle of the room, the only possible escape now. Jasper took one out, but the other two made it, disappearing in a heartbeat.
Ryder went after them, ignoring Cruz's warning shouts and the hail of bullets flying all around him. Nothing was as important as making sure those bastards didn't get away.
The tunnel was dark as the grave. Ryder stopped for a moment, dragged in a single, calming breath, and ran in the direction of the heavy, receding footsteps. He was closing in—he could feel it—when a gunshot exploded in the small space. The report was so loud it hurt his ears, hurt everything, but he didn't care. He didn't care because he saw the muzzle flash, and knew exactly where to aim his own shot.
He squeezed off three rounds, one right after the other. By the time Ryder's ears stopped ringing, all he could hear was the wet sound of bloody, dying wheezes.
He was closing in to finish the man off when a blow caught him on the chin—the second soldier, who must have been lying in wait. Ryder was still staggering when his attacker took off, but he had no choice.
He gave chase. Three turns through inky darkness, and he nearly stumbled over his prey before slamming into a pile of rubble blocking the tunnel.
Dead end.
His racing pulse pounded in his ears, and he had no idea how well-armed his opponent was. So he went for brute force, grappling the soldier against the fallen rock and punching him in the head.
For a Special Tasks soldier, he fought dirty, kicking and scratching. He slammed Ryder's head against the wall, then knocked him down. But he couldn't keep him there, and Ryder reversed their positions with a roar of rage, his boots scuffling on the dirty ground.
They tumbled, rolling over rough chunks of concrete, and sharp pain blazed along Ryder's ribs. At first, he thought he'd cut himself on debris, but when he lashed out instinctively, a knife clanged unmistakably into the darkness only inches away.
The soldier spat a curse and wedged his forearm across the front of Ryder's throat, throwing all his weight behind it. It hurt like hell, not just from his burning lungs and the lack of oxygen, but from the sheer force on his windpipe. If he didn't shake the bastard, he was going to die in a dark tunnel beneath Sector Three.
Not exactly a blaze of glory. No fucking way was he going down like that.
The soldier was so focused on choking him that he didn't seem to notice Ryder moving. He reached out, and his fingertips brushed one of those huge, jagged lumps of shattered concrete.
If he'd had any breath left, he might have laughed.
But the world was starting to fade away, and Ryder felt himself slipping into an even deeper darkness. Mustering the last of his strength, he swung the piece of concrete and smashed it into the side of his attacker's head. The man pitched off him with a grunt that sounded more animal than human, and Ryder allowed himself the luxury of one ragged, searing breath before diving after him.
He kept swinging the rock. The edges bit into his fingers, but he ignored the pain. It was a small price to pay for staying alive, so he kept crashing his arm down, again and again, long after the man beneath him stopped fighting.
A dim light filled the tunnel. High on adrenaline, Ryder whipped around, the hunk of concrete raised. Laurel froze, her face cast in the unforgiving light of a chemical glow stick, her pistol at the ready.
Ryder saw the concrete for the first time. It was dark with blood—and other things he didn't really want to think about too closely. He dropped it immediately. "Sorry."
"No problem." She lowered her gun, but her guarded expression stayed. "We couldn't raise you on comms."
The earpiece was gone, knocked loose sometime during the fight. He opened his mouth to tell her so, but her gaze skipped down to the fallen soldier and back up—quick, furtive—and she took a step back.
Ryder didn't look. He didn't need to. He could feel the sticky mess that had once been the man's head drying on his hands.
Jasper met them at the last turn, his usually lazy voice tight with tension. "Maybe Six should have been warning you not to dive into tunnels all alone instead of Laurel here."
Ryder shrugged. The movement seared through the slice on his ribs, so he grinned, too. "Got the job done, didn't I?"
"Yeah. But the cost could have been high." Jasper paused, then sighed. "Have a little mercy, huh? Dallas'll never forgive me if you get dead on my watch."
"Pinky swear," Ryder lied dryly. War was war, after all. The same story, repeated for tens of thousands of years. Some who fought lived and others died, and you never knew which you were destined to be.
Chapter Six
> Nessa was getting good at interpreting the mood of a party.
Since the start of the war, the O'Kanes had gathered in the old warehouse more nights than not. Sometimes the parties were every bit as wild and debauched as the good old days, with liquor and dancing giving way to sex in every dark corner—and plenty of the more brightly lit ones. Sometimes they were quieter. People would sit around and tell stories over slow sips of the best liquor, their gazes drifting over familiar faces as if they were trying to replace the horrors of the day with something good—or fix those beloved people in their memories, just in case it was the last time.
Sometimes it was just the drinking, because even O'Kanes couldn't party through the pain all the time.
Those were the bad nights. The nights when the dark corners stood empty, because those who had partnered up already wanted to drag their loved ones home and cling tight, like they could fuck away the darkness.
On those nights, Nessa left early. It hurt less than watching everyone peel off in twos and threes and even fours—and it hurt way less than when some of them stuck around out of pity for her.
This party wasn't a bad one. She knew it from the moment she cracked open the warehouse door. Music spilled out—loud, with a thumping bass line, and from the doorway she could see the dance floor was crowded.
The knot of tension making her shoulders ache eased. Whatever had provoked the alarm today might have been bad, but it couldn't have been too bad. But as she hesitated and scanned the crowd again, the knot returned.
Ryder wasn't there.
It probably didn't mean anything. Fuck, she of all people knew how impenetrable the brotherhood of the O'Kanes could seem from the outside. Maybe it hadn't occurred to anyone to invite him.
And maybe she was making up an excuse to go and check.
Before anyone could see her, Nessa ducked back out the door. The night air was chilly, like the warmth had been leached from it as soon as the sun set. It had been years since she'd noticed how much the temperature dropped after dark, but the tense moments in the elevator had stirred up too many memories of Texas—including its balmy nights.
She was off balance. Caught between memories of the past and the uncertainty of the future. And she really wanted to lay eyes on Ryder. Just so she could know he was okay.
Not that she'd tell him that. She circled back to her office in the new warehouse and used her thumbprint to open her safe. Bottles of liquor were stacked neatly inside—the very best of her small batches, bottles so rare they went for thousands of credits on the black market.
She picked her favorite and retraced her footsteps. The lights in the parking lot illuminated the iron staircase along the back of the Broken Circle, and she felt exposed as she clattered up them. She was being ridiculous. Pathetic, really, like her crush had taken over her brain.
But she needed to know.
She knocked on his door, trying not to bounce with impatience. "Ryder? It's Nessa."
No one answered, but boots thumped across the floor. A moment later, he opened the door, then immediately turned away. "What is it?"
He was shirtless, which probably would have been a full-on fucking butterfly fluttering invasion in her gut if she hadn't seen the slash across his ribs before he turned to hide it. "Holy shit, are you okay?"
"Fine." He had a suture kit open on the desk, along with a few med-gel applicators and a bottle of the cheapest whiskey the O'Kanes produced, the shit so raw Nessa had tried to talk Dallas out of selling it. The people who still bought it had probably burned their taste buds off years ago.
"Okay, first of all, I don't believe you." She slipped past him into the room before he could stop her and took a better look at his ribs. The wound was ugly—long and still bleeding. Even worse were the small stitches at the very bottom of the wound. "Second of all, tell me you are not up here with a bottle of rotgut, sewing your own fucking side back together."
The damn man smirked. "Okay, I'm not sewing myself up."
"You asshole." Nessa's temper boiled over. She stalked to the table and set down her bottle, then snatched up the shitty whiskey and waved it at him. "You better be using this as disinfectant because if you're drinking this shit, we're gonna have words."
"I am drinking it," he shot back. "No need to waste the good stuff when all I need is to get a little blurry, take the edge off."
"We have drugs for that, which you should know, since you make them. And people who are good at stitches. Like doctors." Of course, the doctors were probably back in Sector Three by now, in their cozy, well-guarded beds. She jabbed her finger toward the desk. "Sit your ass down."
He glared at her, but slid onto the desk without argument. "Are you handy with a needle?"
"For sewing clothes? Hell, no." She picked up the numbing spray and the suture kit and carried them over to the desk. "But Dallas's mama had me putting stitches into people by the time I was nine."
"Lot of knife fights down on the ranch?"
"More than our share." She ducked into the bathroom to wash her hands and raised her voice to be heard over the splashing water. "Mostly new guys, though. No one caused trouble a second time. Quinn chased 'em off with her shotgun if they tried."
"Quinn." Ryder repeated the name slowly, rolling it over his tongue like he was testing it out for...something. "I always wondered what her name was. It's not in any of the files on Dallas."
It wouldn't have been, and Nessa felt a twinge as she cut off the water with her elbow. This was why she had to be careful. Words just tumbled past her lips without stopping at her brain—and she knew way too much. About Dallas. About everything.
Resolving to watch her tongue, she strode back into the office and hesitated.
Ryder looked different. Maybe the rotgut he'd choked down was fuzzing his hard edges a little, because the gut-punch of his gorgeousness wasn't quite as punchy. Instead of cold and aloof and intimidatingly perfect, he looked...easier. Not softer, but warmer. His smile prickled up her spine instead of slamming into her gut, and that was way more dangerous.
She crossed to his side and focused on the only thing about him that wasn't pretty—the cut across his side. It was amazing the first few stitches were as even as they were, considering the awkward angle. He must have been doing it by feel, which made her stomach flip in a far less fascinating way. "I'm gonna numb this up, okay?"
"Don't need it," he rumbled.
"Yeah, yeah. You're a tough guy." She picked up the spray anyway. "Apparently that makes some ladies swoon, but I grew up surrounded by meatheads who liked to show off. You wanna do something really impressive? Be smart and let me handle this."
He watched her apply a thin layer of the lidocaine spray, his brows drawn together in a harsh frown. "Renee. That was my mother's name."
Maybe he was drunker than she'd thought. Or maybe he was talking to distract himself from the fact that a bootlegger with purple hair was about to start poking a needle through his skin. "Tell me about her."
"She was strong," he whispered. "I guess everyone who survived the Flares was, but she was...different. A lot of folks toughened up, but it made 'em hard on the inside. Brittle. That never happened to her."
Nessa started the first stitch, careful and even like Quinn had taught her. "What did she do? Before the Flares, I mean."
His face tightened. "Teacher."
Now she was poking at more than one wound. "I didn't know my mother," she said quickly, giving him the chance to retreat from the topic as she tied off the first knot. "But I've seen pictures. There's this one my Pop kept for me of her right before the Flares—she was at some school dance with my dad. They were teenagers, fourteen or fifteen, maybe. But they looked so young."
Ryder snorted. "Simpler times."
"Or more complicated." She moved on to the next stitch, falling into the remembered rhythm. "I mean after the Flares, shit was real simple. Don't die."
"Yeah." He squeezed his eyes shut.
Silence fell, and Nessa hated it. So
me people seemed to thrive on it, but for her it had always felt so claustrophobic, like the empty air could crush her. Ten seconds of it and she cracked like an egg, spilling awkward truth all over them both. "Do you want to talk about her? Your mom? You got stiff, so I thought maybe it hurt. Bad memories, or whatever."
"Your hands are cold."
No, they weren't, but the lie was its own kind of truth. "It's okay, you know. Don't ask is pretty much the rule. And we're the lucky ones. People don't know our stories. Can you imagine being someone like Lili? All that baggage and nowhere to hide it."
Slowly, he opened his eyes. "Maybe that's better. Think about it. You'd never have to explain shit."
"Hey, I'm the one who likes to talk." She finished knotting off the current stitch before glancing up at him, eyebrows raised, her voice as light and teasing as she could make it. "Go ahead. Ask me anything."
A hint of a smile curved his lips. "Nah, you don't want to play that game with a deep-cover spy. Trust me on that."
"I don't, huh?" At least that dark sadness had left his eyes. The wound was halfway stitched, so she refocused on her task and pretended she was just trying to distract him, and not desperate to know what he saw when he looked at her. "Try me."
Ryder touched her chin, warm fingers stroking gently as he urged her to tilt her face to his. "Who was he?"
Her breath caught. Tingles. So many fucking tingles. "Who?"
"The guy who fucked you over so bad you won't look at me straight in the face."
Oh, ouch.
He'd warned her. She'd asked for it. She'd wondered how clearly he saw her, and now she had the answer. Better than the people who'd lived with her for years, better than anyone but Mia. But even Mia, with all her training, had taken weeks to find that vulnerable spot.
Ryder had only needed a couple hours.
She ducked away from his touch so she could look at the wound on his side again. "Who said there was only one? My bad dating stories could fill libraries. Smart men won't risk the collective wrath of the O'Kanes, and stupid men are lousy lays."