The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection

by Carolyn McCray

  It was the little salt cart that could.

  Then Rebecca saw why. The tower had been long enough that its roof had landed against the stable next to them. It had taken the brunt of the tower’s fall.

  The only problem? That roof was about to give and the entire weight of the tower was about to come down on them.

  Going forward wasn’t an option, and getting out backward seemed impossible. As the trickle of salt down the stable’s wall became a torrent, Rebecca felt something on her ankle.

  A hand!

  It hurt like hell as she was dragged backward, but Rebecca wouldn’t complain. Just as the tower’s roof gave, Rebecca, Bunny, and Brandt were pulled past the cart. The tower crashed down on the cart, shattering it beyond recognition.

  She rolled over to find Lopez giving Bunny a hand up. With the other arm, the corporal aimed in the direction Aunush and her men had fled. Rebecca got her knees just as the firing started. They had the rubble of the demolished tower between them, but that wouldn’t last long.

  “Go!” Brandt ordered Harvish and Lopez. “Don’t stop!”

  The two men hustled Bunny around the corner. Rebecca was halfway there when she realized Brandt wasn’t following them. As a matter of fact, he was still lying on the ground. Why wasn’t he up? Why wasn’t he firing?

  * * *

  As bullets flew overhead, Brandt looked straight up at the ceiling of the cavern. The salt had created its own pattern up there. The crystals swirled and seemed to almost flow into more and more intricate designs. It was quite beautiful. Which was kind of nice since it was the last sight he would ever see.

  Two bulletproof vests or no, his body had taken more punishment than he had any right to ask it. Plus, he felt the pooling of blood underneath of him. One of those bullets must have skirted the vest and actually hit flesh. It felt like a through and through, but who really knew. The bullet hadn’t hit his spleen, that was for sure, since it had been removed after the last time he’d been shot.

  At least he could die knowing that his son would be taken care of and that Rebecca was alive.

  Then someone was at his side. Rebecca.

  “Get out of here,” he said, trying to sound authoritative, but knowing he missed by a mile. A little hard to go all alpha when you were laid out flat on your back.

  “How badly are you injured?” she asked, and then her eyes dilated as she must have spotted the blood.

  Rebecca reached down to remove his vest, but he clutched her hand. “No.”

  It was the only thing keeping his ribs together. Without the support of the Kevlar, he could kiss his lungs goodbye.

  Her eyes rapidly scanned the area, trying to find something to help get him out of here. But Brandt knew she couldn’t. He wasn’t getting up without a gurney. Period.

  “Go!” he urged, shoving her away as hard as he could, but clearly not hard enough.

  She just wouldn’t leave.

  Even when a bitter laugh sounded from the other side of the debris.

  * * *

  Rebecca knew she should leave. Get going while the getting was good, but she just couldn’t leave Brandt here. Not like this.

  Besides, Aunush would just hunt her down. She had what they wanted. And not just the tablets in her backpack, but the knowledge of the secret they held. There would be no more dodging bullets now.

  The woman mounted the ruined tower, domineering over them.

  “Does your sniper have any more tricks up his sleeve?” Aunush asked.

  Rebecca seriously doubted it. Davidson had long arms, but his sleeve and his tricks could only go so far.

  “You know?” Aunush asked. There was no doubt what the question was.

  “Yes,” Rebecca answered, not bothering to hide the fact. She bent over and gathered the pack and something she thought might be good to borrow. “I have the tablets here.”

  Even though Aunush tried to act calm, her eyes dilated to near black. Her hand clenched at her side as if she could already feel the cool stone in her hand. She meant to possess them.

  “I’ll give them to you if you let us go,” Rebecca bargained.

  That harsh laughter again. “And why exactly would I do that? When I can just take them from you?”

  No reason.

  “You were ready to fire, right?” Rebecca whispered to Brandt.

  He struggled to rise up onto an elbow. “Yeah, why?”

  Rebecca brought his gun up behind the backpack. She’d never shot a gun before and had no idea where the safety was. Not that Brandt hadn’t begged her to learn how to shoot. Back then though she’d given up religious mysteries. She’d given up being shot at. She’d given up watching the man she loved bleed to death.

  A gun was a reminder to her of all the pain and horror of the last year. So she’d sworn off guns as well.

  Yet here she was.

  She looked to Aunush. “I don’t know. Something about the Golden Rule?”

  Just as the woman’s hand went up to give the order, Rebecca pulled the trigger. To her shock, she actually hit Aunush, right in the belly. Gasping in pain, she stumbled back clutching the wound.

  “Fire!” she yelled, but the bullets that flew first came from behind Rebecca.

  Aunush’s men scattered. Rebecca threw herself over Brandt as the air filled with the sound of speeding projectiles.

  Lopez and Harvish hadn’t abandoned them.

  “Forward!” Lopez bellowed as he laid down cover fire. Harvish scrambled toward them, ducking behind a doorjamb.

  “Forward!” Harvish yelled, switching to firing as Lopez made his way down the street that in theory should have had no cover.

  They pushed forward like this, bouncing back and forth between them until they were at Brandt’s feet.

  Lopez put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “We’ve got him.”

  Rebecca knew she should have whooped or been relieved, but the only proper response she could think of was to burst into tears.

  * * *

  That whore, Aunush thought as they retreated behind the tumble of tower. Her sniper climbed out from the pile of debris to join them. Did it matter though? Brandt and the others had proven too resourceful.

  Apparently God wanted to truly give her a challenge.

  Aunush was nothing if not a practical woman. As blood seeped through her fingers, the odds that she could secure the tablets, slaughter the bitch’s team, and clean up her own mess were in the negative percentiles. That didn’t mean though that she couldn’t serve her God.

  Of course that meant sacrificing all. The tablets. Even her own life. Surprisingly that thought did not bother her as much as she would have thought.

  Her comfort came only from the knowledge that she could begin what God had started. He had wished Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed? She would see it destroyed. If that was what it took to protect the secret of the girl Messiah, Aunush would do it without hesitation. Even if she would never meet this Messiah of prophecy. Aunush must protect She Who Would Come just as every Disciple had done since the Tablets were handed down.

  “Prepare the package,” Aunush ordered to the sniper, who jumped to obey.

  “You dare not,” Nannan hissed.

  She turned to the Watcher of the Word. He was a man, like Joshua. Someone who cared for the tablets. Not someone they were written about.

  “Give me another answer, Nannan,” Aunush asked calmly. “Tell me how to protect the tablets without banishing them back to oblivion.”

  “Your orders were to retrieve the tablets.”

  “No,” Aunush clarified. “My orders were to protect the tablets. They could never be safer than what I am proposing.”

  Nannan searched her face. He must have been looking for some sign of weakness. Hesitation. A chink in her armor that he could squirm his way through. He must not have found it.

  “You would steal from us His word?” Nannan demanded, blotchy faced. “God meant for His word to be read.”

  Aunush shrugged. “What was go
od enough for Moshe is good enough for me.”

  She could understand Nannan’s dismay. He had not been raised to know his life would end in sacrifice. Not as Aunush had. Then again she thought hers would be upon the cross, but alas she would die as all the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah had done before her.

  There may have been some confusion regarding the twin cities’ destruction. Rumors had been rampant that God had struck them down by fire. As the pillars all around her said to the contrary, he had turned the cities to salt.

  Now though? Now Aunush would make right those legends as the sniper placed a compact device at her feet.

  God’s fury fulfilled.

  Aunush held the detonator out in front of her. The question clear. “Who is with me?”

  The sniper did not hesitate to put his hand over hers. Her two remaining soldiers did the same. They were born and bred to die by God’s righteous flame.

  Nannan though, he hung back, glowering, his eyes darting for a way out.

  Raising the detonator, Aunush smiled. “We go to God serving him to the last, Nannan. How do you think He will react if you run now? At the moment He needs you most?”

  The Watcher hesitated but only for a moment. Then his feet carried him to their circle. He placed his hand over the detonator.

  Aunush glanced about for the sole Chinese soldier remaining to find him gone.

  Like she had said. Smart man.

  * * *

  Davidson limped over to the SUV. He’d made the rally point, but there was no one else to greet him. Had his plan worked and saved the rest, or had it spelled their end? Leaning against the side of the car, Davidson slid down the cool metal and sat propped up against one of the tires.

  Let the Disciples come. He had a few more bullets in his rifle and about an hour’s worth of blood left in him. To think of the life he’d led and that it brought him to die in Gomorrah.

  Clearly God truly did have a sense of irony.

  Then a loud thump rang through the cavern. Like a firework rocket, something streaked though the air, exploding against the roof. Bright reds and whites sprayed out above them.

  Why would the Disciples do such a thing? It wasn’t a directed attack. As it stood, it wasn’t an attack at all.

  That was until Davidson realized that the white sparkles were not dying out. As a matter of fact, they were growing. Once the second rocket hit the cavern roof in a dazzling display, Davidson knew the Disciples had launched the ultimate attack.

  A suicide attack.

  As the air around the missiles ignited, sending flames dancing across the roof, Davidson rose to his feet. The Disciples meant to bring the roof down, burying the secret of the tablets permanently.

  But first the Disciples intended to incinerate every last one of them.

  CHAPTER 26

  ══════════════════

  Gomorrah, Jordan

  12: 19 a.m. GMT

  Brandt’s feet dragged along the ground as Lopez and Harvish practically carried him down the street. He’d feel ashamed only he didn’t have the fucking energy for even that. But now with the air above them on fire, what did it matter?

  All the pain. All the sacrifice. For fucking nothing.

  “Ouch!” Bunny cried, swiping at her sleeve that sparkled with white fire. As the flickering flame consumed her shirt, the woman swatted frantically.

  “Don’t!” Lopez yelled as he slid Brandt’s arm off of his shoulder and draped it over Rebecca’s. Brandt tried not to lean into Rebecca heavily except for that whole gravity being a bitch thing and him having absolutely no resistance to it.

  The corporal, however, still had some gas in the tank and ran over to Bunny, shouting, “Don’t!” He ripped her sleeve off. “It’s a magnesium fire!”

  Which Brandt would have realized had he not been in five different kinds of shock.

  Lopez dropped to his knees, digging a hole in the salt and dropping the flaming fabric into it, then covering it with a huge pile of salt. “The only way, and I mean only way to put out a magnesium fire is to completely cut off its source of oxygen.”

  Clearly there were enough microcracks between the grains to sustain the fire as it glowed bright orange through the translucent salt, melting it into a clear shell.

  “We’ve got to take cover,” Lopez said as tiny sparks floated down from the roof.

  “And what?” Harvish asked. “So we can wait until the fire consumes all the oxygen in the cavern?”

  That wasn’t an option. Actually, with the world tilting slightly to the right, Brandt couldn’t think of any options. A magnesium fire was nearly impossible to fight, even if fully equipped for one. And they clearly were not fully equipped on so many levels.

  “It’s on me!” Rebecca announced, indicating to the back of her shoulder, but even then she didn’t let go of him.

  * * *

  Lopez rushed over to Rebecca as she tried to quell the panic. She’d felt the drop hit her back. Strangely though, it didn’t hurt. The corporal went to rip the jacket when he stopped.

  “Wait,” he said, touching the spot. “This isn’t fire…its water.”

  Water? There wasn’t any water in the cavern. Then she noticed Brandt’s head tilt up. She followed his gaze to the roof. Through the clear white flames she could make out cracks in the ceiling. Water ran, contrary to all logic, sideways along the ceiling, following the grooves and ruts of the salt.

  In their travels they must have passed west enough to find themselves under the Dead Sea.

  Little did it matter though where the water came from. It was here now. The scene above made it seem that water and fire were performing a tango meant only for them.

  Only the occasional drop, then more and more as the seconds ticked down, broke free of the water’s sideways flow, falling through the white magnesium flame to the ground beneath. Where the drops fell, they dissolved the salt, washing it away as if it had never been there.

  The statuelike figures around them became pocked with the water marks, dissolving away their pained expressions. There was a certain beauty to the whole, complicated set of events.

  Only the men seemed none too happy about it. Lopez looked to her with widened eyes and Harvish had gone pale.

  “We’re so screwed,” Brandt announced.

  Really? Out of everything that had happened so far, water was the problem?

  “The water will put out the fire, won’t it?” she asked, still confused.

  “Definitely not,” Lopez said, moving her out of the way so he could take Brandt’s shoulder again. “Our only hope is to get the hell out of here.”

  Without a car or finding a closer exit than the outpost, how exactly were they going to do that?

  * * *

  Adrenaline coursed through Brandt’s veins, dulling the sharp pain of his ribs and lessening the ache in his heart. He’d actually gotten his feet to work, helping the men to carry his weight so they could move faster. However, that wasn’t exactly going as planned as they ran through a veritable rainstorm. The water pooled in the street, creating a briny obstacle.

  Fire, apparently not wanting to feel left out, splattered down around them. If you were hit, your only option was to ditch the piece of clothing on fire. What damage would be wrought once they ran out of clothes to protect their skin?

  Brandt didn’t have time to think about that as Talli stumbled from a building, a gash still bleeding on his forehead. The man looked up to the white fire raging above them to the water falling from the ceiling.

  “What happened?” he asked groggily.

  No one answered him because, really, did it matter? Talli must have agreed because he just fell in line as they rushed toward the rally point. And they may have made it except a huge chunk of roof blew out as a geyser of water sprayed into the cavern.

  If the city was already dissolving, now it was full-on melting.

  Another huge portion of the ceiling blew out, and a third chunk flew by so closely they
had to duck as it slammed into a shop, as water pummeled them, not just pooling in the streets but making the passage a veritable river.

  So great. Now they could die by fire, drowning, or being crushed to death.

  Take your pick.

  * * *

  From atop the SUV, Davidson watched the others as they splashed their way to the vehicle. The water was rising fast. As fast as the roof was crumbling. Where fire had been pushed down by the debris it burned brightly, eternally really as long as it had oxygen. Not fazed at all by the gaining floodwaters.

  Must be nice to be magnesium.

  If anything it burned even more brightly underwater like party favors in a pool.

  Davidson had taken to the highest ground he could. And since the buildings were now floating away that left the SUV, and even the roof of that was not necessarily all that safe anymore. Not with the water levels rising every second.

  The bulk of the roof of the cavern still held, but for how long? He didn’t have much time to contemplate as the group neared barely ahead of a rush of water. Rebecca scrambled up onto the SUV’s bumper, using it to hop up onto the hood of the car.

  “Help me,” she pleaded as she turned back to Brandt.

  “What’s wrong?” Davidson asked, joining her.

  “He’s been shot seven times,” Rebecca answered matter-of-factly.

  Lopez snorted, “Yeah, but which one of us hasn’t?”

  Davidson took one of Brandt’s shoulders from the corporal and helped haul the sergeant onto the car. Up close and personal everyone’s injuries became more obvious. No one was unmarked.

  “Hurry!” Talli shouted, however the roar of the upcoming wave kind of warned them what was coming.

  He couldn’t even make sure Brandt was secured when Bunny’s foot slipped off of the bumper. Davidson lashed a hand out, catching her before she went down. Talli helped him get Bunny up onto the hood of the car, which was as far up as they could get before the surge hit.

  The crash of water sent everyone sprawling. Davidson grabbed a hold of the windshield wiper with one hand, the other anchoring Bunny. Gasping as the salty water receded, Davidson shook the moisture from his hair, smiling. The band was back together. They could figure out a way out.