Winter Igniting

by Rebecca Zanetti

  The place might be a dump, but it would be spotless. She had to use the cleansers very sparingly, but when she was finished, the apartment smelled a little bit like lemons and bleach.

  She looked at the threadbare sofa and sighed. Yep. Still a dump. But at least it was shelter.

  Thunder cracked outside, and she jumped. What the heck? Moving for the window, she looked out. For the first time in a month, clouds rolled across the sky, partially covering the rising moon. The air electrified, charging for a lightning strike.

  So not good. They couldn’t take another fire.

  Then her gaze caught on him. Damon Winter strode toward her down the street, looking broad and deadly in the oncoming storm.

  Her breath snagged.

  The moonlight that escaped the clouds cut over his hard expression. His darker skin molded over his angled features, and in the evening light, his eyes were an amber brown. Now that was a beautiful man—in a totally badass way. He wore a black T-shirt over faded jeans with a gun fastened to one thigh, giving him that edge of danger that had called to her from the start.

  Her body did a full-on roll from head to toe and back up.

  He reached her crappy lawn area and was at the door within seconds.

  She opened it, looking up, words totally caught in her throat. Emotion slammed into her even harder than the desire that had taken her earlier, so she moved to the side and let him in, trying to regain control of herself.

  He moved inside, and his masculine scent was tinged with the smell of ginger and leather. He must’ve been wearing a knife sheath somewhere on his body.

  She shut the door and cleared her throat, turning to face him. All she wanted to do was barrel into his arms and beg him not to go. “When do you guys leave?”

  “Thirty minutes.” His voice was a low rumble. “The plan is a good one, April.”

  It had to be. He was the best, right? “I know.” She wrapped her arms around herself in a pathetic attempt to self-soothe. There were so many things she wanted to say, but none of the words came. Her feelings were so jumbled, she’d be speaking gibberish anyway.

  His gaze intensified. “I’m not asking for anything from you, but I want you to have something from me.”

  She blinked.

  “Again, just keep this in case, well…in case.” He reached into his back pocket and drew out a ring.

  She took a step back and hit the door, panic slicing through her.

  He chuckled. “Just hold it for me. If something happens, I wanted you to have something to remember me by.”

  If something happens. Something always happened these days. She sure as hell didn’t need a ring to remember Damon Winter. The man was imprinted on her from body to heart. But, a ring?

  He sighed and grasped her hand, dropping it into her palm. “This was my mom’s, and it’s all I have left. You can give it back to me when I return.” He leaned in and brushed his mouth against her frozen lips. “It has been my good-luck charm.”

  “Then you have to take it,” she burst out. He couldn’t go charmless.

  “Lena gave me a new one.” He patted his T-shirt at the chest. “I want you to have that one.”

  She looked down. The ring was white gold with a two-karat diamond surrounded by smaller sparkles. “It’s stunning.”

  “Dad knew his stones,” Damon agreed. “I never told you this, but she was the last to go. Handed over the ring and made me promise to give it to somebody worthy. Somebody she’d love.”

  No, no, no. April couldn’t look away from the stunning solitaire. “Damon.”

  His knuckles brushed beneath her chin, and he lifted her face. “It is what it is, April.” His gaze was so gentle it tore her apart. “I won’t say the words if you can’t hear them. It’s okay. I understand.”

  She couldn’t breathe. Her chest hurt. The walls started to close in like last time. “How?” she whispered.

  He released her. “How, what?”

  She shook her head, and her hair tumbled out of the clip. “How can you even think about the words? You had it all. Your entire life. A family and parents. Real parents who cared. And you lost it all. All of that.”

  His gaze softened. “Yeah.”

  “Then how? After you’ve lost everything, all of them, how can you even think of…more?” She really didn’t get it.

  “Because I had it all,” he murmured. “I know what it feels like, and I want it again, no matter how long I have.” His fingers skimmed the side of her face. “It’s that foundation that counts. Would you give away any of the minutes you had with Don or Haylee? Any of them, even if you knew you’d end up right here and right now?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, hard and fast. “No. Not a second.”

  “Exactly. It’s those times that matter, not the rest.” He leaned in and kissed her nose. “And I know the jury is out on this, but I don’t believe we’re all done. I think I’ll see them again, and I know you’ll see your baby again. Someday.”

  Faith. It was such a rare thing to find in anybody these days. Her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. “How can you believe?”

  “How can I not?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. For anything, really. This was too much, and she wasn’t him. Nobody was that strong. Only him.

  He leaned down and kissed her, his mouth gentle, and his lips firm. The kiss was a promise. Then he stepped back. “I’m trusting you to stay safe and away from the Pure church while I’m gone.”

  She swallowed. “I’m trusting you to come back.”

  With one last, long, searching look at her, he opened the door and stepped outside. The door shut quietly behind him.

  She moved to the window and watched Damon Winter walk calmly into the storm, her heart shattering.

  The storm blew in out of nowhere and impeded their trek north, but at least it kept roving bands of killers and Rippers away. They’d made good time—better than Damon had anticipated. It was already past dawn, but the sky wasn’t lightening like he’d hoped.

  He jogged across the rooftop of an office building in Reno, the stifling wind slapping against his face. Lightning zigzagged white and hot in the distance, lighting up the nearly purple clouds.

  “More fires coming,” Greyson said soberly, already stretched out on his gut with his eye to the scope of his deadly-looking rifle. His legs were relaxed, and he’d pushed a lot of the small rocks out of the way to create a nest.

  Fires were a concern for another day. Damon nodded at Quincy, who sat next to Grey as a spotter. “See anything?”

  “Negative,” Greyson said. “Except for Raze on the roof of the office building two clicks north. He’s in position and has put me in his scope more than once.”

  Damon grinned. “Just don’t shoot each other.”

  “Copy that,” Greyson said. “Unless we get bored. Then we could play a game of who gets closest.”

  Quincy snorted.

  Man, snipers had weird senses of humor. Damon clenched and unclenched his hands as the adrenaline took him over, preparing for the breach of the building. The feeling was one he was accustomed to…and he used it. Adrenaline sharpened the senses and focused the muscles. “You’ve been in place for nearly two hours. Shouldn’t there be at least one patrol on duty?”

  “Yes,” Grey said, not moving. “When I infiltrated last time, that’s how I got in. They had a rotating schedule.”

  It didn’t make sense for the Bunker soldiers to have altered their protection details because of the infiltration. They should’ve tripled them. “I don’t like this,” Damon said.

  Quincy pushed his hat back onto his head. “They know we’re coming, right? There had to be lookouts on the way with enough radio range to call in a report.” He pushed pebbles out of the way and leaned on his hand, stretching his back. “They’re waiting.”

  Yeah. That was a good possibility. But they would always be waiting, and it was time to strike. “How good is the intel that the president headed this way?”
he asked.

  “Eyewitnesses,” Greyson answered. “But that was days ago. He might be gone. But if he’s here…”

  Taking the president would be more than Damon could’ve dreamed. “If he comes out front—and you have to shoot him—don’t kill him.” It probably went against sniper training to shoot to wound, but Damon didn’t care. “We need him.”

  “Agreed,” Greyson said. “Though let’s just worry about winning this thing first.”

  Fair enough. Damon clapped him on the back and then turned around, staying low and clearing the roof before jogging down the stairwell to reach what used to be the lobby. Jax, Marcus, and two squads of soldiers waited for him.

  The other squads were approaching the casino from other directions.

  Damon took a deep breath and lifted his radio to his mouth. “We are a go.” Ducking his head, he turned and ran out into the charged air and down the street until he reached the casino. He opened part of the door, and Jax the other. The explosives team ran inside, their flashlights already lighting their way.

  He counted. One. Two. Three. Four.

  “Fire in the hole,” came over the line.

  He and Jax released the doors and hunched over. The explosion rocked the side wall, but the glass remained intact. “Go, go, go,” he ordered, turning and running full bore through the defunct casino, his boots smashing poker chips and glass.

  The demolition guys had taken their positions, their guns pointed at the gaping hole behind the blackjack tables. An almost glowing white wall showed through next to stairs. He drew his weapon and slid onto the stairwell, pointing down.

  Nothing.

  Just stairs.

  He cut Mercury a look and then started down, his shoulders relaxed, his focus absolute. He motioned soldiers in on every floor and then kept descending until he reached the very bottom where Zach Barter had said the labs were located.

  Marcus was hot on his heels.

  Where were the soldiers and scientists?

  He kicked open the bottom door and swept in with Marcus and Jax right behind him. Silence. Pure and deep silence. Flicking on his light, he swept the too-white floor and walls. Nothing. Even so, he moved forward, clearing each room until he reached an office and lab with eerie jellyfish and squid floating in thick liquid, their tanks lit from behind.

  Marcus stared at a jellyfish for a moment and then ran for the main desk, ducking and pulling some type of lever.

  A door opened in the empty wall, and lights flared down a long hallway. Cell doors were open every few yards.

  Marcus ran down the hallway, looking inside each cell.

  Damon grasped his radio. “Floor four, clear. No combatants.”

  “Four three, clear,” Tace Justice said soberly over the radio before the clear signals came from the other floors.

  “What the hell?” Jax asked, sweeping his light around.

  The radio crackled. “We have a fully stocked kitchen here,” Tace said. “They left a lot of food.”

  “The weapons lockers are empty.” Sami Steel came over the radio next. “Completely.”

  The president had prioritized weapons over food. Damon couldn’t quite blame him. “Why did they give this place up?” Had they been that afraid of fighting a Vanguard-Mercenary alliance?

  Silence surrounded him, somehow ominous.

  “We have a problem!” Marcus looked up from the very end of the hall, his body still facing the cell.

  Damon winced. He really didn’t want to deal with dead bodies right now. Keeping his gun in his hand, he moved forward with Jax, their bootsteps echoing loudly on the white tiles.

  He saw the bomb first. “Holy fuck.”

  Jax skidded to a stop. “Oh, God.”

  Damon didn’t work with explosives, but he recognized C-4 when he saw it. A lot of it. Several wires ran from the mass and up a wall, disappearing into a vent.

  “This is Sami on floor two,” came instantly over the line. “We just found a bomb in one of the food cupboards.”

  Damon stopped breathing. “When we breached, we probably started a countdown.”

  Jax’s jaw clenched. “We don’t know how many there are. Or where they are. Even if we could diffuse them…”

  Damon nodded and grabbed the radio. “Vacate the building. Grab whatever is closest to you and run. Now. Everyone vacate, now!” He turned and started running with Marcus and Jax, scooping up a laptop and a stack of papers on his way.

  Jax grabbed a hard-drive, and Marcus a box filled with papers near the door.

  They ran as fast as they could, through the halls and up the stairs, meeting other soldiers on the way. The air seemed to hold its breath.

  Damon cleared the doorway and burst over the poker chips. “Grey. Raze. Get off those buildings,” he yelled into the radio. “Explosion imminent.” Depending on the blast, their buildings could go down, too.

  Two soldiers held the doors open, and he ran through, turning left and lowering his head to increase his speed.

  Footsteps surrounded him. They almost made it to the end of the casino building.

  The earth paused. The air even stilled.

  Then the entire fucking world exploded.

  42

  I fucking hate bombs.

  —Damon Winter, Journal

  The energy released from the bombs radiated outward, the supersonic blast wave a prelude to the high-velocity shockwaves. Damon flew through the air and smashed into what used to be a parking meter. Pain flowed up his body, and he dropped to the crumbling sidewalk.

  Bodies careened by him.

  The pain of his body being compressed had barely set in before the depressurization force hit.

  He groaned and shut his eyes.

  Air rushed in to fill the atmospheric void left by the blast wave. Garbage, bricks, and stones hurtled back toward the explosion. A soldier was hurled above his head to drop several yards away.

  He gasped, trying to breathe. A car alarm went off somewhere a block or so away. An actual car alarm.

  Silence ruled for a heartbeat.

  Then the rumble of falling floors, wood, and objects filled the night as the building imploded.

  He scrambled up and looked around to make sure everyone had gotten clear. His radio was gone. Enough moonlight showed through the clouds that he could see the street.

  Jax helped Marcus up, and they stumbled toward him, blood covering their faces.

  Damon straightened, his body protesting the movement in every joint. He stretched. His ribs hurt like fuck, but he didn’t think anything else had broken. His face hurt, and he touched a new cut above his eye that was bleeding like crazy.

  Tearing off a piece of his shirt, he pressed it to the wound.

  Dirt, dust, and debris floated through the air. He coughed. “We need status on everyone.” Then he looked around. Glass had blown out of all the windows and doors on the entire block, and two of the adjacent buildings were now faceless with yawning holes in their fronts.

  Quincy rolled off the curb and then stood.

  Relief filled Damon. “You’re okay,” he gasped. “Where’s Greyson?”

  Rocks were imbedded in Quincy’s jaw, and he tugged one out, his eyes watering. A quick glance at his leg confirmed a definite fracture. “Don’t know. He’d sent me down to get the other binoculars when the warning came through.”

  Oh, God.

  Damon looked at the main office building, and his legs were moving before his brain caught up. “Grey,” he bellowed, jumping over a pile of stones and into thicker dust. The building was destroyed. There hadn’t been time between his warning and the explosion for Grey to make it all the way down.

  No answer.

  He looked wildly around, Jax on his six. “Did anybody see Greyson make it down?”

  The roof looked as if it had blown apart on its own, and half of the building was gone.

  Jax pointed toward a hole in the stairwell. “He might not have made it out of the stairs.”

  Panic shoo
k Damon, and he rushed forward, ignoring the raw pain ripping through his body. Rocks and boards blocked his way. He started throwing debris to the side, clearing one step at a time.

  Jax and Marcus bent to help him. The rocks scratched their hands, but they kept shoveling.

  A soldier jogged up with his radio. “Found this at the corner.”

  Damon jerked his head toward Jax. “Take over. Find out if everyone made it out and who’s injured and how badly. Find Tace Justice. We definitely need a medic.”

  Jax wiped blood off his cheek and took the radio, heading back to the street.

  Damon dug harder, Marcus by his side.

  A foot came into view. A Flak boot. “Greyson!” Damon targeted the rocks covering his friend, and Marcus slid next to him, grabbing a board and flinging it behind them. They worked in tandem, releasing Grey’s feet, then his legs, then his torso, and finally his head.

  Damon held his breath. Grey’s head was turned to the side. He definitely wasn’t moving. “Grey?” He couldn’t lose another brother. He just couldn’t.

  No movement.

  “Greyson?” Damon gingerly placed a hand on Grey’s chest to see if it was moving.

  Greyson reared up, scattering the remaining rocks. “What the—”

  “Grey.” Damon grabbed him for a hug. “A building fell on you.” He released him, running his hands down Grey’s arms. He winced. “This one’s broken.”

  Greyson stared at him, his eyes slowly coming back to comprehension. “Bombs?”

  Damon nodded.

  “Assholes.” Grey winced and then took inventory.

  “How bad you hurt?” Damon asked, sitting back on his ankles.

  Grey tucked his left arm in and then slowly moved his legs. “Not bad. Broken arm. Head hurts. Probably gonna piss blood for a while.”

  Damon leaned in and patted his shoulder. “Yeah. We all are.” It was a hell of an explosion.

  Jax ran up, papers in his hand. “We have a huge-ass problem.”

  Grey groaned. “When don’t we?”

  “Sami was tossing these in the truck with all the other stuff we grabbed, and this caught her eye. It ain’t good.” Jax handed over a perfectly drawn schematic of Vanguard territory. Definitely rendered by somebody on the inside.