by Angela White
8
“Ready?”
“You know it.”
Kenn was waiting for the last rays to fade from the sky, wanting to be sure Adrian was searching the darkness for their signal.
“You’re sure this will work?”
“Oh, yeah. We all have fond memories of it.”
Kevin didn’t question further, ready to swing the object that Kenn had made from hollowing out a bone with his knife. It had taken an hour of careful work, but they’d had time to kill. Kevin had been fascinated as the graying animal leg became a caller.
“Go.”
Kevin drew back to swing.
“Adriaaaaannnnn!”
Kevin and Kenn both flinched, and the caller fell to the ground without echoing a single howl.
“Pllleease stop!”
The pain-filled scream echoed over the deserted streets and tunnels in bright, glaring sound fed through various radios and speakers. The result was a city that cried.
“Damn.” Kenn sat up and began gathering their things.
“Where are you going?”
“We, rookie. That’s bait to bring Adrian in. We have to get to the compound in time to help.”
“Cooonnneeerrr!”
9
“That’s my mother.”
Conner didn’t scream or demand that Adrian save her. He just cried. Deep, heaving sobs of guilt and misery, they were the sounds of a little boy who wants his mom more than anything else in the world.
Angela couldn’t take much of it, she knew her limits, but apparently, Adrian’s were lower than her own.
“You two stay with him, and follow,” Adrian ordered. Adrian met Kyle’s eye with an intense look of trust and pride. “I’ll see you there, Eagle.”
Kyle nodded. “Yes, you will.”
Adrian knelt down in front of Conner and gently pulled the sobbing child into his arms. “I forgive you everything, and so does she.”
Conner cried harder, and Adrian hugged him tight for a brief moment before pushing him back. “I need you to lead them around the guards and be ready to take a ride. Can you do that?”
Conner wiped at his face, but didn’t dare to hope. “Yes.”
“Good. Get them there quickly or none of us will make it out.”
Adrian vanished, and Angela waved at Kyle. “I’ll take a few minutes with him. It’ll be short, but I want to pull my weight, too.”
Kyle didn’t argue, suddenly feeling better. Adrian would meet up with their team, who Kyle was sure were sheltered around Garret’s compound. He wouldn’t have to go in alone, but even if he did, Kyle wasn’t worried. Watching his son cry like that had hurt Adrian. Someone would pay for the feeling. It was a reaction that Kyle knew well.
Angela loaded the wounded teenager onto her back, glad to feel no actual pain in her shoulder. There was a sensation of pressure, but it didn’t hurt, and that meant she really was recovered.
“Take the alley to your right,” Conner instructed. “I know a shortcut so we can be close enough to hear, even if we can’t see what’s happening.”
Angela did as he said. That was almost enough for her. Better, would be being at Adrian’s side for the fight, but like Kyle, she understood she wasn’t needed. Adrian’s pride was on the line here, and their leader had an abundance of that. He wouldn’t let it be marred with this failure.
10
“Who is that?” Daryl asked, mentally wincing each time the scream sounded.
The snake women didn’t answer. They were grabbing things and fleeing.
Daryl shook his head when Billy would have stopped them. “It isn’t their fight anymore.”
That drew frowns and understanding. The snake women knew a good moment to run when they heard it.
“Just us, boys,” Billy cracked, getting set to roll as if nothing had gone wrong. “Everyone ready to kick ass?”
A loud cheer echoed, drawing female attention. Now that they were no longer being held by the women or the effects of the drugs, the Eagles had returned. Men stood straight, faces determined, hearts and minds meeting in one goal–to get their people and their leader back, and then to get the hell out of here.
A few of the snake women were muttering among themselves, realizing they’d discounted the men but shouldn’t have. Between the two groups, they now outnumbered the Major’s men, if only by a small margin.
Nuna saw the looks of her girls and shrugged. “If you wish to die this way, I find no dishonor in it.”
That sent them back to the packing, and Nuna threw the men a satisfied glower. They weren’t stealing her women, and if she couldn’t have the soft male avoiding her stare, she didn’t want to help any of them, for any reason.
“Move out, Eagles.”
The team vanished into the darkness, each man following the single reflective light on the back of the jacket ahead of them. It was the flag, and all of them glowed faintly for this purpose.
Behind them, the snake women also disappeared into the darkness, but they went west out of the city. Let the men keep fighting. The women wanted only to survive.
Chapter Twenty-Four
1
“It’s not working.” Hudson said, bored and tired of making the drugged woman hurt enough to rise through the fog for a long scream. He didn’t mind torture, but this wasn’t fun. It was baby cuts and twisting points, when he wanted to stab.
“Once more and we’ll break for a few minutes,” Garret conceded. He’d been so sure...
Hudson obligingly twisted the blade.
“Nnnooooooooo!”
This hoarse shout of agony was enough to make even Hudson cringe. He’d hit a vein.
Hudson quickly compressed it and began tying a lace around her wrist so that she wouldn’t bleed out yet.
Garret’s office was just another storage room, filled with boxes and crates. There was a wide desk in the far corner, near a door that led to his personal residence. In that luxuriously decked out room was a single window and door. Garret liked having multiple escape routes.
Garret picked up the mike. “In ten minutes, we’ll start again. Bring my son and we’ll trade. Ten minutes, Mitchel...if she doesn’t bleed out before then.”
Silence.
The Major shook off the shadow of fate I make my own! and sneered at Hudson, “Go rape something. I’ll call when I need you.”
Garret wasn’t happy about Lenore’s treatment, but they had all disliked Embry, so there hadn’t been a punishment, only words–which were sometimes enough. In this case, Hudson’s spirits were renewed. He’d told Lenore to be waiting for him after the battle, and if she wasn’t, he would get the fun of hunting her down. Life was just wonderful.
Hudson opened the door to find someone standing there. He stumbled backward and barely stopped himself from swinging.
Cara shoved her way into the room. “He’s coming! I saw him.”
Cara looked like she’d been running, maybe from the very men who’d provided the distraction for Adrian’s escape, and Garret didn’t question her presence.
Cara didn’t look at the woman in the chair, though she knew who Shannon was. Still mourning the loss of her mate, Cara held no sympathy. If Shannon had been a fighter, it might have made a difference, but she was only a corpse waiting to be made.
Garret waved Hudson toward the other door. “Be ready.”
“Do you feel death here, darling?”
Garret jerked, startled. He turned to find the once stunning blonde staring at him with cold hatred.
Shannon leaned her head back, taking shallow breaths to control her flipping stomach. “When he gets here, I won’t be the only one to bleed out.”
Garret saw that her tie had come undone and blood was running freely down her arm. He moved to replace it, not wanting Adrian to find her dead. He had to see it happen.
Even battered, Shannon was still beautiful, and Garret ran a rough finger down her cheek. “Why couldn’t you just be loyal to me?”
She slowly opene
d her sunken eyes, bracing. “Why couldn’t you let me go to the man I love?”
Instead of a blow, the Major chuckled. “Because he wanted you, too, of course. I couldn’t allow him happiness. You never mattered, except as a way to get to him.”
Shannon already knew that. She’d come to terms with it a long time ago. “Conner’s with his father now. That’s all I ever wanted.”
“Conner is dying in an alley somewhere from my bullet!” Garret shouted.
Shannon screamed, this one carrying an inner pain that Hudson hadn’t been able to draw from her.
“Motion sensors are going off, Major.”
Garret went to the screen and saw multiple alarms flashing in silent warning. Three in the rear, one in the front and six more on their weakest side.
“Back together, are we?” Garret muttered. “Good.”
Cara lingered by the window, tensed for battle. She’d come to salvage what she could for her women, but the Major wasn’t in a giving mood right now. She needed leverage.
Bang! Bang!
The gunfire was followed by footsteps thudding up the stairs.
“We’ve lost the outer perimeter.”
The guard that informed them of that placed himself between the Major and the door, but not until he was directed to do so.
Bang!
This shot was louder, deeper, and came from the rear of the building.
“They’re in the compound!”
“All men to full alert!”
Radios blared with panic, and the Major didn’t bother to calm anyone. If they followed their training, they were still likely to die. Mitchel wasn’t one to take prisoners.
More feet stomped hurriedly up the stairs, and the Major braced for Adrian’s entry. He’d never hated anyone as much.
The door flew open, and Garret saw the person’s enraged face an instant before Hudson fired.
Bang!
Bang!
Only one body thumped to the floor, and the Major chuckled cruelly as Hudson screamed in denial. Talk about irony.
2
Kenn grinned at the sight of Adrian marching through the alley. The smile grew when the rest of the mission team appeared behind him, pointing and laughing in relief.
Adrian didn’t slow, and his men fell in, ready to help him express his displeasure.
As he neared the now unguarded, unlocked back door, Kenn paused. “How do you want to do this?”
Adrian took the extra gun from Kenn’s holster and stepped inside. “Kill them all.”
“Yeah,” Kenn laughed as the battle shield descended over his mind. “That works.”
They ran up the stairs together, over bodies that made them frown in confusion, but there wasn’t time to stop as Garret’s hunters rounded the corner and began firing at them.
“We have a group in the west hall!” one of the hunters shouted into his mike.
Adrian promptly shot him in the head.
Kenn hit the man next to him, and the group of hunters fled down a different hall.
“What the hell...”
Daryl shrugged it off and moved up the lantern-lit stairs on Kenn’s heels, vaguely wondering where Kyle was.
They moved through wooden halls stripped of carpets, paintings, curtains, and anything else that could have bene used to start a fire. In the top corners were dark cameras that they had expected to have to shoot out. Why wasn’t Garret watching for them?
Adrian didn’t pause when they reached the only closed door. One kick sent it banging against the wall for a short glimpse before it slammed closed.
Now, he slid to the side, the images burned into his mind. A bloody Shannon in the chair, three men lined up behind her, but in front of Garret, who was standing at his desk, gun in hand.
Adrian concentrated. What else had he seen?
“Come on in, Mitchel! It’s time we settled this.”
Adrian motioned the Eagles to stay clear of the door, not sure if Garret remembered how he used to set the enemy up by shooting through the walls on each side of a door. It was much more effective than wasting harmless shots through a peephole.
Adrian slid in front of the door, still working the scene. What else had been in the room? Chairs...stacks of books...gun on the floor...a dark puddle under the desk. Garret was wounded.
“Looks like you had an accident,” Adrian called cheerfully.
“There was a...domestic issue as you arrived. It’s over now.” Garret’s answering tone was strained.
Adrian used his boot to slowly push the door open, spotting the body of a woman he didn’t know, and a hunter crouched over her in grief.
“Lenore wasn’t happy about her rapist not being punished. She chose to give herself justice and it backfired.”
Adrian thought of the dozen bodies they’d passed on the way up here. “She got her money’s worth. You’re short two full teams, thanks to her aim.”
“Really?” The Major frowned. “I’m sorry I killed her then. That type of shooting is worth an effort.”
Garret sighed regretfully. “Much too late now. I only need you, anyway.”
“And Conner,” Adrian reminded.
Garret glanced toward the door, expecting the boy to limp in. When there was no movement, he frowned. “Where is he?”
“Dead,” Adrian stated bitterly. “Because of the drugs, I couldn’t save him!”
Garret snarled in denial, but it was lost under Shannon’s scream. She lunged from the chair, grabbing the gun Lenore had dropped when Garret shot her. “I hate you!”
Garret ducked as she fired, but the battered woman had counted on his reaction. Her shot went too low, however, hitting the edge of the desk and taking his hat from his bald head with the ricochet.
Barely able to see, Shannon raised the barrel and fired again.
Bang!
Hudson took the opportunity to back out of the room through the Major’s private door as gunshots echoed.
Hudson ran through their fleeing, chaotic compound, thinking he was on the wrong side. Mitchel’s men were loyal to him because he cared about their lives. Garret’s men stayed from fear or greed, and Hudson recognized the moment. He’d had enough.
Hudson was dry, devoid of humor and imagination, the Major would have said. Just a crew girl, Lenore had inspired strange feelings in Hudson, ones he’d been careful to hide. And he had been extremely patient waiting for his turn.
Unable to love, Garret had underestimated Hudson’s emotional stability, continuing to laugh as Lenore bled out. In that moment, his bond with the Major had snapped.
“Hudson!”
He ignored the call for help. The days of coming when summoned were over.
Hudson stepped over the bodies he was certain had come from Lenore–she’d certainly tried to wipe Garret out–and continued toward the dam. He would set things off early, and go out with a bang.
The furious explosives man headed back to the place he’d been happiest, before Lenore was shot and the future began to appear so grim. Let the Major and his quarry fight it out. What did he care? There was only one thing that would comfort him now, and Hudson moved that way with freedom ringing in his heart.
He wasn’t bound to the Major anymore! It was a dangerous, powerful feeling, and he was sorry he wouldn’t get a chance to grow bored of it. Where he was headed, he wouldn’t return from.
3
Daryl fired at the pair of bounty hunters coming up the stairs and ducked behind the wall as they responded in kind.
Another group of men had them pinned down across the hall from Adrian. They were keeping the Major’s guards from reaching him, but they couldn’t help their leader, either.
“I hate you!”
The voice came from a dim hall that was alive with gunfire.
It’s almost over, Daryl concluded, firing again as an unlucky hunter popped his head around the corner. We’re almost finished.
“Look out!” Billy yelled.
Daryl threw himself to the floor as
the wall exploded.
Grenade, he thought dizzily, ears ringing.
“Come on!” Billy shouted, grabbing his arm.
Daryl helped push himself along, everything distorted and painful to his burning ears.
“Stay down until it wears off!”
Daryl crouched at Billy’s feet, clumsily reloading as blood trickled down his neck.
The room they were in was stacked with metal barrels of ammunition that the Eagles dug into without grins at the find. There wasn’t time for it.
Ping! Pop!
Booomm!
The wall across from them exploded, sending shrapnel through the air.
Daryl grunted as Billy shoved him down, and felt something slam into the brick above him.
“Die, damn you! Die!” a woman screamed.
Kenn directed the Eagles toward the door. “Let’s clean house while Adrian does the same.”
Savage agreement came as the team reloaded, getting into formation. They would roll through the Major’s compound as if they owned it. When it was over, they would.
Kenn raised a hand, waiting for Daryl to give a shaky nod.
“Go! Go! Go!”
4
“Die, damn you! Die!” Shannon screamed at the coward who’d hurt her so much.
Adrian let her pull the trigger. He’d already counted and knew what would happen.
Click!
Shannon flung the empty gun at Garret. “Ahh!”
The Major stood up, remembering to breathe. “You’ll be hunted animals as soon as I call the bunker!”
“You won’t be alive to see it!” Shannon sneered.
Adrian placed a light hand on her arm. “Would you like me to carry the load?”
Shannon’s face tightened. “I’ve got the new sickness, the one they let out during the war. Knowing I killed him will make my last weeks tolerable.”
Adrian’s heart broke as he slid his knife into her hand.
Trapped, Garret once again became dangerous. “Don’t count on so long, Shan!”
“Just as long as you die, pig!” Shannon threw the knife as Garret tossed his hidden weapon.
“No!” Adrian lunged for her, but it was too late.