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“But that’s slowing them down,” he said, “so there’s plenty of time for you and me to prepare a little surprise for them. And my team’s coming in behind them, so they’re going to find themselves enveloped in a trap.”
“Oh?” I asked. “It looks like it’s just you, Sunny.”
“No,” he disagreed. He shone the flashlight in my face again, blinding me, and I ducked away from the light. “It’s you and me.”
Still, he let out a groan of frustration as he pressed his hands to his temples, the gun still gripped in his hand. No matter what he said, he didn’t seem like his new plan was going too well forhim, now that the plan he’d spent five years putting into place had crumbled into dust.
Then, he flashed the light around again, an eerie smile coming over his face in the reddish glow of the flashlight.
He grabbed my arm and tried to yank me up from the bed. I let out a cry of pain as his fingers wrenched deep into my skin, because my legs wouldn’t straighten underneath me. It was like my limbs were made of noodles after all the drugs they’d given me.
“You’re not going to be any use to them, are you?” he chuckled, before dragging me over his shoulder. He staggered with me through the darkness.
Carter
I watched with coiled impatience as the ordnance team disarmed the booby trap. It was a crude, but deadly setup, wires strung haphazardly. Every tick of time that passed felt like an eternity, knowing Kennedy was somewhere in this hellhole.
“Careful,” I heard someone mutter, their voice barely more than a whisper. The team moved with surgical precision, snipping wires and disarming mechanisms. It was hard to see what was happening through the eerie glow of the night vision goggles.
All I could do was stand there, clenched fists at my sides, feeling useless.
“Trap’s clear,” one of them finally said, and relief surged through me, replaced by a fresh wave of urgency. We needed to move, now.
As we advanced, my boots were silent on the concrete floor, all my senses on high alert.
Gunfire erupted from the shadows, bullets ricocheting off metal and concrete with deafening clangs.
Then a smoke bomb hissed. Gray smoke filled the air, blinding us, and I suppressed a cough as I took cover. More shots were pinging around us, but they were as blind as we were.
“Push up!” I yelled, my voice husky from the smoke.
Two of Cain’s men signaled as they moved past, taking a position ahead and to the right to lay down covering fire. They disappeared into the smoke, but as long as I moved left, we should be able to leapfrog forward and lay down covering fire without walking into our own bullets.
“Going with you,” Greyson muttered, his own voice foreign and harsh in the smoke. “Covering fire!”
The two of us rushed forward. I banged into something in the smoke, something big enough to hide behind, and grabbed Greyson’s arm to yank him down too.
A muzzle flash, orange in all the gray, betrayed the shooter’s position. I tapped Greyson’s shoulder in silent communication. “I’ve got him.”
Greyson called to Cain’s men to hold so we wouldn’t rush into the path of their bullets.
“Cover me,” I told him.
As Greyson fired off bursts from his automatic rifle, I made my move, darting forward. I went wide and left, staying out of the path of potential friendly fire and trying to get wide of the shooter.
I found the shooter crouched behind an overturned desk. I was almost on top of him before I could see him through the smoke. As his head swiveled toward me, my finger tightened on the trigger, putting two shots in his body. He jerked back, his gun flying from his hand.
And then I raised my gun and fired one final bullet through his head.
I didn’t feel anything. Not now, not when all this was for Kennedy.
“Clear,” I called, scanning for more threats, already turning and moving forward.
And as I did, the smoke cleared…
And I saw Kennedy.
She was slumped over in a chair. Her brown hair hung all around her face, tangled, and she was so still…
