Then, from the smoke behind them... “I’m right here, bitch.”
CHAPTER 73
HARLAN - THE FIRE SHE STARTED
The second I heard her voice, my heart stopped. “I’m right here, bitch.”
Time stuttered. Froze. Then cracked wide open.
Remi stepped out of the smoke like a ghost raised from fire and fury. She looked half-dead and twice as dangerous, blood on her hip, dirt streaked across her jaw, hair tangled from the fight. But it was her eyes that landed the blow.
Dead calm. Sharp. Vengeful.
Ava gasped beside me; the sound caught between a sob and a prayer. I felt her entire body tense, then tremble. She was still on her knees, arms shaking beneath her. Her breathing had become shallow and choppy. Too fast.
Panic.
I dropped my hand low, brushing my knuckles against her hair, trying to ground her. “Breathe, baby,” I whispered. “In. Out. You’re safe.”
She clung to my voice but didn’t look up.
Gray, on his knees ten feet ahead, lifted his chin as Remi appeared. His face was ghost-white under the blood, his eyes glassy with pain, but when he saw her, his expression cracked wide open into something feral.
A grin. The kind that said: ‘Now it’s over for you’.
“Drop your weapon, Voss,” Remi said, steady as hell.
Her voice didn’t shake. But I saw the strain in her shoulders. The way her left hand hovered near her side, just barely brushing the spot where blood still poured, sluggish and dark. She was holding herself together with nothing but spite and fire.
Erin flinched. Her aim didn’t lower, but I saw the twitch. Bishop’sstance shifted beside me again, edging a step left, like he could get a cleaner line on Remi. I mirrored him, blocking him, ready to move.
“Got a death wish, Carter?” Erin spat.
“No,” Remi replied. “I’ve got a bullet with your name on it.”
And fuck me if she didn’t mean it. She wasn’t here for a standoff. She wasn’t here to scare Voss. She was here to end it.
I wanted to scream. To run to her. To drag her behind cover, force her to live, but she wouldn’t go. I knew it. She’d walked through fire every day. Now she was aiming to be the one to put that fire out.
Beside me, Ava exhaled a ragged sound, hand gripping her ribs where Erin had struck her. Her face was twisted in pain and grief. She looked up finally, tears streaking down ash-covered cheeks.
“She can’t do this alone,” she rasped.
“She’s not alone,” I said. And even I didn’t know if I meant the three of us... or what was coming next.
Because that sound, the one we thought was thunder, was changing.
The vibrations under my boots were steady now. Controlled. Closer.
Engines.
The tremble in the ground shifted... then stopped.
They’d arrived.
Remi’s eyes flicked toward the tree line, just barely. She knew something was happening. Had she timed it? Planned for this? Or had she come in ready to stand between Ava and any threat without a plan?
Erin’s eyes narrowed. “You think this is gonna change anything? That this shit will matter?”
