‘Let me come too,’ Roman says intently.‘You have extra gun.I can help.’
Lachlan hands it to him, but says, ‘Stay with them.’He’s impressed that Roman doesn’t argue.The boy holds the gun well.‘Jules, I’ll be back soon.’
‘What if you’re not?’
Lachlan grits his teeth.‘Iwillbe.’
‘What if you die?’
‘We all die eventually,’ he says, cracking a grin as he tightens his tourniquet, swallows the wince because holy fucking shit, that took his breath away.‘Maybe you’ll b-be rid of me sooner than you think.’
It’s a stab in the dark to offer a little levity and Lachlan doesn’t hang around to see how it lands.He leaves the kids in a room that has a solid vantage point from the door, and takes his three units with him, communicating in silence.
It’s refreshing not to have to keep stopping for the kids.
Along the way, they start to encounter hostiles.
One by one they take them out in silence,neck smilesfor all, throats wide open, weapons collected, ammo, even knives.Two are wearing decent Kevlar.Lachlan takes one for himself, gives the other to the best of the three.
Triage is always tough, but Lachlan knows his priorities.
When he gets close enough to see the door of the Cove, he falls silent, assessing.They’re trying to cut through the steel to get inside, must think that’s where Jules is.
This is by far the most exposed he’s been since he realised the frequency was jammed but there’s no other angle from which to attack.He spies a half decent choke point, a narrow little room in which he could front a bottleneck, but they wouldn’t follow him in, they’d toss a flashbang.
In silence, he signals to his three.
Take them all out with headshots.Avoid the windows.
Lachlan disconnects his heart from his brain.
These three people are probably going to die.
Count the rings in a cut-down tree.
One.
Two.
Three.
He opens fire, methodical and precise, goes for the visors.
Bang.Bang.Bang.
The return fire is immediate and severe.
They’re outnumbered four to one.
Lachlan stays calm, waits for an opening crafted when one of his three throws cover fire, then he gets on his stomach, aims and fires from the lowest place to use the floor as aim-assist because his arm is going numb, his fingers can’t feel.Lower than the toads,his mom used to say when he’d lie like this in the grass, pretending to be a soldier.Lachlan takes out six more until his semi-automatic clicks empty and he abandons it.
Two of his three are dead.
The one he gave the Kevlar to is still alive.
He signals to her in silence, can hear footsteps approaching.They’ll take them out from either side, spray aimedupso as not to hit one another.The first five that come through go down easy but the ones from behind are smart, they start shooting through the walls.Lachlan moves back in time, but his third wasn’t quick enough.
Her wounded cry is cut off by a headshot.
