The empty space burns.
Then she runs straight back into the smoke.
My heart stops.
“HANNAH!”
I go after her without thinking.
Because thinking is done.
Thinking belongs to men who still have choices.
I don’t.
Not with her.
Never with her.
I catch up as she drops beside the wounded woman, already pressing both hands over the bleeding.
“Can you walk?” Hannah asks.
The woman sobs. “I don’t—I don’t know—”
“You can,” Hannah says, voice shaking but firm. “Because I need you to. Right now.”
A red laser slices through the smoke.
Across the floor.
Up the crate.
Toward Hannah.
Everything inside me turns cold.
I fire once.
The sniper position above the loading dock sparks, a shadow jerking backward into darkness.
“Now,” I growl.
Hannah hooks the woman’s good arm over her shoulder.
I grab the woman’s other side, hauling them both up.
We stagger back toward the boiler room.
Bullets follow us.
One hits close enough that heat kisses the side of my neck.
Hannah flinches.
I shove her behind me and return fire blind into the haze.
“Clay!” Russ roars from the doorway.
