Page 14 of Crossfire Creek Siege

The rifle twitched toward him. Gage hurled the laser gun as hard as he could. It spun end over end, smacking into the attacker’s shoulder with a dull thunk.

The man ducked, instinctively, half a second of reaction. And that was all Gage needed.

He charged.

Gage slammed into the guy, momentum and desperation doing the rest. The impact knocked the breath out of him. He hit the ground hard, the weight of the bigger man crashing down on his chest.

And the guy sure as hell didn’t stay still. He moved like a freight train. Fast, brutal, trained. A knee slammed into Gage’s ribs, and stars burst behind his eyes. He shoved back, twisting, but the man was all muscle and momentum.

The attacker swung, his gloved fist catching Gage across the jaw. Pain detonated along his face. Gage countered, driving an elbow into the man’s side. It barely made a dent. The bastard grunted, shifted, and tried to pin Gage’s arms.

Adrenaline and instinct took over. Gage rolled, using the man’s weight to his advantage, half-crawling, half-dragging them both across the floor. His bad shoulder screamed as he fought to get leverage. The stink of sweat, smoke, and burning rubber mixed in the air. Thick, choking, metallic.

He got one arm free, slammed his fist into the man’s throat. The attacker coughed, staggered, but came back swinging. Gage ducked the punch, grabbed a jagged piece of debris from the floor. A shard of metal from a broken tool cart. And Gage jammed it upward, catching the man across the face.

The thug reeled back with a roar, blood dark against his cheek. Gage lunged, driving forward again, but before he could finish it, another sound cut through the chaos. A sharp grunt.

Rena.

Gage whipped his head around in time to see another attacker charging her from the shadows. The guy hit her full force, tackling her to the ground. Her gun went skidding across the floor. She fought back, kicking, twisting, but he was heavier, pressing her down, trying to pin her arms.

Shots rang out. Close, deafening. Muzzle flashes strobed the smoke. Gage couldn’t tell who was firing, couldn’t think past the roar in his ears.

Noah was moving fast, limping hard, dragging Lily behind him toward cover. He shoved her behind an overturned crate, putting his body between her and the fight. Owen was already firing from the far corner, his weapon barking in controlled bursts, forcing two more gunmen to dive for cover behind a stack of training tires.

With his pulse pounding in his ears, Gage turned back to his attacker. The man was recovering, pushing to his feet, face twisted with rage.

Gage spat blood, squared his stance, and lifted his fists. “Come on, then,” he muttered.

The guy did. He came at Gage again, wild now, swinging heavy and fast. Gage ducked the first blow, but the second caught him across the side of the head, hard enough to make his vision spark white. He stumbled back, boots slipping in something spilled on the floor.

The bastard didn’t let up. Another punch drove into Gage’s ribs, then another. Pain roared through his side, stealing his breath. He dropped low, muscles screaming, and rammed his shoulder, his bad one, into the man’s gut. The jolt nearly blinded him, but it worked. The attacker grunted, staggered, and Gage surged upward with everything he had left.

They hit the floor again. Gage rolled first this time, adrenaline overriding pain. His hand brushed cold metal. The fallen rifle. He grabbed it, swung it around, and pulled the trigger.

The gun kicked, sharp and final. The man jerked once, then went still.

Gage stayed crouched, breathing hard, the world narrowing to ringing ears and the smell of gunpowder. His body was shaking, way too many parts of him hurting like hell, but he turned immediately, scanning for Rena.

She was ten feet away, down on one knee, her attacker still on her. The man tried to press her down again, snarling something guttural, but Rena wasn’t losing.

Her steel-toed boot shot up between his legs, hard enough that Gage winced just watching it. The guy folded with a strangled grunt, and before he could recover, Rena snatched her Glock from the floor and fired point-blank.

The shot cracked through the smoke. The attacker dropped, motionless.

Rena stayed frozen for a second, her chest rising and falling fast, the faint tremor of adrenaline running through her arms. Then she looked over at Gage, eyes meeting his through the haze. Steady, fierce, alive.

“Nice timing,” he rasped, wiping blood from his mouth.

“Could say the same,” she shot back.

Gunfire still rumbled from the far end of the hangar, but for a heartbeat, the two of them just breathed, surrounded by the wreckage, alive when they shouldn’t be.

Footsteps.

Dozens of them, closing fast, steady, and coordinated. Gage spun toward the sound, pulse slamming against his ribs. The echoes bounced off the hangar walls, overlapping until it was impossible to count how many, but he knew. At least a dozen. Maybe more.

He caught movement through the haze, a smaller figure scrambling from cover near the stacked crates. One of the kids. Gage’s gut turned to ice. A gunman broke from the shadows, raising his rifle, closing the distance.