Blaze (38 page)

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Authors: Joan Swan

BOOK: Blaze
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Keira fired. The man jerked, screamed, rolled off Seth. Lifted the handgun. Keira took aim at his head and squeezed her trigger. His head hit the cement. Arm fell to his side. Gun clattered against the concrete. Teague stepped in and swept up the weapon.
Peripherally, she registered Cash, standing off to the side, staring. Mixed emotions swirled from him like a hurricane. He wasn't quite sure about all of them. All of this. Keira understood. Neither was she.
Keira dropped to one knee at Seth's side. “Are you hit?”
“No.” He was breathing hard, his eyes wide and shining demon green in her night vision, his face splattered with blood. “No, I'm . . . okay.” He rolled to his feet. “Let's get the fuck out of here.”
TWENTY
L
uke's heart nearly leaped out of his chest when he rounded the corner where he'd heard the last gunshots.
With his subgun up and scanning, he took in the murky green scene. The bodies on the ground. His heart iced over. “Ours or theirs?”
Not Keira. Please not Keira.
“Theirs.” Teague's voice.
A shallow breath puffed from his lungs. He didn't lower the gun but relaxed his grip and scanned faces and body structure more closely. Cash's civilian clothing registered, but Luke didn't relax until he'd located Keira. In one piece. On her own two feet. Breathing.
Relief rolled up his throat.
“There's more coming,” Kai said from behind him. “Let's get out.”
“Keira—” Cash took hold of her arm. “What about Q?”
“He wasn't in his cell,” Luke said. “And it had been tossed, like someone was looking for something.”
“Sonofabitch.” Cash dropped Keira's arm; his gaze fell to the floor.
“Come on.” Luke stood to the side of the corridor to allow the others to pass, waving his gun. “Out. Go.” When Cash passed, Luke gripped his upper arm. “You, wait.”
He popped open his fatigue jacket, slid his arms out, jerked at the straps of his vest, and pulled it over his head.
Keira turned. “What are you doing?”
“He needs this more than I do.”
Her expression softened for an instant before solidifying again. She nodded once.
“I'm not taking his—” Cash started.
“Put it on, Cash.” Her voice took on an impatient bite.
He followed orders, scowling with discontent. Luke didn't blame the guy. If the situation were reversed, he wouldn't want to take another soldier's vest, either.
Only ten yards away from the entrance to the tunnel, the familiar boot-beat sounded from both ahead and behind.
Trapped. Their only chance was to beat the guards to the entrance.
A group of four came into sight ahead of them, at equal distance to the exit as their team. Luke yelled, “Go, go, go!”
Fifty feet from the entrance, the enemy quad skidded to a stop. One of them counted, “One, two, three.” All four drew their arms back.
The future fast-forwarded through Luke's mind—the toss, the explosion, the carnage.
His feet pushed, legs pumped. He opened his arms and slammed into Keira, Cash, and Seth. They, in turn, shoved Mitch, Teague, and Kai into the mouth of the final tunnel, and out of the direct line of fire.
Still, that wouldn't be enough. Not near enough.
Shhh-thump . . . shhh-thump . . . shhh-thump . . . shhh-thump
sounded nearly simultaneously. Then a rain of
clink-clink-clink. . . clink-clink-clink . . .
Luke's stomach went cold. “Run!”
He sprinted past the exit tunnel's opening, past his team, scrambling for traction on the cement floor. He dropped his weapon, set his stance wide, and stretched his arms overhead until he was a human X blocking the corridor.
The blast hit him with the force of a hurricane. Heat seared with the intensity of an inferno. He might not burn, but that didn't mean he didn't
feel
like his skin was being peeled off his bones. One inch at a time.
Luke turned his face from the brunt of the hit, gritted his teeth, and tensed every muscle to keep himself in place. White-hot fire flashed with each explosion, blinding him. The roar of combustion drove into his ears, spearing his brain like twin knives. Then he heard nothing but an incessant thunder rolling through his head. Every inch of his body screamed with pain. His blood boiled in every vessel, right down to the smallest capillary. He fisted his hands, let out a yowl that rumbled up from the soles of his feet.
The only thing keeping him holding on was the fact that not one spark made it past him. His team—his family, his friends, the love of his life—was safe.
When the explosion ebbed, the fire found nothing to gnaw but cement, and the flames quickly died. As quickly as Luke's energy evaporated.
His legs gave. He dropped to the ground, landed on the cement knees-first with a painful
crack
, then fell forward, turning his head just in time to avoid smashing every front tooth. His cheek hit the concrete instead, and a
snap
sounded near his ear. Pain radiated through the side of his face. A telltale signal of a cracked cheekbone, temple, or jaw. Which also verified what his body was already telling him—his powers had been drained.
“Luke!” Despite the urgency in Keira's voice, it seemed to be filtered through a pillow. “Pick up your weapon. Luke!”
Distantly, pops echoed in his ears. Gunshots? The cement vibrated beneath his cheek. Footsteps?
Luke! Please! Fight!
He couldn't tell if she was projecting, if he was reaching, or if he was just hallucinating. But it didn't matter.
Holding his breath against the pain, he pushed up on his hands, his eyes scanning for the M14. Six inches out of reach. Six inches that may as well have been six miles.
He gritted his teeth, made one final push, and lunged for the gun.
A kick to the chest knocked him back. The kick of a bullet. An explosion ripped through the left side of his body. Followed by fire. His breath stuck in his lungs. His teeth locked together. All he could do was writhe.
Keira's voice dragged his eyes open again. He didn't know how much later. Seconds? Minutes? Couldn't have been long, because the Castle's high ceiling blurred gray-green in his night vision goggles.
She was babbling. Yelling one minute. Coddling the next. Leaning over him with an expression of such agony he was sure he had to be dying.
“Breathe, you idiot.” Keira tapped the side of his face as if trying to get him to wake up.
It worked. His lungs inflated, swamping him with a searing pain that forced a growl from the pit of his stomach.
“Come on, baby, fight. Do it for me. I need you.” Keira's hands scraped through his hair, holding his head tight as she pressed her cheek to his. Whispering in his ear. Babbling again. “. . . we can be together . . .” “. . . we can be a family, have a family . . .” “. . . I can't lose you . . .” “. . . we'll find a way, Luke . . .”
He couldn't make sense of anything. His brain faded in and out. Pain shot nausea into his gut.
“Teague!” The nervous edge to her voice was not reassuring. She pressed her hand against the left side of his chest, and another stab of pain cinched his lungs.
Teague bent over him, face etched with worry. “We don't have time for this shit, Luke.”
“He's bleeding bad.” Her voice came out low, as if she were sharing a secret, but shaky with fear.
“I can hear you.” Luke kept his teeth clenched against the pain. “I'm right here.”
Teague took a deep, troubled breath. He curled and released the fingers of both hands several times. “Heat,” he said. “You're going to feel lots of heat. I'm not going to heal you. No time, I'm just going to stop the bleeding.”
“I'll . . . take what I . . . can get.”
Teague replaced Keira's palm with his own. He rested on one knee at Luke's side, head bent in concentration. Keira stood, her weapon scanning one end of the hall, then swinging to the opposite side.
Luke's vision blurred with the onslaught of lava flowing through his chest. But instead of pain, the fiery sensation brought relief. Within twenty seconds, Luke was pushing Teague's hands away and struggling to sit up.
“Guess you're feeling better.” Teague stood, put out a hand, and dragged Luke up by his good arm. “But getting you up that ladder without using that arm will be . . . entertaining.”
He couldn't say he was feeling better, only that his mind had come back from a wasteland, but it was still working like garbage.
Shouts channeled down the corridor and pushed them into action. Teague pulled Luke's good arm around his shoulders, and Keira covered their backs as they headed for the ladder. Pain lanced Luke's shoulder, chest, ribs. His whole damn upper body.
By the time they reached the end of the tunnel, Luke had the strength of a rag doll and faded in and out of consciousness. Urgent orders drifted through his clouded mind, but he didn't understand them. Keira continued to touch him, whisper, but he couldn't process.
He gave his head a hard shake, hoping to clear it. Kai started up the shaft toward the exit. Then Seth. Then Mitch.
At the top, Kai lifted the door an inch and peered out, then grunted as he pried the door up and groaned when he tried to flip it back.
“Get out of the way, lightweight,” Seth said. “You're gonna get hurt.”
Within seconds, the hatch laid wide open, stars glittering in the midnight-blue sky beyond, beckoning like a dream. Luke yearned to let go of all the physical and mental pain and just float into that tranquility.
But when Keira crossed the strap of her M14 over her chest, threw the weapon over her back, and looked at both Teague and himself with that stern warrior gaze, Luke knew there would be no tranquility in the near future. She curled her fingers around the first cold metal rung and said, “Hustle, guys.”
“Easier said than done.” Teague secured Luke against him with an arm at his waist, leaving one arm free to climb. “You're gonna have to help me out here, Luke. Push with your legs, or those guards are gonna be climbing up our asses in about sixty seconds.”
Luke fisted his hand in the shoulder of Teague's fatigue jacket, kept his injured arm tight to his side, and pushed with all the strength he had left in his legs for the awkward, treacherous climb. How he would trek across the desert back to the vehicles after this, he couldn't imagine. But he'd worry about that when the time came, because by the sound of footsteps coming up behind them, they were about to go another round with those fucking guards.
They were halfway to the top when gunfire split the air. Bullets pinged off the metal, blew chunks of slate off the wall.
Teague turned into a rocket, jetting up the remaining steps, dragging Luke with him. Pain shot the length of his torso. Cut off his air.
Return shots from overhead burst in Luke's ears, followed by multiple grunts and the immediate cessation of enemy fire.
“Grab him,” Teague called to the team above.
Oh, God, no. Don't.
A myriad of hands dove into the hole. Luke tried to brace for the pain, but it did no good. He felt as if his arms were being torn out of their sockets. As if his ribs were being peeled away one by one.
He tried not to scream. Kept the agony locked behind clenched teeth until that final show of force to drag his body over the lip of the entrance.
The pain swallowed him.
His brain went gray.
The last thing he heard before black washed over him was Mitch yelling, “Grenaaaaade!”
 
Keira dug her boots into the sandy dirt and pulled with all her strength alongside Cash, Seth, and Kai. The scream Luke finally let loose tore at her soul. By the time she had his head resting in her lap, he was unconscious and she was ready to puke from pure terror.
She'd watched those ferocious flames twine and curl around his body, trying to eat him alive. Seen his body jerk, twist, and flip when the bullet hit his chest. But the worst, the very bone-chilling, mind-altering worst, had been the spill of Luke's warm blood through her fingers as she'd tried to compress his wound.
Bile rolled toward her throat. She swallowed it back, concentrated on his warm skin under her fingers.
Teague's hands planted on the earth, and he hefted his body out of the hole in one muscled push-up. Seth and Mitch already had the doors halfway closed as he rolled out of the way.
The heavy
plunk-plunk-plunk
of metal on metal sounded as the hatch shut. A plume of gritty dirt billowed when the men dropped the steel hatch, followed by an earth-muffled series of explosions.
The ground beneath them shook so hard, Keira feared it might cave and dump them right back into that wretched tunnel. But the shaking stopped and silence rushed in, the only sound their team's heavy breathing. Each tensed, prepared for the next crisis.
“Guess that maneuver backfired.” Mitch broke the silence with his typical sarcasm. “Pun intended.”
“Teague.” Keira fought to keep her voice level. She slid her hand against Luke's neck, his pulse erratic under her fingers. “Can you do anything for him?”
Teague tore open Luke's jacket to expose his blood-soaked shirt. “You mean besides throwing him over my shoulder and carrying him to the truck?”

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