in my chest, grief knifing me. I barely knew him, any of them, but the link to Scorpion made all that unimportant. We were tied together. It felt like losing a family member.
Suddenly I was back behind the building, Maddox and Wesley stirring, but I searched for the other. For the guy who had suddenly become so much to me.
I spotted a figure crushed under a huge chunk of cement, blood and gore splattered everywhere.
No… please, no… Vomit churned up my throat.
A groan shifted my view to another figure in the debris
“Scorpion!” Lying on his back covered in dust, rubble, and blood, his eyes bolted open, sucking in a gulp of air. His head turned, our eyes meeting.
“Kovacs?” Warwick’s voice yanked me from the link with Scorpion, swiveling my head to him. His aqua eyes narrowed on me, like what the hell is going on with you?
“They’re okay.” I breathed, my spine curling into the cart with relief. “He made it out alive.”
“Who made it out?” Birdie asked.
“The guys… Maddox, Wesley, and Scorpion.” I knew at least one of the twins had been killed, but I could not deny the relief the others were okay.
“How do you know?” Birdie looked puzzled.
I could feel Warwick’s eyes probing into me, but I wouldn’t meet them.
“Reload,” a man yelled, shifting our focus to the soldiers. “Level it!”
“We have to get out of here.” Warwick motioned for us to follow. “I hid my bike in the bushes, there.” He pointed to overgrown shrubbery on the main road.
“Right there?”
“I didn’t have time to find a better spot, princess,” he snapped at me. “If I remember, I was warning your ass instead.”
We inched our way to the other side of the street, hiding every few feet, making sure we weren’t followed or seen. We gathered into an alleyway, Warwick’s bike only a few yards away now.
“Well, this is where we part ways.” Birdie reloaded her gun, her voice emotionless.
“What?” I was surprised at how I had bonded to this group in only a day.
“Yeah, I have a place to hole up for a bit.” She shrugged. “Plus, I’m better on my own.” I totally understood that.
“I have no doubt our paths will cross again, X.” She pulled her hood higher over her white-blonde hair. “Trouble seems to follow you.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“Something tells me you will be in the middle of whatever is coming.” She nodded at me, then did the same to Warwick. “Legend.”
She was gone, running down the open-ended passage, away from the chaos with no sentiment or “take care.” It made me like her more.
Booooom!
Jumping, I swung around as another cannonball ripped through the mansion, completely demolishing the top of it.
“Come on.” Warwick stepped out, slipping against a wall, creeping toward the bushes.
I kept my gun up, eyes focused behind us while my heart slammed in my chest. The noise and pandemonium reached piercing levels, tearing at my security and sanity. Every moment felt like my last.
I had never been in a war, but this was what it was like in my mind. The dead bodies of young soldiers dotted the ground, the air thick with the smell of terror, hate, and death.
Screams and orders. Bullets and bombs.
Destruction. Bedlam.
Battle was not something you could truly understand until you experienced it. It triggered the basest responses in people. Survival. Forgoing friendships and ideals.
I was stunned, gutted, and horrified… because I was no different. This wasn’t the first time I killed fellow comrades to survive.
Kill or be killed.
“Corporal Markos!” The name cut through the commotion, peeling away all the layers, yanking my head to the boulevard, my stomach a nauseated swirl.
Everything stopped.
My eyes fastened on my former best friend. The man I loved for half of my life. Only about twenty yards away, dressed in his soldier gear, his rank far above what it should have been for a new graduate. Istvan was all about nepotism if it kept power in his family, and having only one son put all that on Caden’s shoulders.
Caden’s chest puffed, jaw tight. “Report.”
“We found Gabor dead and Sergeants Anto and Joost unconscious and in serious condition.” The soldier swallowed nervously. He was talking about Elek, Joska, and Sam. “Private Kovacs was gone. But we are searching everywhere, sir.”
I was right here. Only about 60 feet away from them.
“If you find her, come straight to me, do you understand? Not to my father or Kalaraja. Me.”
Kalaraja. Fuck. Should have figured the Lord of Death was near.