Resisting His Target: HERO Force Novel (Shattered SEALs Book 2)

by Amy Gamet

  It was hot, light from the fire barely penetrating the dense air, and he wished for the gas mask he’d opted not to bring on this journey, and his body screamed for oxygen.

  He hunkered down, crawling on his belly past a small den toward the kitchen, his rifle in prone position and Sloan still on his six. A portion of the kitchen was now in view, an eerie glow growing brighter as they approached.

  The fire was in the office.

  The den window shattered with a crash, shards landing on the wood floor in front of him. One side of the den burst into flames, flaring like a match to a vat of accelerant and scorching his exposed skin with heat.

  Molotov cocktail.

  Was that how the office fire had begun? Was SVX even in the building, or had the sensor been tripped by a makeshift bomb? He moved quickly, scanning ahead of him as he went. The air was worse here, not air at all but solid exhaust, waste. His lungs fought against it even as they burned. He reached the threshold of the office, light now blazing brightly through the darkness, walls and floor aflame. The ceiling joist overhead was exposed and burning, the wood ceiling already gone.

  All he could think about were Jackie and Selena upstairs alone, forced to choose between the spreading flames and the windows, which could only lead to certain death. He turned to Sloan, yelling to be heard over the roar of the fire. “They’re not here. They’re just trying to smoke us out.”

  Sloan nodded, shifting direction and moving toward the back stairs as another cocktail sailed through the kitchen window and exploded with a blast of fire and heat, setting Sloan’s hair ablaze. He flailed frantically and screamed.

  Time stopped for Razorback. He could feel it, remember every sensation, and he was suddenly desperate to help this man who had become his friend. He moved quickly, removing his shirt as Sloan tried to smother the flames with his hands on pure instinct. Razorback used the fabric to extinguish the fire.

  The moment it was out, he pushed Sloan. “Go! We have to get to Jackie!” He tried to yell, but his voice was hoarse and the sound weak. Sloan moved. The second explosion had alighted the back staircase, flames quickly spreading up the walls and treads.

  They had to go back to the front of the house.

  The men scrambled, every moment seeming to last an hour as they fought their way back to Jackie. At the bottom of the stairs, Sloan hesitated, and Razorback passed him, anxious to make the climb as quickly as possible. But Sloan didn’t follow.

  “Get up!” Razorback screamed, finding his voice this time but losing layers of tissue in the process. Sloan lifted his head and met Razorback’s stare, the light of the fire reflecting off his eyes, his expression one of surrender.

  “Motherfucker,” Razorback grumbled, throwing this rifle onto his back and grabbing Sloan under the arms. “Get up, do you hear me? I was just starting to like your sorry ass.” Sloan was two hundred pounds of solid muscle, and Razorback’s blood was starved for oxygen. Lifting him was brutal, and he growled with the effort it took to drag Sloan up the steps.

  He was nearly at the top when he saw Jackie. “Ian!” she yelled. She was crawling in the upstairs hallway, a white towel covering her mouth. “We have to get out of here!”

  Any moment now, there would be gunfire. HERO Force would arrive and do what they could to take out SVX or at least distract them. But if they crawled out a window before that, they were as good as dead. “We have to wait for HERO Force. Where’s Selena?”

  Jackie led the way and he followed, pulling Sloan to into a large bathroom, the window open to the outside. Selena sat in the tub, coughing repeatedly, a washcloth held to her nose and mouth. The floor tile was uncomfortably warm under his body, a testament to the fire below and the time they had left to survive. He closed the door behind Sloan, noting the other man’s eyes had closed.

  “Did you get HERO Force on the phone?” Razorback demanded.

  “Yes.” She handed him two washcloths before moving into the tub to hold her daughter. “How bad is it down there?”

  He didn’t answer with words, only looked at her.

  “We can’t wait much longer, Ian.”

  “I know.” The chopper had been close. The team had to be on the ground, mere moments away from rescue. Would they figure out what had transpired and know what he needed them to do?

  His mind spun through possibilities, trying to find some way to get them out of here safely, but there was nothing. Unless HERO Force arrived, they would need to go out the window and take their chances like targets at a firing range.

  He moved to the small window, inspecting it as best he could without putting his head in a sniper’s line of sight. Exiting through the window would be a tight squeeze for him and Sloan, but certainly possible. He frowned. Sloan was in no shape to break his own fall, which meant Razorback needed to find a way to get him down.

  Heavy smoke seeped beneath the bathroom door, far more than when they first entered. He wet a towel, tucking it under the door, the tile beneath his hands nearly hot enough to burn his skin, and he tucked another beneath Sloan’s head.

  Another minute, maybe two, before they had to make their move. Jackie’s eyes locked with his. “Get ready,” he said.

  Selena was coughing. “I’m scared, Mommy.”

  “I know, sweetheart, but I need you to be strong. There’ll be time to be scared later, okay?” A knot of emotion momentarily blocked his throat. “I’m not going to let that fire get you, do you understand? It’s not going to hurt you, Selena.”

  She nodded.

  Razorback planned how to get Sloan out safely. There was nothing to wrap around the other man’s waist, no means to lower him to the ground. He had no choice but to put him feetfirst out the window and hang on to his hands, getting him as close to the ground as possible before letting go.

  But Jackie and Selena would go first. Razorback would cover them for as long as possible, until he ran out of ammo or fire broke through the door. It should be enough to give them a running head start to safety, though SVX would surely be in pursuit. It was a terrible option, and not one he wanted to take.

  The smoke was getting worse, breathing far more difficult. The room was hotter than a sauna. They needed to get out of here. “It’s time,” he said. He pulled the strap of Sloan’s rifle over the other man’s head and handed it to Jackie, giving her a quick lesson in how to shoot the automatic weapon. “If you’re firing at them, they’ll take cover. You don’t have to hit them.”

  The same wasn’t true for a sniper, who could be at a much greater distance, though there was likely only one with his weapon trained on their current location. “The open window tells them we’re in here. Run around the side of the building as quickly as you can and keep going. Got that?”

  She nodded.

  Sloan started coughing and Razorback turned, finding his teammate awake but clearly confused.

  The roar of the fire changed pitch, the bathroom door seeming to vibrate. A fresh breeze whipped through the room as outside air was sucked inside. “Now, Jackie!”

  She climbed out of the tub, helping Selena do the same. The girl stared at him with wide eyes, and he hoped to God he’d see them again sometime. He’d only met her days earlier, but she was the closest thing to a daughter he’d ever had.

  “Were you scared?” she asked.

  When he was on fire. That’s what she wanted to know. “Yes. But I’m all right now.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Bye.”

  The pop-pop-pop of automatic rifle fire rang out through the open window and he pulled the girl close to him reflexively. “HERO Force.” They were here. They’d made it in time.

  Shots continued, coming on top of each other in a cacophony of gunfire. The bathroom door turned black in mere seconds, the towel he’d stuffed under it catching fire. It was Sloan who moved, stomping at the flames with his boots. “They better hurry,” he said, his voice raspy.

  Sweat dripped down Razorback’s face, the heat in the bathroom now unbearable. The sound of gu
nfire was replaced with silence, the fire the only noise, and it seemed to Razorback they were surrounded by the conflagration.

  The door burst into flames and Selena screamed.

  “Razorback! Sloan!” yelled a man’s voice over a speaker.

  Razorback stood quickly and peered out the window. There stood Doc and Cowboy, waving them down. Razorback wasted no time reaching for Jackie’s hand.

  She turned to Selena. “I’ll go first so I can catch you.” She picked up the box from the hallway closet and threw it outside. He hadn’t even noticed it was there.

  Razorback helped her go feetfirst out the window, dangling from the sill before letting herself drop. Selena was next, her lanky frame easy for him to lift, Jackie and Cowboy catching her easily. Razorback turned back to Sloan. “Just you and me, kid.” He bent to help Sloan to a stand when the whole floor shifted.

  The bathtub fell through to the floor below, opening up what looked like a hole straight into hell. The heat was so intense he had to look away, feeling his exposed skin burn. He held out his hand for Sloan’s, heaving the other man to a wavering stand and helping to support his weight as they crossed the slanted tile floor to safety.

  Getting him out the window was easier than he imagined, his strength intensified by adrenaline and the will to survive, and he bent over the window frame as he dangled Sloan by his hands, finally letting go. A tremendous noise behind him was followed by even more heat, and he knew the bathroom floor beneath him was gone.

  He considered diving headfirst out the window in an attempt to save himself but was sure, from his position, he would land on his head or spine, failing to rotate completely before running into the concrete patio beneath him. His eyes met Jackie’s one last time, her mouth forming his name in obvious horror as he pulled himself inside and fell backwards into the flames.

  16

  Jackie held Selena in her arms, the beloved ground beneath her feet. The entirety of the main house was engulfed by the blaze, waves of heat so intense she had to stand back to keep herself from injury.

  She watched as Razorback lowered Sloan through the window and let him go, the other men from HERO Force quickly scooping him up and pulling him to safety. Only Ian was left inside, his face clearly visible through the open window.

  They were going to be okay, and grateful tears streamed down her face as she hugged her daughter.

  Suddenly, a loud roar came from the center of the building, and she didn’t understand what it was. Her eyes shot to Razorback.

  Get down here.

  I need you safe.

  Even from a distance she could tell when he was looking at her, the primal physical pull that joined them like an invisible chain. For the first time, she let herself hope he wasn’t just a passing presence in her life, let herself imagine he might stay.

  But he disappeared from view.

  A penetrating cry of horror rose from her lungs, unrecognizable and deep. “Ian!” She ran toward the structure, the flaming skeleton of her refuge now destined to be his grave. The roar had been the sound of the second floor collapsing onto the first, taking him with it. She was aware of Selena’s questions, the urgency in her daughter’s voice, but Jackie was focused on the fire that burned below the bathroom—a spot that had once been her den.

  She got as close as she dared, falling to her knees on the concrete and wailing, the brightness of the fire lighting up her closed eyelids. Selena cried, too, the girl’s questions now answered, her grieving voice mingling with her mother’s.

  Ian was gone.

  “No, no, no!” she screamed, the word repeating over and over in her head. The fire crackled and hissed, a malicious animal after the kill. She held her daughter tightly, time bowing to emotion.

  Someone yelled, “There he is!”

  Her eyes popped open. The silhouette of a man was clear in the shattered den window. Several HERO Force men ran past them to the building, pulling Ian through the opening and carrying him between their bodies like an injured athlete, his head hanging down.

  Jackie ran behind them, Selena’s hand fisted tightly in hers. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t supporting himself in any way, and she told herself he was dead even as she desperately wished he was not.

  The men put him down in the bed of her pickup truck.

  “The keys were in the house,” she called, even as one of the men slipped into the driver’s seat. The truck was running by the time she got to it. “How did you do that?”

  “I hotwired it,” said the man in the driver’s seat. Razorback’s chest was bare, a blackness covering his skin like paint, his pants singed and smoking in spots, and she covered them with her hands to put them out completely. A flash of metal glinted in the hand of the youngest man, who used a knife to cut the pants off Razorback’s legs.

  The man looked at her, a baby face like she’d rarely seen belying the commanding tone of his voice. “Get in. We have to get him to the chopper.” She did as she was told, never once letting go of Selena.

  The truck bounced over ruts in the road, fresh air streaming around her body and the burning Pedazo de Cielo getting smaller in the distance. Her refuge was gone, her house of safety aflame. There was no turning back now from whatever lay ahead.

  Jackie realized it was raining—thunder and lightning, too—and wondered if it had been doing that the whole time they’d been inside, battling the flames. The man hovered over Razorback with a stethoscope and a face full of concern.

  “He’s burned,” she said dumbly.

  “That’s soot. He has some second-degree burns, nothing too bad that I can see. It’s the smoke inhalation I’m worried about.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m Logan O’Malley.”

  She mumbled a greeting and swallowed hard. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “I’m not sure. Oxygen saturation is low. His heart’s working hard to compensate.”

  “Please don’t let him die.”

  Logan met her stare, far more alert and competent than she. “I’ll do everything I can for him, ma’am.”

  17

  The machine behind Razorback’s head beeped rhythmically, and he hoped it wasn’t representative of his heartbeat, the sound far too fast and irregular to be the pulse of a healthy human being. But the doctor had already been in to see him, and despite some minor burns, it seemed he was going to be okay.

  As long as my heart keeps beating.

  That was the trickier part, excessive smoke inhalation placing great strain on respiration and hence his heart. But he’d already made it this far, so he chose to believe he would come back from this, colors flying.

  The moment the bathroom floor collapsed beneath his feet, his greatest fears had been realized. It was fire that had taken away his life as he knew it, and fire he was sure had the power to do it again. What he discovered was an inner strength and determination to fight back against the flames for the parts of his life that had become good again.

  He hadn’t even noticed those good parts until he was damn sure death was a high statistical probability, and odds like that needed to be crushed back down to an acceptable level. Searing heat had licked at his scalp and neck, all too familiar in its engulfing attack on his very existence.

  But it was the image of Jackie in that moment that filled the forefront of his mind. The look they shared that said more to him than any words that had crossed her full, pink lips.

  So he’d found his footing on flaming debris, bits of Jackie’s home now unrecognizable and strange. It wasn’t just a fire, it was a choice. An eight-hundred-degree choice decorated in high style for the occasion.

  The irony of it didn’t escape him as he climbed over a beam that glowed orange like embers, and made his way toward the den. It was a fire that had taken his life away, and a fire that would give it back.

  Only better this time.

  Life was giving him a second chance and making damn sure he recognized it. The den was just beyond his line
of sight, thick black smoke preventing him from seeing. A foreboding groaning seemed to reverberate over the sound of the fire, the foyer ceiling visibly bowing like the bottom of a saturated paper cup. He had to move. Now.

  Time seemed to freeze, the motion of the flames barely a flicker as he raced toward the exit and the ceiling fell. He covered his head as the heavy structure narrowly missed his back, sending him to his knees.

  This was it.

  It occurred to him that death might come at a moment of great realization, his mission here on earth somehow fulfilled. But his life wasn’t fulfilled, it was only just beginning, the possibility of Jackie as a force in his life still waiting to be explored. Anger fueled his motion. With a roar, he pushed himself to a stand, casting flaming joists and drywall away.

  The smoke was even thicker in the den, making it impossible to see. He grabbed on to a table leg, the first thing he’d seen since his fall that was not engulfed in fire, and hurled it toward where he thought the window should be. The crash of breaking glass was instantly followed by the whoosh of cooler air, filling the space and chasing away the smoke.

  He struggled to his feet, the blaze now churning with increased vigor as he made his way to the window and saw her bathed in firelight on the grass.

  Jackie.

  Sweet, lovely Jackie. The woman who had drawn him back through the gates of hell, the promise of her so much greater than the meager time he’d shared with her so far. He knew it would be good—every moment in her presence—and he wanted that time more than he’d wanted anything that came before her.

  “Ian.”

  He opened his eyes to find her sitting beside him in his hospital room, and she took his hand in hers, leaning forward to press a kiss to the backs of his knuckles.

  “You scared me,” she whispered. “I thought I lost you.”