by Kaylea Cross
Jesse had seen it too, because the moment the second shooter came into view, a single rifle shot rang out. The shooter fell and slumped on his side, his weapon tumbling onto the gravel.
Amber kept moving forward, looking for other targets as Jesse moved out from his concealed position to meet her. “Clear,” she murmured, controlling her breathing to slow her pulse.
The crowbar was lying on the ground near the first shooter. She grabbed it on the way past, approaching the manhole with caution while Jesse mirrored her position from the other side.
Her skin tightened, anticipating the moment when they pried the manhole cover aside. They had to be ready for anything.
She pulled out her tactical flashlight, aiming it at the cover while Jesse checked it for booby-traps. It drove her crazy to lose precious seconds, but they couldn’t help Megan if they got themselves killed by being stupid.
“There’s a wire,” he murmured.
Shit. Okay. One of them must have quickly rigged a grenade or a flashbang to the underside after going through. “What do you want to do?”
He raised his eyes to hers. “Trip it and get the hell out of the way.”
She nodded and handed him the crowbar. “All right.” Go. Hurry.
He put the end of it into the little hole in the steel cover, then glanced up. “Ready?”
“Yes. Do it.”
“Move back.”
She reached out a hand. “Give me your hand.” She’d fucking yank him out of harm’s way.
Their fingers locked around each other’s wrist. “Ready, then go.”
Another nod. Come on, come on, Megan needs us.
He crouched, ready to spring, and lifted the cover slightly. Amber hid a grimace and squeezed his wrist tight, her thigh muscles bunching in preparation for the moment she had to pull him out of range. If she got this wrong, they were both dead.
“Ready.” His face tightened as he muscled the cover up.
Amber tensed, waiting.
“Go.”
She yanked him backward with all her might just as he wrenched the crowbar up and over.
Metal thudded on the ground, then Jesse’s full weight hit her, taking her down. She grunted at the impact as he landed on top of her, bits of sharp gravel biting into her arms as he rolled them toward the armored truck.
An ear-shattering explosion lit up the night just as they cleared the rear of the vehicle. Jesse pinned her beneath him, his arms covering her head. In the deafening silence that followed he lifted his head. “You okay?” he asked urgently.
“Yeah. You?”
“Fine.” He jumped to his feet and hauled her up with him.
“What was that?” Megan asked.
“Stanislav booby-trapped the entrance,” Amber responded. “We’re okay. Hang tight, we’re coming to you.”
“I’ve got another problem. This tunnel’s filling with water.”
What? That shouldn’t be possible. The other hacker must have done it.
Pulling out her radio, she contacted Trinity as she followed Jesse back to the hole. He was limping. Had he been hit with shrapnel? There was no time to stop and check him.
“Looks like someone’s activated this section of the sewer system. Find out where the hack came from. Jesse and I are going after Megan.” She put the radio away without waiting for a response and rushed forward.
Jesse was at the manhole, covering the top of it with his pistol. His head came up, his eyes meeting hers. “First section’s clear, but they’ll be sending someone this way.”
She nodded and straddled the hole. Below her, blackness awaited, hiding the enemy… And her sister.
“Amber, Jesse, heads up. Three men from the first truck are on their way back to your position,” Bautista said through her earpiece.
“I’ll take care of it,” Jesse said, his gaze steady. “Go get your sister.”
In that moment, Amber knew she’d just lost her heart to him.
Shoving that thought aside for later if she survived what was coming, she gave him a grateful smile. “See you down there.”
Drawing her pistol, she slipped down into the hole and hurriedly climbed down the steel ladder into the blackness below.
Chapter Twenty
Dead end.
Calf-deep in the cold river water now flooding the tunnel, Megan again tried the lever-shaped handle on the steel door barring her way through the tunnel. It didn’t budge.
She’d followed the route precisely. Had gone over it with Amber and checked to make sure it was clear. Amber was supposed to close this hatch once Megan was through, to trap Stanislav down here.
But something had gone wrong, and now Megan was the one trapped instead.
There was nothing but the sound of her uneven breathing in the absolute darkness. Her NVGs were now useless without any ambient light source, and she couldn’t risk using her flashlight because Stanislav and his men were coming and it would give her position away.
She felt along the hatch and the wall surrounding it, searching for another way out. The schematic she’d memorized of the system had another exit but she’d have to go back the way she’d come. Dammit, Ty was somewhere on the other side of this barrier, along with a cache of weapons and equipment, and she couldn’t get to either.
If she was lucky, Stanislav and his men might take a wrong turn in the tunnels and take a while longer to find her, buying her some precious time. She could have seconds or minutes, she didn’t know.
She paused, craned her neck around to face the way she’d come when muted gunfire sounded behind her. Either from the start of the tunnel, or above ground.
Had to be Amber and Jesse engaging Stanislav’s men. Hopefully cutting down the enemy force, but it wasn’t much help if Megan had nowhere else to go. Backtracking would risk putting her directly in Stanislav’s path. Her only hope was to get through this barrier.
“Meg, I’m here.”
Her heart leapt at the sound of Ty’s voice coming through her earpiece. He was out of breath, as if he’d been running hard. She gripped the lever-like handle on the hatch again. “Ty,” she whispered.
“I’m at the hatch. Is there a lock on your side?”
“There’s a lever, but I can’t move it,” she said quietly, not willing to speak any louder in case her voice carried. “It’s locked tight.” It had been wide open earlier. What the hell had happened?
She heaved on it again, straining with all her might, until her palms and fingers burned from the friction along the cool metal.
“Dammit, my side’s stuck too.” His voice dropped to a growl as he struggled to muscle it open.
It couldn’t end like this. It just couldn’t.
She grabbed the lever and pulled at it again, calling on every muscle fiber in her body. Her death grip on the metal tore her skin open across the bases of her fingers. She ignored the pain and kept going. Surely with the both of them working they could force this thing open enough for her to slide through.
Sweat popped out on her forehead and between her shoulder blades as she labored. She squeezed her eyes shut, giving everything she had.
Please. Come on, open!
A faint light registered behind her closed eyelids.
Her eyes snapped open, her entire body going still as reality hit home.
They’d found her. Or were about to.
Her stomach pitched, ice sweeping through her. “They’re here,” she whispered, her voice flat. And all she had to face them down with was her pistol, one extra mag of ammo if she had time to reload, and the blade strapped to the inside of her calf.
“Meg, listen to me.” Tyler’s voice was taut in her ear. Urgent. “Keep trying. Keep trying and together we’ll get this bastard open.”
“Can’t. I’m out of time.” A huge lump filled her throat, suddenly making it hard to breathe. Her insides felt hollow, a strange fog filling her mind.
Shock. Snap out of it. Her life depended on it.
She released the handle
and turned around to face the light source, water swirling around her lower legs.
“Megan, no. Please, baby, keep trying. You can’t give up on me.”
The pleading in his voice tore her to shreds. But the darkness ahead of her was growing brighter with every passing second. “I love you.”
“Megan,” he yelled. Something slammed into the heavy door behind her. His fists thudding against it, his pain ripping her apart.
A horrible, icy terror gripped her as she forced herself to move away from the hatch toward the bend in the tunnel ahead of her. She was a Valkyrie, and that meant she would fight to the end. But the finality of knowing her end was probably near was impossible to ignore, and that death would come in a hail of bullets.
Her legs and arms felt like lead, the cold water numbing her feet. She’d never experienced this kind of fear before—because now she had so much to lose.
And so much to live for.
Ty was so close, barred from her by inches of cold, unforgiving metal. The wash of fear threatened to paralyze her for a moment but she blocked it, locked it down and focused on what needed to be done.
In its wake grief welled up, sharp and powerful, but it mixed with steely resolve. She didn’t want to die down here with the man she loved inches away on the other side of that door, and her sister up ahead somewhere in the darkness.
But if she was dying tonight, she was taking as many of these assholes with her as possible to protect the people she loved.
She pressed her back to the wall right next to the first turn. Spreading her feet apart, she shifted her stance and balanced her weight on the balls of her feet, Ty’s ragged voice pleading in her earpiece.
Staring down the short length of tunnel before her, she raised her weapon and curved her finger around the trigger, waiting. She had one chance. One opportunity to take out the men coming for her. If she made a mistake, she was dead.
Ty’s guttural cry of rage and despair rang in her ears when she didn’t respond. She kept her gaze locked on the approaching light, getting ready to make her final stand.
The light beam bobbed slightly as the man holding the flashlight came closer. She stayed still as the cone of light it emitted grew wider on the damp walls, squinted as it grew brighter and prepared for the moment her first target appeared.
The high-pitch squeal of metal on metal startled her, breaking her concentration. What…
She glanced over her shoulder.
The lever. It was moving.
“Megan. God dammit, come on,” Ty barked in her ear.
She turned and raced back to the hatch, shoving her weapon in her waistband as she gripped the lever with both hands. The water was nearly up to her knees now. She gritted her teeth and pulled down, using her body weight, the whiplash of adrenaline giving her added power.
The lever turned even as the light grew brighter around her. Then something groaned and the hatch gave way slightly.
Oh, God. “Hurry,” she blurted, now frantic to shove it open wide enough to fit through. She put her shoulder to the hatch, helped Ty force it open inch by painful inch.
A hand shot through and grabbed her by the strap of her ballistic vest, dragging her through the small opening. It was tight, and Stanislav’s men were almost to the last turn.
She angled sideways, sucking in her ribs and stomach, using every trick she’d learned to contort her body and make herself small enough to squeeze through the opening.
Just as she got her upper body past the restriction Tyler wrenched her through to the other side, the force of it flinging her to her knees in the water when he let go. A tide of relief washed through her.
Immediately Tyler turned back and put his shoulder to the hatch and began pressing it shut, his face contorted with the effort in the beam from his flashlight lying nearby in the water.
Megan scrambled to her feet and rushed to the bag of weapons stored by the hatch. She grabbed a grenade from it then helped Tyler, adding her strength to his, her heart clattering against her ribs as shock coursed through her.
“She’s there! Quick!”
“Fire in the hole,” Megan muttered, then pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade through the opening. Take that, assholes.
The steel door groaned as it slid shut. Ty grabbed the lever and grunted as he turned it the last few inches, trying to slide the locks in place.
A heartbeat later bullets slammed into the far side, then came the deafening explosion of the grenade echoing through the tunnel, pressing against their eardrums.
Panting, Ty released the lever and grabbed her, crushing her to his chest, his arms like iron bands around her back. “Christ. Christ, that was way too fucking close,” he muttered against her hair.
Megan couldn’t answer, busy willing her heart back down her throat.
He reached up to touch his earpiece. “Amber, we’re through. You copy?”
A familiar voice responded. “Yury! I’m right here, asshole, come and get me.”
Megan gasped and automatically reached for the lever Ty had just locked.
Amber was trapped on the other side and facing Stanislav alone.
****
Amber stopped where she was and aimed her weapon at the turn in the tunnel wall about sixty feet away. Several shots sounded from overhead, near the manhole opening she’d just come through.
Jesse engaging the last of Yury’s men.
That left Stanislav and up to two others down here.
She forced herself to block out the shooting above, along with the worry for Jesse’s safety. She had to trust that he would be okay; she couldn’t afford to have her concentration split.
Her back was pressed to the wall, her gaze trained on the corner of the wall. Water lapped at her ankles, announcing her every move to the enemy hidden out of view ahead.
At least Megan was safe on the other side of the hatch with Ty. And now Amber was about to deliver this evil motherfucker responsible for so much carnage, destruction and death his come-to-Jesus moment.
She was sick of waiting. This was ending here and now.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she drew breath to shout. “Yury! I’m right here, asshole, come and get me.”
The light that had been moving away from her suddenly swung around in a tight arc. Amber raised her weapon, heart thudding in her ears as she waited. Splashing footsteps approached.
Ducking around the corner, she dropped to one knee and fired twice at the target. The man carrying the flashlight grunted and fell, dropping the flashlight into the water.
Amber darted out from behind cover and hurried toward him. Light streamed up the tunnel wall, giving her a view of the man’s face.
His eyes and mouth were open, the water around him turning red as blood flowed out of the bullet wounds in his chest. He was dying, and since his hands were empty, his weapon somewhere in the water, he was no longer a threat to her.
She jumped over him and continued on to the next turn in the tunnel. There was no one there so she continued to the next, following the map in her mind. Two more threats stood between her and the end of this mission. She was going after them both.
At the fourth turn in the tunnel, another light source glowed faintly up ahead around the corner. She paused there, hugging the wall, and waited.
The light stopped moving. Seconds later the splash of water reached her.
She pushed out a breath and forced her muscles to relax, getting ready to go on the offensive. This time she waited until the attacker had almost reached the corner.
Ducking out from behind cover, she fired two more rounds.
Three more shots rang out just as she pulled the trigger the second time. Pain drove through her chest as a bullet slammed home below her right shoulder. The impact drove the breath from her lungs.
Amber dropped to her knees in the water, her right hand strangely numb. She’d dropped her weapon.
She dove for it, reached out with her left hand. Her fingers brushed the grip
—
A blinding beam of light hit her in the eyes. She flinched and wrenched her head to the side, momentarily blinded.
The grip of the pistol was hard against her searching fingers. She curled them around it, yanked the pistol out of the water and fired at the light source.
The light fell away instantly, then a low, agonized groan filled the tunnel.
Amber doubled over to catch her breath, her heart careening in her chest when someone grabbed her from behind.
“It’s me,” Jesse whispered, hauling her to her feet and dragging her back around the corner. She sagged in his grip and allowed him to get her behind cover. “You all right?” he demanded when they were around the turn.
She made a sound in the affirmative, struggling to get her lungs to open. Her fingers shook a little as she reached up to feel where the bullet had struck her high up on her vest. There was no hole in her shirt where her chest and shoulder met. No blood.
Her lungs began to open up, her heart rate dropping a notch. “I’m okay,” she gasped out. “You?”
“I’m good.” He set a hand on her shoulder. “My rifle jammed and my backup’s empty.”
“Here.” She handed him her extra mag. She was running low on ammo too, with only seven or eight bullets remaining.
“How many tangos left?”
“Just Stanislav, I think. Megan and Ty are through the hatch.”
“You wanna draw him out and above ground?”
“No. I’m finishing this here. Stay behind me.” She started forward, heading for the bend in the tunnel. The dropped flashlight had been turned by the flow of rising water, now pointing directly toward Megan and Ty’s position.
She stopped at the corner and waited, listening. A moment later she thought she heard a quiet splash. Her skin prickled.
Stanislav.
Gripping her pistol in both hands, she swiveled around the corner and aimed—
Powerful hands locked on her wrists, wrenching them downward with surprising force. Amber stepped into him, driving her knee hard up toward her assailant’s groin.
A guttural snarl echoed in her ears as they fell, tangled together. The icy shock of the water blasted through her.
