Page 124 of Burn It Down

“I’ll do it,” Lance said. “It’s in the same spot mine was.” He snatched a tea towel hanging off the wall by the cabinets, then placed it on the counter balled up, then eased Asher’s wrist on top of it. “Liv, in my bag there’s a sterilized scalpel and tweezers, along with gauze.”

She nodded and unzipped his backpack, knowing exactly where to look to retrieve his first-aid kit. She had it open on the counter between him and Asher in the next moment. She opened the sealed packet that contained the sterilized scalpel and tweezers, then handed them to Lance. Then she readied a couple of gauze pads and antiseptic.

“This is gonna hurt,” Lance warned Asher as he hovered over his wrist with the scalpel.

Asher just stared at him emptily. “What’s new?”

I winced and saw the sadness in Jonah’s eyes.

This was clearly triggering Asher, pulling him back to the torture he’d endured not long ago.

Jonah was there then, holding his hand, reassuring him.

Aurora went to him and stroked his hair. “Talk, distract yourself, focus on us,” she urged him.

He cleared his throat as Lance started cutting into him, then looked at Aaron. “I need you to head to the safehouse where Bryce and my security team are. Get them ready for what’s coming. Full disclosure.”

“Got it.”

Asher reeled off the coordinates to his backup safehouse.

“There’s not enough room there for all of us, so the rest of us will head to the mountains.”

“Mountains?” I asked.

“You have another safehouse?” Aurora breathed.

“Of course,” he said with a grin, before it turned to a grimace as Lance dug deeper into his flesh, blood now trickling down his skin and onto the tea towel.

He reeled off a phone number to Aaron.

“What’s that?” Jonah asked.

“My satellite phone. It’s the only way to communicate in and out from that location.”

Lance smiled, clearly impressed.

Aaron took note of it on his phone, then stowed it in his tactical pants.

Then Asher gave all of us the location of the place, in case we got separated.

Explosions thundered in the distance.

Consecutive, ongoing explosions that rocked the house from the intensity.

“They’ve triggered them all in one shot,” Jonah said.

“To nullify the charges, so they can barrel on through,” Aaron told us. “Fuck.”

The two of them snapped into action, scanning the immediate area as they pulled their guns and cocked them, at the ready for the incoming invasion.

Not moments later, a crash sounded upstairs.

Jonah bolted up there just as two guys burst from one of the rooms and stormed down the corridor, headed for us downstairs.

Aaron fired off a shot through the skull of one of them and the asshole dropped like a ragdoll in the next second.

Jonah barreled into the other, hauling him over his shoulder, then kicking him down the stairs in the next breath. He thrust his boot into the guy’s head, knocking him out.

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