Page 67 of What I Should Have Done

She called for me and I was too fucking far away.

Racing around a corner, I flipped my rifle back in front of me, shoved it into my shoulder as I took aim, and burst through the doorway. It was dangerous to not sweep all the rooms, but I didn’t give two shits right now. Scottie was on the third floor and that’s where I needed to get to.

Shoving my way through shambles of discarded wood and broken furniture, I rushed up the stairs two at a time. My head on a constant swivel, I saw nothing but a blur of old paintings and destruction.

All I cared about was her.

Her scream for me was seared in my mind as I barreled up the second flight of stairs. My lungs burned. Iron coated my lips as every cell burst with strain. Violence was toying with me tonight.

Crashing around a corner, I vaulted across a tipped over dresser covered in speckled, old paint. I slammed through the door. My feet morphed into stone. Freezing in place, shock hurdled through my veins. Ice slithered down my back. Every breath burned with rage and blood.

Blood.

Red stained the walls where Scottie should have been. Her corner she must have tucked herself into to get a good view out the single window was soaked with iron hot liquid. But I wasn’t sure if it was hers or Jacob’s.

Shaking free of the shackles, I stumbled across the small room. Wood bit slivers into my knees as I crashed to the floor beside a body slathered in wine red stains. The only body in the room.

“Jacob?” I gasped. Torn. My heart screamed at me to leave. Whoever took Scottie couldn’t be that far away. But the other part of me couldn’t process the gore lying before me.

His body twitched. I scooped him up into my lap, the heat from wet blood soaked into my uniform. A strained wheeze sucked oxygen into his lungs. One free hand of mine roamed his body, searching for whatever fatal wound there may be. Shredded skin on half of his face oozed. Every inhale he took creased agony on his features.

“Merlin,” he croaked. My fingers finally found the two searing holes in his chest.

“Merlin? What?” I shook my head as his hand tried to pry mine from his wounds leaking death. Then he slipped cool metal beneath my palm.

“Scottie. Merlin,” he wheezed again. His only intact brow twitched. Wrinkles formed on part of his forehead. Blood seeped into the valleys upon his body. Hot liquid oozed between my fingers. And then one final inhale expanded his lungs.

And just as quickly as an eel on water, the serpent of death took my friend.

“Jacob?” I rasped, shaking him. “Jacob!”

But I knew it was of no use.

With his dying breath, he’d tried to relay something to me. Merlin. Scottie and Merlin.

Wait, Merlin. I knew that name. Had briefly skimmed past it on the first day here.

A hand slammed onto my shoulder, startling me, and I whipped around, ready to throw a fist.

“Mikey,” Dom said. The rest of the team crowded into the tiny room, taking up every last inch of available space. Still on my knees, I clung to the side of Jacob’s body. “The house is empty. She’s gone.”

“Merlin. Jacob said Merlin. That damn fucking mercenary for hire is here,” I snarled.

Ford leaned back. “They can’t have gotten far.”

“And Scottie wouldn’t have gone without a fight,” Bernie added.

“Dom?” Duncan looked at our team leader.

Radioing this in would be the proper route to follow. But there would be a chance that we would be ordered back to base. Where we would have to wait for more intel. But all of the intel that we’d received up until this point had been a whole lot of horse shit.

Which meant, what I wanted was to go after Scottie without clear orders.

“No man left behind,” Dom said. “Though, I’ll radio the colonel while we go find whatever trail Scottie left us.”

“Make sure it’s secure and only to him. And whatever fucking intel he goes looking for, have it come from someone new. A new squad. Just new,” I growled, clutching Jacob’s dog tags he’d slipped me tightly, and rose from the floor.

I stared at the man at my feet. Broken. Shredded to pieces. Gave his last breath protecting Scottie—someone he’d only just met.

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