Page 33 of Knot Guilty

Brock’s gaze swivels toward Maxen, then back to me. His eyes, wide and dilated, are desperate and scared, same as mine, I’m sure. “Hold on, Brock. We’ll get out of here, and the next round at Mel’s is on me.”

Though I tried to keep my voice even, the fear in Brock’s eyes worsens. His body begins to shake, and the blood from his neck begins seeping through my fingers even faster.

To buy him some time, I press harder on the wound, and his eyes close in pain. Brock opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. “Don’t try to talk. Aaron went to get help. I need you to hold on for a few more minutes.”

Brock does something then that crushes my heart. He opens his eyes again, reaches a shaking hand to cup my cheek, and smiles.

And then he breathes his last.

“Brock.”

I pull my fingers away from his wound to shake him awake. “Brock!”

Reaching for the clear part of his neck, I check for a pulse, finding none. “No, dammit!”

I rise to my knees and begin CPR compressions, ignoring the Voices in My Head telling me it’s too late. A hand reaches in to try and halt my efforts to revive Brock, and Maxen’s pained voice soothes, “Sadie, stop. He’s gone.”

I shove his hands away and yell, “No, he’s not! Either help or leave me the fuck alone!”

“Sadie—”

“Shut up, Maxen!”

I bend down to breathe for Brock, but the air comes through his neck, spattering my face with his blood. “Hold pressure on his wound!” I beg.

Maxen shakes his head sadly but clasps his hand over Brock’s neck. I force another breath into his lungs, but then strong arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me away. “Let me go!”

I fight with everything I have, sending us crashing backward onto the rocky ground, but the hold never loosens, keeping me locked on top of a hard chest.

“He’s gone, Sadie. Let him go. I’ve got you, Mein Engel.”

The words murmured in my ears go unnoticed in the torment of losing such a treasured friend. I go limp in Aaron’s arms, staring blankly at Brock’s still form, but I do not cry. I haven’t cried since my mother died.

By the time Aaron loosens his hold on me, Avara and several others have filtered into this part of the cave. Everyone gathered gives me a wide berth when I reach my feet and march over to the other dead man.

The shooter lies halfway between a refrigerator-sized rock and a stack of empty pallets. His gun has been kicked away from his hand, though any idiot can see that he’s no longer a threat. I count four exit wounds in his back from where Maxen shot him.

I’d love nothing more than to go back in time to deliver the death blow myself, but if I had that ability, I wouldn’t waste it on this sack of shit. I’d spare Brock’s life. Since such thoughts won’t help, I turn from the dead Arab and scan the area.

I’m beginning to get a picture of how Heathman was ambushed from within. Something’s here. I just can’t see it yet. “Where did he come from?”

No one answers me right away, so I turn turbulent eyes back to the men watching me cautiously. “Where?!”

With blood all over my face and arms and fire in my eyes, I probably look like a walking, talking nightmare. I also don’t care how I appear to any of these men.

Maxen points to the stack of pallets. Why the hell would these be here? Drawing my Glock, I step closer, finding a clever hiding place. The short stack of empty pallets isn’t what it seems. The wooden supports are fastened to one another, and all but the top and bottom ones are cut down the middle and attached at one corner with hinges.

The faux door is swung open enough to reveal a space big enough for a grown man to hunch down. I’ll be damned. The bastards were here the whole time. Nobody would have known he was here without doing a thermal scan of the room. These assholes just sat here and waited for their backup to show.

Turning back to the group, I issue a barking order, “I want IR scans of everything in this room not made of rock. There might be more of them, and I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

Since I gave up my infrared scope, I leave the task to someone else and follow the two guys that carry Brock’s body from the room. The two soldiers are regretful as they’re forced to drag him on the ground through the first exit tunnel. From then on, he’s carried with the utmost care past the others.

Brock’s body is placed on the ground outside next to Colonel Heathman. Standing over him with blood all over me, I lift my face to the night sky, close my eyes, and take a deep breath. Several moments pass before I pull out my phone. My boss answers on the first ring. “Knot.”

“Sir, Brock is dead.”

Knot must pull the phone away as his furious string of curses is muted. The next sound I hear is the creaking of his leather chair. A door closes soon after, and the leather creaks again a second later. And so does my boss’s voice. “I know about the cave and the raid team attack. What happened?”

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