Page 174 of Oathbreaker

“Have you heard anything from inside?” Leo says with rushed words.

“Except for the distress call Rio sent, nothing.” A muscle pulses in Misha’s jaw.

Leo’s hand clenches into a fist.

It’s only been ten minutes, but it feels like forever before we see the illuminated road that stretches toward Amelia Manor. Beyond it, the house is dark.

“Let’s light their asses up, yes?” Misha says with a dark smile.

When I look down and see several people—at least fifty—scrambling near the front gate below and the glint of their semi-automatic weapons pointing toward us in the sky, I hiss, “Yes. Let’s.”

Misha banks hard to the left, and I twist to take the joystick that controls the right side of the helicopter’s retrofitted weapons.

I’m prepared for the too-loud, rapid trill of the minigun as it releases fifty rounds per second, but I’m not prepared for the fucking missile Leo launches toward the front gate.

“Holy shit!” I yell as I grapple for a handhold when Misha banks right. When we circle back around, the people I saw at the gate are gone.

Virtually misted like we’re in a fucking comic book.

“Hold on,” Misha says in a voice that’s entirely too calm for what we’re facing. He picks up speed, zooming us up and forward at an alarming rate over the rose garden. Near-blinding lights illuminate the area from the bottom of the helicopter.

“Anything?” Leo asks.

“No,” the rest of us say as we scan the garden for movement.

Right as Misha aims for the same field where August and I flew toy replicas of the aircraft I’m currently sitting in, Luna’s voice comes through the headset.

“Just got a distress call from the safe room at Amelia Manor. Rio says Ella, Veronica, and her baby are accounted for.”

She pauses. “The dog is there too.”

Leo’s shoulders drop, and his leg stops shaking.

Alarm clangs in my head when I focus on what she says and what she doesn’t say. Misha drops the helicopter into the field and begins the shutdown sequence.

“What about Winter and August?”

The silence continues long enough for me to repeat myself. “What about Winter and August?”

“They’re not with the group,” Luna says. “But it’s a good thing you put the tracker in both of them. We’ve narrowed their location to your hangar.”

I swing the strap of the nearest loaded AR-15 over my shoulder and rush out of the helicopter in seconds.

“Wait for backup!” Misha yells, but I ignore his words.

Over the vibrating whirr of the slowing rotary blades comes the loud, unmistakable crack of gunfire.

Gunfire that comes from the vicinity of my hangar.

In a break in the noise, an unmistakable, terrified bellow comes from that direction.

August.

I run across the field, trusting Leo and Misha to have my back. The AR-15 is light in my arms, at the ready to gun down anyone standing between my family and me.

I go in the direction of the gunshots, running full-out and increasing my speed.

Agony is thick in my chest as I round the last pathway and jet into the open bay of the hangar.

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