Page 97 of Searching for Valor

“You killed us.” Alejandro’s face loomed in his mind, his eyes wide with fear. The explosion flashed, fire and light swallowing the night as screams filled the air. Smoke choked his lungs, the acrid stench of burning flesh clinging to him.

He’d failed them.

He’d hesitated.

He hadn’t pulled the trigger in time.

Rylan trembled, fighting the undertow of the past. He blinked hard, focusing on the present, on the damp air that smelled of mildew and blood, on the steady crash of the waves against the cliff below the resort. This wasn’t the desert. This wasn’t the compound.

His grip on the rifle tightened as his focus snapped back to Izzy. Her chest heaved, her breaths shallow, her defiance crumbling into fear as she glanced at Mateo, then back at the gun.

Time stretched, seconds turning to eternity. Rylan’s mind screamed to act, to move, but his body refused. Memories and reality blurred, the blood-streaked marble turning to scorched sand.

Fuse’s bloodied face. “We needed you, Kentucky.”

Mack’s hollow eyes. “You killed us.”

“Six, what are you doing?”Shane’s voice echoed in his head from the past, layered over Zak’s hiss: “I don’t have a shot! Anyone have a shot?”

Rylan’s breath hitched. “I?—”

He did.

He had the shot.

His gaze locked onto Callahan, and he saw the woman’s finger move to the trigger. Izzy’s eyes widened, panic flashing across her face.

And suddenly, he wasn’t in the desert anymore.

This wasn’t the past.

Fuse wasn’t here. Mack wasn’t here. Alejandro wasn’t here. Jax wasn’t here.

But Shane was.

Zak was.

Pierce and Donovan and Connelly were.

And Izzy.

Izzy, who needed him now.

The rifle steadied in his grip. His breathing slowed. He wasn’t that green kid anymore. He wouldn’t hesitate.

Not this time.

Rylan exhaled, and his finger pressed smoothly against the trigger. The shot cracked through the room.

Callahan’s smirk vanished, and she staggered sideways, blood blooming across her chest. The gun fell from her hand as she crumpled to the floor, her eyes wide with shock.

Silence fell over the room, broken only by Izzy’s ragged breaths. She turned toward him, her face pale.

“Rylan,” she whispered.

He lowered his rifle, letting it fall as his teammates dealt with the two other goons and checked on Mateo. His hands were steady, his mind quiet for the first time in years as Izzy launched herself into his arms. He hugged her tight, and a sob broke from his chest.

She was alive.

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