Page 73 of Covert Vengeance

Had to be Amber and Jesse engaging Stanislav’s men. Hopefully cutting down the enemy force, but it wasn’t much help if Megan had nowhere else to go. Backtracking would risk putting her directly in Stanislav’s path. Her only hope was to get through this barrier.

“Meg, I’m here.”

Her heart leapt at the sound of Ty’s voice coming through her earpiece. He was out of breath, as if he’d been running hard. She gripped the lever-like handle on the hatch again. “Ty,” she whispered.

“I’m at the hatch. Is there a lock on your side?”

“There’s a lever, but I can’t move it,” she said quietly, not willing to speak any louder in case her voice carried. “It’s locked tight.” It had been wide open earlier. What the hell had happened?

She heaved on it again, straining with all her might, until her palms and fingers burned from the friction along the cool metal.

“Dammit, my side’s stuck too.” His voice dropped to a growl as he struggled to muscle it open.

It couldn’t end like this. It just couldn’t.

She grabbed the lever and pulled at it again, calling on every muscle fiber in her body. Her death grip on the metal tore her skin open across the bases of her fingers. She ignored the pain and kept going. Surely with the both of them working they could force this thing open enough for her to slide through.

Sweat popped out on her forehead and between her shoulder blades as she labored. She squeezed her eyes shut, giving everything she had.

Please. Come on,open!

A faint light registered behind her closed eyelids.

Her eyes snapped open, her entire body going still as reality hit home.

They’d found her. Or were about to.

Her stomach pitched, ice sweeping through her. “They’re here,” she whispered, her voice flat. And all she had to face them down with was her pistol, one extra mag of ammo if she had time to reload, and the blade strapped to the inside of her calf.

“Meg, listen to me.” Tyler’s voice was taut in her ear. Urgent. “Keep trying. Keep trying and together we’ll get this bastard open.”

“Can’t. I’m out of time.” A huge lump filled her throat, suddenly making it hard to breathe. Her insides felt hollow, a strange fog filling her mind.

Shock. Snap out of it.Her life depended on it.

She released the handle and turned around to face the light source, water swirling around her lower legs.

“Megan, no. Please, baby, keep trying. You can’t give up on me.”

The pleading in his voice tore her to shreds. But the darkness ahead of her was growing brighter with every passing second. “I love you.”

“Megan,” he yelled. Something slammed into the heavy door behind her. His fists thudding against it, his pain ripping her apart.

A horrible, icy terror gripped her as she forced herself to move away from the hatch toward the bend in the tunnel ahead of her. She was a Valkyrie, and that meant she would fight to the end. But the finality of knowing her end was probably near was impossible to ignore, and that death would come in a hail of bullets.

Her legs and arms felt like lead, the cold water numbing her feet. She’d never experienced this kind of fear before—because now she had so much to lose.

And so much to live for.

Ty was so close, barred from her by inches of cold, unforgiving metal. The wash of fear threatened to paralyze her for a moment but she blocked it, locked it down and focused on what needed to be done.

In its wake grief welled up, sharp and powerful, but it mixed with steely resolve. She didn’t want to die down here with the man she loved inches away on the other side of that door, and her sister up ahead somewhere in the darkness.

But if she was dying tonight, she was taking as many of these assholes with her as possible to protect the people she loved.

She pressed her back to the wall right next to the first turn. Spreading her feet apart, she shifted her stance and balanced her weight on the balls of her feet, Ty’s ragged voice pleading in her earpiece.

Staring down the short length of tunnel before her, she raised her weapon and curved her finger around the trigger, waiting. She had one chance. One opportunity to take out the men coming for her. If she made a mistake, she was dead.

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