Page 87 of Echos and Empires
Alex stepped up beside him, his face a mask of unreadable calm. “This isn’t over,” he said, but the weight of what was unsaid hung heavily between them.
“No,” Liam replied, the single syllable carrying a world of determination and defeat. “It’s not.”
The night closed in, thick and suffocating, as they moved through the compound. The memories of the fight, of Hardee, were ghosts that refused to leave him. Each step was a reminder of how close they’d been, of how far they still had to go.
“Everyone, you’re coming back to where we’ve been hiding out. The walk will take some time. If you so much as consider betraying us, I will kill every one of you. My family is not going to be in danger again. Guns on the ground.”
Without hesitation, the team dropped their guns, likely too afraid to say anything with the anger in Liam’s tone. Liam picked them up, passing some to Alex since he couldn't physically hold them all.
“They’ll regroup,” Alex said, his tone a mix of certainty and resolve. “We’ll have another shot.”
“We have to,” Liam said, more to himself than to Alex. His mind was a knot of anger and desperation, tangled with the images of everything they’d lost.
The others fell away, leaving just him and Alex to navigate the bleakness of their return. The compound was a graveyard of plans gone wrong, the lifeless walls echoing with silence and spent energy. Liam felt the absence of the others, the absence of Hardee, like a hollow where his heart used to be.
“Hell of a night,” Alex said, the understatement almost absurd.
Liam managed a tight, humorless smile. “You could say that.”
The silence stretched out, but it was a shared one, filled with the things that only they understood—the cost, the stakes, the refusal to let this be the end.
“We’ll find him, we’ll throw Victor off before he bolts again, I’m not sure how long we can stay at the caves now that we’ve outright attacked him.”
“Yeah,” Liam agreed, his mind already running through the options. The mission might have failed, but he wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.
They stepped out into the open air, the taste of it cold and bitter on Liam’s tongue. Every breath carried the weight of theirlosses, the unspoken grief for Hardee, the unrelenting need to push forward.
“We’ll get her back to safety, get the kids born into a safe place,” Alex said, quiet but certain.
Liam nodded, the thought of Emma the only light in the darkness pressing in on him. He wouldn’t fail again. He couldn’t. They would regroup. They would strike. And next time, Victor wouldn’t get away.
The stars were distant, indifferent witnesses as they walked into the night, the silence between them heavy with resolve and the ghosts of all that could have been.
TWENTY-NINE
William woke to shuffling,scraping, footfalls that sent him jumping up, his gun in his hand before he’d even fully stood up.
The footsteps weren’t in his head, not like the day before. These were real, impossibly real in darkness of early morning, but not loud enough to be inside the cave. His hand didn’t so much as quiver as he waited to see who came up, but if they’d gotten past Chris, it couldn’t be good.
“Who the fuck?” Bash growled, also standing with his gun in hand.
Thankfully, figures came into view in seconds.
Alex, flanked by Liam.
Thank fuck.
He set the gun down, relief crushing him under its brutal weight until he saw the others with them—the same who went on the mission. Hope bloomed. Did they succeed? Is it over?
He motioned for them to go outside, a question in his eyes, but Liam’s voice sliced sharply through the cave. “We lost Victor. Hardee betrayed us. There are more out there like him, if he wasn’t lying.” A man with military bearing swore, a violent hissof air through his teeth. “None in this group,” Liam added, answering the unspoken fear as it colored the waking hours.
His stomach dropped out from under him. They hadn’t won.
But they didn’t die.
Relief tangled itself with confusion, leaving William struggling to pull sense from the raw mess of reality.
“How the hell did this happen?” William asked, his urgency raw in his voice. He couldn’t let the panic take root, not now, not when they were so close to losing everything.
