Page 88 of Breathe
“Okay, call Dave,” Real said, closing the door on the vehicle.
Rogue peeled out, the tires spinning in the dirt before catching. The SUV fishtailed, righted itself, and careened onto the old paved road that led out of the area.
Wrath would plan to get Stone to the choppers and airlift him to the nearest trauma center.
Justice and Doc, both medics, stayed behind.
“Any more wounded?” Justice asked.
“I don’t know,” Real said.
He grabbed fresh clips for his gun and water from the back of the supply vehicle.
When he spun back toward the compound, he found Azrael silently waiting for him several feet away.
Real twisted off the cap, drank half of the bottle, and handed it to Azrael when he approached.
Azrael drank the rest of the water through the mouth hole of his hooded beanie.
No words were spoken.
Nothing more needed to be said.
They still had work to be done.
Back in the thick of things, they moved through the night deeper into the compound toward the sound of gunfire.
The shootout could have taken from a page from the Alamo. Furniture was toppled over, men were pinned down behind a bar that looked like something out of the movie Road House. The lights were low, but it was not as dark as Real would have liked.
When something chunked hard on the floor, Real knew that sound by fucking heart.
The grenade hit the floor and rolled.
Ahead of him, Azrael was just out of his reach, and Real lunged. His fingers caught the boy’s black ultra-thin vest and he yanked hard.
Taking Azrael with him, Real rolled over the top of a thick oak table and pulled it along with him.
Rip leaped past him, going for Boston, but never made it.
The grenade went off, and the explosion blasted his ears.
Bullets peppered through the area, forcing Rip to scramble behind the same table along with them.
Unexpectedly, the air morphed and waffled with a loud boom.
An invisible force punched like a freight train, and the oak table slammed against his back. The force lifted the table and tossed it like a piece of paper.
That was no grenade.
That had been a fucking bomb.
Real’s back slammed to the ground, and the back of his head cracked hard against the floor.
He lost his grip on Azrael.
Rip lay bleeding beside him, but they were both rolling to their feet at the same time.
Thick black smoke filled the air, and debris from the walls and ceiling littered the ground.
