Page 69 of If You Go
I catch movement up ahead. Men in dark gear, moving too cleanly to be improvising. Trained. Waiting. A trap within a trap.
Stefan curses in the comms, accent thick with fury. “They knew we were comin’!”
I don’t answer. Can’t. My focus narrows. I push forward, firing at the shapes ahead. Two go down, but three more surge forward to take their place. Gunfire tears across the room, hammering the walls. Shells rain on the floor like coins.
Every step forward is through bodies—ours, theirs, I can’t tell anymore.
The noise blurs into something unreal. My pulse and the gunfire are one sound now. My breathing syncs with it.In, out. In, out. Move. Keep moving.
A body crashes into me from the side, all muscle and momentum. The impact steals my breath, sends me flying. A flash of white light explodes behind my eyes as my shoulder blade connects with the wall first, then my skull. The crack of bone against cement reverberates through my skull—hot, jagged pain blooms outward from the point of impact, electric currents of agony shooting down my spine and into my fingertips, which tingle and go momentarily numb.
I stagger upright, gun clattering from my grip. My hands find it, slick with blood, I can’t tell if it is mine or someone else’s.
Everything doubles again. The world lurches like it’s underwater. Two Stefans, two Joshs, two of everything. I steady on one image and aim for that.
Through the haze, a flicker of movement.
A figure slumps in a metal folding chair next to Gavin, head bowed, wrists bound with zip ties that bite into flesh. My brain misfires like a faulty engine. My chest stops mid-breath, lungs frozen in panic. Surry. The silhouette, the curve of the shoulders, it’s a woman. I think, no—as the smoke thins, I see older features, deep lines etched around the mouth, silver-grey hair falling in limp strands across a face that holds the ghost of someone I once knew.
Bridget.
The edges of her shape shimmer and split. Two of her, side by side. I blink hard, once, twice. Still two.Fuck.
Gavin steps into the light, calm and steady, like he planned this all along. My throat locks. Nothing comes out.
My legs move before my brain agrees, trying to reach her.
Josh grabs my arm. “Wait, Bren—”
I rip free.
“Now, now, Brenden. Stop right there, or you won’t see poor Bridget alive again.” His eyes are wild, stretched wide and gleaming.
I glance around, head clearing just enough to see it—we’re being funneled, trapped between pillars and machinery. The air stinks of cordite and sweat.
Bridget meets my gaze, gives a small, sad shake of her head. She looks wrecked—face bloodied, hair matted, still wearing the same clothes she left the island in.
I freeze. I know I have to try to save her. Surry would never forgive me if I didn’t. I holster my weapon and step closer, hands raised.
“What do you want, Gavin? Bridget’s innocent in this. Let her go, and we can talk–just us men. I know you prefer it that way. Women are only good for two things. Food and fucking.”
I cringe inside at my own words, but not to him.
Gavin laughs. Unhinged, too loud, too long as he stalks closer to Bridget. “You don’t really believe that, do you, Brenden Slater? You think you can charm me? No. I know why you’re here. To take my wife.” His voice cracks. “But nobody leaves this building tonight unless it’s in a body bag. Or a barrel. I don’t care which.”
He presses the barrel to Bridget’s temple, leans close.
“Now, Bridget…what should we do? Keep you alive for leverage? Have Brenden hand himself over willingly?” He grins, the look on his face completely unhinged and feral. Feral men make fearsome opponents. You never know what they are willing to do. “No. That will never due. It sucks all the fun out of it, don’t you think?” But she never gets the chance to answer.
He pulls the trigger.
Her head snaps back, the wall behind her painted red, blood and matter spread wide on the floor and wall behind her. Stefan’s strangled yell tears through the air. I feel nothing. Just a hollow thud in my chest where rage should be.
Before I can move, more of Gavin’s men pour in from the shadows. We never saw them. Guns raised, shouting, herding us toward the center.
Now I can see the screens, they must have a back up power source somewhere we didn’t see before. Rows of monitors glowing in the dark. Different feeds: a man assaulting a woman in a small room, my destroyed apartment complex, Surry’s place, the Oregon compound. Even the doors–front and back. Cameras everywhere, still running without power. He knew where we were all along.
Fuck.
