But it’s different now. I feel unseen eyes all over us and stress has my heart in a vice. My pulse thumps an anxious tattoo, battering my eardrums. Familiar these days—don’t think about it.
I try.
But it’s annoying, and has me longing for an ambush. Anything to pull me out of this dizzying apprehension, and that’s the thing about the twilight moments before a fight to the death. There’s no fear in the stillness, but my heart skips a beat allthe same, and not in the way Vinnie talks about when he goes home to his wife waiting on him, more glowing and beautiful than ever. This shit…it’s sharp and grating, and I’ll take a hail of mortar fire over it any day of the week.
We reach the building and I press tight against a wall, waiting on confirmation Vinnie and the others have circled round the back.
Thud, thud, thud.
A discordant rhythm that won’t quit. Until it does, and that skipped beat is somehow louder.
I tighten my grip on my weapon, grounding myself in the blood-warmed metal. The radio crackles a split second before Vinnie comes on line.
“In position. Be ready?—”
Gunfire cuts him off.
Contact.
The night explodes with the rattle of AKs, muzzle flashes lighting up narrow streets, and the seismic shift is instant.
Bullets shower the space around me, blasting through concrete, shards of debris ricocheting, every bit as fierce and deadly.
I use the carnage as cover and spin away, dropping low, returning fire in controlled bursts as I holler at the others to push forward, taking the fight to the enemy until we know which way is up.
Vinnie echoes my instruction, but I seek no comfort in his voice this time. I don’t need it. This—it’s what I’m good at, and my stampeding pulse fades to nothing. I forget about it. I forget everything except the ritual of putting one boot in front of the other and squeezing the trigger as the world explodes around me.
I drop hostiles like they’re nothing. Like they don’t have families or futures. Detached in a way that’ll haunt me laterif I don’t find something—or someone—to distract me. But a faceless hook-up is the last thing on my mind right now. I point and shoot, and we break the wall of resistance. C8s outweigh the AKs and I see light in the form of Vinnie and Jon ahead of us.
They’re running.
So am I.
No sign of Raven, but I’m not worried. He’s slower, but efficient as fuck. If he’s alive, he’s doing God’s work cleaning up after the rest of us.
Can’t help him if he’s dead.
We sweep the building, checking faces against the one we committed to memory before we got here. Moth finds him. Objective achieved, but our mission remains incomplete until we get the fuck out of here.
I’ve got no air in my lungs and there’s no one left to shoot.
Not inside, anyway.
I swing around.
Vinnie’s right there, his face smeared with dirt and grime, sweat dripping down his temples despite the bitter cold of this place. His eyes meet mine, and alarm flares, concern for me that I don’t immediately understand.
Then it hits—the dizziness I carried into this firefight. The breath-stealing pain as my pulse spikes out of control, my breathing caught, too fast, too shallow, the cramped stone room tilting a wild angle I can’t make sense of.
“Hey.” He catches me before I fall. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
I don’t know. I try to push through it, even as my weapon slips from my weak hands, my vision blurred, nausea rearing hard and fast.
Am I hit?
Vinnie’s train of thought matches mine. He searches my body for injury, his attention fixed on me as if we’re the only souls lefton earth. He lowers me to the ground. My knees hit the dust as his hands come back clean.
I’m not hit.