He exploded out of cover, mud spraying up behind him. “Jackson—” Avery tried to shout, but her voice was lost in the ringing. He was already moving, cutting across the clearing in a blur of motion, gun lowered, charging straight for the kidnapper and Riley.
A second flashbang went off. The blast hit like a shockwave, rattling the earth beneath her boots. Avery flinched, throwing up an arm against the flash of light. Her ears screamed.
Through the white haze, she caught movement to her left.
Darian.
He was up and moving, staggering toward Jackson and the others, his expression twisted and desperate. Avery’s gut clenched. She didn’t know if he was trying to help or finish what the Brotherhood had started, but either way, she couldn’t let him get there first.
“Noah!” she shouted.
Noah tried to rise, bracing on his prosthetic leg, but the ground was slick, uneven. He couldn’t sprint. Not fast enough.
Avery pushed up and ran.
Her boots pounded through the mud, lungs burning, the rain slicing across her face. The white smoke from the flashbang still hung in the air, thick and acrid, stinging her eyes.
Everything was happening at once. Mud, shouts, the ringing in her ears, the smell of smoke and rain. And in that breathless second, Avery knew whatever happened next would decide who walked out of this clearing alive.
Avery skidded to a stop just as Darian broke through the smoke. His face was pale, streaked with mud and rain, eyes wide with panic or madness. Maybe both. He lifted his arm, the glint of a pistol catching the light through the haze.
For half a heartbeat she froze, trying to read his aim.
Not at her. Not at Jackson.
At the kidnapper.
But there was no way to be sure. One wrong twitch and he could hit Riley or Jackson instead.
“Darian, don’t!” she shouted.
He didn’t stop.
Avery didn’t think. She acted. She raised her gun and squeezed the trigger. The shot cracked through the storm. Darian’s gun flew from his hand, spinning away into the mud. He staggered back with a curse, clutching his wrist, shock flashing across his face.
Before she could breathe, before she could process what she’d done, another flashbang went off.
Light ripped across the clearing, blinding white. The blast wave hit her like a physical force, slamming into her chest, stealing her breath. Her ears screamed with the pressure. No sound, no shape, just pain and brightness.
She hit the ground hard, disoriented, her vision swimming. The world went to pieces—Jackson, Riley, the kidnapper—all of them silhouettes caught in a haze of smoke and rain.
Avery blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. The flashbang had turned everything into static.
Somewhere ahead, someone was shouting. She couldn’t tell who.
The acrid tang of gunpowder filled her throat. Her heart was hammering, breath coming fast and shallow.
She clawed at the mud, forcing herself up onto her elbows, blinking through the spots that still burst across her sight.
Everything was noise and smoke and fear.
And she couldn’t tell, couldn’t see, if Jackson was still moving.
Avery blinked through the white haze left by the flashbang, her ears ringing and vision swimming. The world snapped back into focus one jagged frame at a time. Mud, rain, movement, shouts. Jackson straddled the masked man, his knee pressinginto the attacker’s chest, one hand locked around the man’s wrist, forcing the gun down into the dirt.
Avery saw Riley still on the ground beside them, paralyzed in shock.
“Riley, come on,” she shouted.