23. Cross

Bullets carve trenches into the ground at my feet. Atlas and I move in sync, ducking from the onslaught and diving apart.

Decades of instinct drive me. I overturn an ice slick metal table and crouch behind it, breath hacking at my lungs like a rusty blade. Gunfire hammers deep divot into the tables’ surface. It won’t survive for long.

On the opposite side of the pub’s entrance, Atlas claims a stone berm as his shield, body contorted to stay clear of bursting rubble. Too loud to shout, I signal for him to lay cover for me.

In slow motion, he shakes his head no.

A lead-heavy furl uncurls within me. Time slows as his index finger jabs at his shirt, marking a clear X.

I shake my head, not understanding—shit.

My chest stings. It’s wet and warm. I’ve been hit.

An inconvenience swept aside by pulsing adrenaline. I swallow the pain and signal Atlas to lay down crossfire. Again.

Another denial. Won’t work, he mouths, ticks up fingers, telling me too many.

He’s right. Doesn’t mean I like it. Draven’s guards have us effectively surrounded. From the moment I clocked them, I realized escape was impossible. Too many men, too many witnesses, too many weapons. Running would guarantee bullets in our backs.

The odds haven’t changed. The outcome is just as bleak. I’ve been shot.

I don’t fucking care.

Palming, Sin’s Glock, I pop my head over the table and unleash a studded string of bullets to force the approaching males back.

Through the chaos, I glimpse Draven lugging Leni’s limp body to a silver SUV. Soft, pampered fingers snaked around her waist like poison ivy.

“Leni!” I scream for her, throat filled with shattered glass.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

Crimson rage rises in my veins, propelling me forward with my gun raised. I squeeze off a few shots to scatter the sentries, to crack their impenetrable line, but a hail of bullets forces me to retreat.

Searing pain erupts in my biceps as one finds its mark. I stumble back, grit my teeth, sight the offender and shoot. One down.

I keep firing. Two, three, four down. The clip pops. Empty.

There’s too many of them. My vision swims as the distance between Leni and I expands. I puff out a harsh breaths against the agony.

A sudden shot rings out from behind me and the male charging me crumples, a dark hole leaking bright pink between his eyes—the work of a master marksman. Steady, clear.

Atlas. As composed as I am scattered.

“Attack!” he calls out.

It’s code. To throw the enemy on their heels, make them brace while we flee. Not this time. I leap forward, diving into the fray, immediately dropping two sentries with my dagger. I seize the closest rifle, check the mag, swear in Zeus’s name, and open fire with cold, cruel clarity.

Picking off males like a trained sniper, Atlas shouts, “Retreat!”

Fuck the order. I lunge deeper into dangerous territory, brunting heavy fire. Ignore.

A high pitched shriek cleaves through the mist and smoke.

Leni’s awake.

Fight, I want to scream. With every ounce of strength in her body, fight.

With black fury, my power pulses, sucking light violently from the street. Exploding bulbs, obliterating glass. A bullet tunnels into the bone of my wrist, right into the dauntless ink of my tattoo.

Not a full second later, the sentries, in discombobulated unison, cripple, shake their heads, stutter step. They lose me in waves of my gift. Switch their sights on Atlas. The only male they remember.

No time to feel guilt.

With renewed conviction, I hurl myself at the line of attackers. Choking black dances from my fingertips as I lash out, unhinged and frantic. Ruthless.

Air’s knocked from my lungs as I’m tackled to the ground. I kick, reaching for my knife until a familiar voice grates in my ear. “Enough!”

Atlas’s eyes are closed, vein in his temple is raised and throbbing. He’s inhaling through his nose, out his mouth, struggling against the bulk of my power.

“Stop,” he snarls. Begs. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

“She’ll die,” I rasp over the sound of gunfire pelting brick and glass.

Pain shoots through my body as Atlas rams his knee into my stomach and presses the end of his Glock against my forehead. “You’ll die,” he repeats. Somehow, he’s escaped the barrage of the bullets. Because he didn’t try to chase her, I realize belatedly.

Leni’s screams are gone, muffled by slamming car doors and revving engines.

I spit blood, red, pretty blood on Atlas’s fancy white shirt. My throat’s tight, my eyes burn, chest collapsing under an invisible weight.

Of course, Atlas didn’t try to chase her. He traded her. Bugged me. Intentionally led Draven straight to her.

Anger and pain merge inside me, boiling over. I reach for the pool of onyx whipping beneath the surface of my skin.

“I’ll do it,” Atlas warns darkly, shoving the muzzle harder against my temple. “You’re wounded. We’re outnumbered. What is wrong with you? Think logically.”

Logic lost me Leni. I’m no longer its friend.

With a snarl, I wrench free of his grip.

Hot blood soaks my shirt, coats my teeth. Three bullets are at home in my femur and one is sliding around in the meat of my arm, but I refuse to succumb to the pain, to quit.

A sob rises in my throat as I catch sight of Leni’s golden L necklace glinting in the dirt. Chain broken, abandoned and buried amidst a sea of metal casings.

“Your acting like someone else,” Atlas accuses, forcing me to my feet, hauling me down the street under the cover of my gift. “You need to think straight. She’s a princess. Think of the Blackguard.”

My hands curl into weak, useless fists, Leni’s face swimming before my eyes. The vow I made to protect her feels like a fragile thread, snapped, flapping in the breeze.

Draven will pay for touching her. A bone for every hair he pulled on her head.

Fates be damned. I’ll tear this realm apart to get her back.