33. Winter

THIRTY-THREE

WINTER

I honestly don't have a death wish.

In fact, I plan on not dying for a very long time, hopefully surrounded by loved ones and with a low amount of pain.

But I can't wait around for someone to come and maybe help us. Help August.

Please, God. Please let him still be alive. Please help me find him and get him to safety.

Standing outside the closed safe room door, I readjust my weapons. August was last in the rose garden, and I pray they haven't moved from there.

Move, Winter!

I spin around and feel my way toward the exit, trying to remember which door Hunter showed me all those weeks ago leads to the rose garden.

It feels like it's been forever.

I take a deep breath as I press the panel, opening the door to find myself in the kitchen.

Darkness shrouds the mansion, and the absence of light highlights the death now present throughout the house.

I calculate every step, and my senses heighten with a mixture of fear and determination. I can't afford any mistakes, not when August's life hangs in the balance.

A muffled pop rings out from the direction of the foyer, and I jump, clutching my chest and dropping to the ground.

Get to August. Bring him to the safe room. Kill anyone in my way.

I'm in the space between the kitchen sink and the island, and I silently position my body to crouch on the balls of my feet. The gun is heavy in my hand, and I flex my fingers around the grip.

Shoot to kill. Hunter's instructions clang around my brain, and I take a silent, cleansing breath to ground myself.

"Where the fuck are they?" Rodrigo's voice again. It's a low murmur, as if he's talking to himself. The static feedback of a walkie-talkie activating almost causes me to jump.

"We have the boy," a voice on the other side confirms. August.

"They want him alive, so don't fuck him up too much," Rodrigo says, amusement in his voice. He sounds totally uncaring about his safety.

The other speaker verbally acknowledges Rodrigo's words. Rodrigo's footsteps become louder as he draws closer to me.

"I don't know why they want the retard to live but do as they say. Follow your orders," he adds.

Blazing fury surges through my veins at the slur. So I jump up from my hiding spot with my gun pointed at Rodrigo's head.

"Yeah, you're fucking done," I spit out. The only reason I'm able to pull the trigger and place a bullet right through his skull before he does the same to me is because he doesn't have time to draw his weapon.

He collapses to the floor, and blood rushes from the hole in his skull.

My ears ring in the shockwave of the blast. The shot is loud—louder than I was ready for without hearing protection.

I shake my head in hopes it will stop the tinny reverberation in my ear canal.

Move!

The rose garden is around the corner and down the hall. I leave my spot on the other side of the island while I analyze all the places August could be. I keep close to the walls, leaning into the shadows, when I walk past the entrance of the great hall. But before I hit the path leading directly to the rose garden, I whirl around when a piece of furniture screeches across the floor. Gun raised, I have my finger on the trigger when a pained "Wait" sounds from the floor inside the entrance to the dining room.

Within a shaft of moonlight, I recognize the bloodied face. Jared, Rio's right hand and one of Hunter's detail.

I bite my lip. I know what Hunter would tell me to do. He would tell me to keep moving, stay focused, and get my ass back to safety.

"Ms.…Winter…."

Suppressing a frustrated groan, I take four big steps over to him, making sure we're alone in the room before assessing his injuries.

He's bleeding. A lot. But I need to know if?—

"The Resistance. I'm on your side," he rushes to say. Pain laces his words, and when he shifts, I zero in on the wound in his thigh. Getting on my knees, I bend over him after placing my gun on the floor.

Thigh. Lots of blood. Did it hit an artery? I pull the belt off my jeans and start to wrap it above the bullet hole as a tourniquet.

"There's no time," Jared urges. He takes the belt from my hands, winding it around his thigh and pulling it impossibly tight with a solid fist .

"The hangar. I don't think there's enough time for backup to arrive before they take August."

"Where would they take him?" I rasp.

"I don't know. That's what we're all trying to figure out." He bites his lip, choking back a groan.

"I'll come back for you," I say. "When I get August, I'll come back for you."

Hunter, what the fuck do I do? Where are you?

"Don't," Jared bites out. "Get to the hangar and get August. They've got all of us down. Help is on the way, but if August leaves this estate, we might never get him back." A fine sheen of sweat covers his face.

"Go," he urges. He pulls his gun out and hands it to me. "Your gun is too loud. Use mine with the silencer."

My hands tremble.

" Go ," he says with even more force.

August. Get to August.

"Shoot ‘em if someone comes to finish the job before I get back." I slap my gun on his chest, picking up his hand to place it over the firearm before I rush out of the room.

The quickest way to the hangar is straight through the rose garden. The most covered path to the hangar is around the side of the solarium and through the small patch of trees that line the back of the airstrip.

The high-pitched whine of a helicopter starting up chooses for me. I go through the rose garden.

My muscles are unused to running and the heft of the bulletproof vest, especially while healing from my injuries, but I push through, push myself to stay vigilant to threats and get to August before whoever has him takes off.

Step one: get to the pavilion .

I push past the memories of the place—of the embraces Hunter and I shared. Just when I step under the wood and wrought iron awning, a bullet buzzes past my head and embeds into one of the posts .

I drop to the ground, flipping over more on accident than with intention, and fire immediately.

I gasp when I hear a masculine grunt. Looking up, a man dressed in all black stares me down while grasping his right arm.

He's twelve feet away from me, and with my next breath, I fire my gun again. This time, it goes through his chest based on how his shoulder rears back, and he collapses to the ground.

No time to investigate.

I look left, right, and up in search of more shooters and August.

Just run like hell, Winter.

One. Two. Three—I sprint out of the pavilion and down the path that leads to the hangar. I keep low to the ground, allowing the bushes and blooms to conceal my trek.

Flashing red and white lights shine from the helipad, and the sight causes me to go faster. But the area around the helicopter is empty, and it doesn't look like anyone is in the pilot's chair.

I allow myself to take a deep breath when my back hits the structure's metal siding.

Think, think, think.

Voices come from inside the building, and I keep my steps light as I shift toward the open door.

"We will not leave until we have Brigham's daughter." A deep, rumbling voice.

"Well, by now Brigham will have reinforcements coming, so we should pull out," another man volleys back, an edge of sarcasm lacing his tone. "He told us?—"

"Remember your fucking place," the other man grinds out.

My brain vibrates when I allow myself to acknowledge that I know the voices.

No… .

Things are silent for a second, and I crab walk closer to the door to peer in.

I take in the scene for a moment before pressing back to the side of the building.

August lay on the floor, curled in a ball near the open sliding doors that are large enough to taxi in a small jet. From my vantage point, I see the slight flicker of his eyes open and shut—just a sliver of awareness.

Standing over him is a red-faced Carlos, a lead guard on Hunter's security team.

…And Marcus Law. My dimple-faced former neighbor.

I knew he was too goddamn smiley.

My heart rate triples as I try to formulate a plan to get August out of the hangar, across the garden, and into the safe room.

It's too risky.

Angry, hot tears pool in my eyes, and I let them fall. This is all so fucking unfair.

"You know what? Fuck you, Law," Carlos growls.

"Eh, no thanks," Marcus says. Seconds later, a familiar pop-thud echoes off the metal.

I chance a look back inside. Carlos is down, blood leeching from his temple as his eyes stare at the too-bright ceiling.

Marcus sighs. He peers over August's still frame, and I raise my gun, ready to point it through the open door and shoot Marcus in the back, but feedback from his hip forces me to still.

"Law, Rodrigo is out. Tank is down, shot in the garden, but he's alive. Says he got shot by Brigham's bitch."

My heart jumps in my throat. Okay, they know I'm around here. And I shot a guy named Tank ?

Marcus pulls his comm from his belt and growls into the microphone. "Well, find the bitch and bring her to me," he grinds out .

Right then, a loud boom echoes across the manor, and when I take my eyes off Marcus to look toward the mansion, white smoke billows into the night sky.

Flames.

The sound of Marcus' hard boots is loud in my ears, but he walks away from my hiding spot and out the hangar doors to stand on the helipad, facing the house.

"Who the fuck started the fire?" he practically yells into the walkie-talkie.

The reply is immediate. "Brigham's backup," the voice suggests.

"Fuck," Marcus hisses into the air. He marches back over to August, crouching over him for a moment before lifting his head and seemingly staring off into space.

Take the shot, Winter.

I lift my gun again, putting my finger over the trigger, when he stands in an instant and rushes out of the building and into the night.

I count to ten before I inch inside the hangar and over to August.

"August!" I call out softly, not wanting to startle him. He looks up slowly in surprise, his drowsy eyes glimmering with a mixture of hope and uncertainty and sheer terror. He doesn't look harmed physically, but the slow roll of his head on his neck suggests someone's drugged him.

His lips part, but no words come out. His thin body trembles, reflecting the fear and exhaustion the last half-hour has brought.

He rocks his head back and forth on the concrete, but I can tell he's trying to control his movements. His tablet is missing, and that pisses me off to an unreasonable level.

The man I saw in the surveillance footage likely was Marcus Law. The woman…I have guesses. In either event, even though we're alone now, we won't be for long .

"Can you walk?" I pant out slowly, pantomiming the action with my hands. August shakes his head no.

Fuck.

Hunter is close. He has to be.

Another boom echoes over the field, and the quick pop-pop-pop of gunfire lets me know there's a battle going on inside my house.

I can't get him to the safe room.

I look at the helicopter. That's not an option because obviously, I can't fly.

I look over my shoulder. The gun range. If I can get August and myself to the gun range, I can barricade us inside. There's a whole cache of weapons in there too.

Please, God. Let us make it out of this alive.

With one final deep breath, I pull his arm over my left shoulder so I can hold the gun with my right.

I haven't shot anything one-handed before, and I hope I have the wrist strength to do it.

August tries to help me, lurching along as I try to drag us toward the room. The hangar is large, but it's only a few steps ahead.

"You even walk like a cockroach," an arrogant voice calls out from my right.

Blair.

I whip around at her words, using all my strength to throw August off my body and closer to the door. I raise my gun and fire a shot in the same move.

It's not quick enough. While my shot goes wide, hers hits its mark, piercing the flesh of my left shoulder.

The pain doesn't register for a second, but then everything rushes in.

My position is now on the floor—my legs refusing to hold me upright.

The fire, absolute agony, radiating from my shoulder .

I realize my gun isn't in my hand. I must've dropped it by reflex when I took the bullet.

I want to scream at the overwhelming pain, but I don't.

Hunter is coming. Hunter is here.

"Hey, bitch. Why am I not surprised to see you here?" I snarl through my pain and tightly pressed lips.

She tilts her head to the side.

"I will admit, I am surprised to see you here. It's mindboggling how you managed to survive all the shit we've sent to kill you."

"I guess that whole will to live thing isn't so overrated," I shoot back.

She chuffs in a humorless laugh.

"I'll be taking the kid," she says. Her lip curls, and a surge of protectiveness makes me want to launch my body over August's, but I remain steady.

"Hell to the naw," I drawl.

She quirks an eyebrow.

"Why do you want him, anyway? You and your sugar daddy tried killing him enough times," I add.

"Oh, we didn't intend to kill him. At least, not for a while yet. You and I know Hunter will do anything we demand in exchange for his son. Plus, Daddy promised me that I could play with his brain."

I blink hard.

The. Fuck.

"Is that so," I say, hoping to keep her talking, buying time for Hunter to break through whatever's happening at the front of the house and rescue us. "I guess you're part of The Legion?"

She bristles, her eyes narrowing.

"What do you know about The Legion?" she asks in a calm tone.

I know not a goddamn thing .

"I know enough," I reply.

The side of her mouth lifts. It's apparent when she decides to revel in this moment, preparing for a monologue that might be enough to allow help to arrive. I shift to my knees.

"Nu-huh," she says, lifting her gun again, lining it up to my face. I settle on my hip, but the movement brings me closer to my gun.

I don't think she notices my new proximity because she walks to stand over me in her high Louboutins that are absurdly inappropriate for the venue.

"You're pretty enough," she says after assessing me for a long moment. Crouching down, she reaches out toward my face. Her finger coils around the lock of hair hanging over my eyebrow, and I resist the urge to move my gaze from her gun, which now hangs between her spread knees. "I suppose I can see why he'd want to fuck you."

Her eyes move up and down my body.

"That is, if one likes to fuck livestock."

My eyes water with the force of my concentration to stay still. If I could just reach the gun on my hip or the one across from me….

I put extra firearms on my body before leaving the safe room, but with the state of my arm and the fact that she'll kill me more quickly than I could secure the gun, I freeze.

Hunter, what do I do?

"Fuck. You." I enunciate, biting into each word.

She leans in closer. She's so close that I can see the flecks of gold in her green eyes.

"Your very existence annoys me. You sicken me, if I'm honest, and not just because you and your people are a waste of space on this planet. Not just because of your intellectual and physical inferiority to me. But because somehow, you —you crazy, used-up, inconsequential facsimile of a human being—have managed to inconvenience me. You've managed to make things difficult for me, and that is intolerable. "

Her sick smile grows.

"You people think you can take over this country, turn it into some poverty-run free-for-all. ‘Eat the Rich' you whine, but in reality, you want to be like me. You'd kill to be in my shoes. But we won't let you take over this country and run it into the ground like you people have tried to do around the world. You won't replace us."

She stands and steps back slowly, keeping her eyes pinned on me until there is a solid fifteen feet of space between us.

"I want to play with your dead body. I want to tear you apart, piece by piece. I want to examine you like a lab rat—like the vermin you are. Maybe I'll find something that makes you different, but I doubt it."

I contemplate shooting her now, just pulling the gun out and squeezing my trigger to mow her down, but I know before I'm able to get my bullet out, Blair will have shot me in return.

I have to get more distance. I have to get August out of here.

Before I can move, I hear a swift snick , and through the open bay, I see the person perched on the roof of the manor fall, rolling quickly over the shingles to smack into the ground.

Blair quirks an eyebrow, but the loud, long blow of a horn interrupts her next action.

The ground beneath us shakes, and there's a low rumbling in the distance. With each second it grows, and we both whip our heads to look toward the main house through the hangar opening.

Even more smoke billows from the front side of Amelia Manor, and guessing from her slightly bewildered gaze as she analyzes the building, I don't think the destruction comes from her crew.

And because my gaze is fixed on Blair, I note the precise moment when she rolls her eyes .

"Well," she says, not looking at me. "It's time for you to die."

But before she can turn her head to lock on me fully, my gun is out and pointed at her chest.

I pull the trigger and fire.