22. Responsibility

Panic blasted through Blaze like a shotgun.

His fighting faltered, a stutter and a retraction, but then he was windmilling his arms and staggering on his bleeding leg, trying to get to Sarah.

That asshole mercenary with a skull trim shook her again where he clutched her hair, jerking her off her feet as he pushed the muzzle of the gun into her cheek, puffing the flesh around it. "On your knees, Robinson! Or I kill this bitch right now!"

Blaze saw the moment when the mercenary moved his finger from the side of his steel semiautomatic and curled his knuckle around the trigger.

He was going to shoot her.

Tremors shook Blaze, horror sweeping through his flesh, driving sweat out of his pores.

Blaze's legs crumpled under him, and his knees slammed against the wooden floor. As he went down, the two guys holding him let go.

The standard position for surrender was hands behind the head. As Blaze raised his hands, the mercenaries twisted his arms behind his back. The rasp of plastic and tight pinch around his wrists was one of those assholes binding him with zip-tie handcuffs.

Sarah's dark eyes were huge with terror.

Blaze had failed, so utterly failed, to save her.

Dammit, she'd gotten away from the other room while he'd been fighting. Why hadn't she run?

But the failure was ultimately his and his alone.

The responsibility was always his.