Page 6 of Day Death (Brutes of Bristlebrook Trilogy)

Jasper

The world is white.

The imprint of it burns into my retinas, so impossibly bright that I see the skeletons of every stranger around us flash through their skin. My breath suspends, and I clutch Lucien to my chest.

In this beat before death takes us, it’s not dying I fear.

Only eternity without him.

Hot air rushes us with violent force, shattering windows and tossing shrapnel with a buffeting roar, and we stagger, braced together against the storm.

This is it. If this is my last moment, if I’m to be stardust and a dream, then let it be with him. Let our dust spin out together. He’ll be my dream through every galaxy.

Our hearts will beat their last as one.

His cheek is against mine, pinpricks of stubble piercing me in tiny bites. His lips rest by the hollow under my ear, panting hot, urgent breaths over my skin in carnal symphony—the way he might pant if I were fucking him like this, with him desperate and pinned beneath me, all those glorious muscles made useless by his need.

If I’m to die, I’m dying without knowing what that might feel like.

What those lips might taste like.

How sweetly he might sleep beside me each night.

I get this, though. Even as I feel my skin begin to burn, I have him in my arms.

But... that whiteness doesn’t sear us into ash clouds. The wind doesn’t shred our skin from our bones. I look up to see a mountain of thunderous flames.

It must be the Rangers’ base. The blast is miles away, but it engulfs the sky like a fiery god, swallowing the stars. The mushroomed head belches smoke into the clouds, and the molten glow is still enough to scald my eyes.

The sound hits.

Lucien and I burst apart, and I slam my hands over my ears as the crack of thunder booms, and around us, dozens of others do the same. It presses in on my eardrums like a war hammer, and that column of orange and black death sucks in a raging breath.

It’s unbridled.

Vile and ruinous and awesome in its sheer, grotesque power.

The wave of hot wind passes us, sucking away all noise and leaving behind a deafened void that chills my marrow.

Still, that giant, riotous firestorm rises ... and the earth trembles under our boots.

Slowly, people spill out of the pharmacy, their medicines forgotten as they come to stare until the streets are filled with rows of civilians, lined up in fearful worship. Guns and makeshift clubs hang from their fingertips.

Beaumont takes a shocked step forward, then another, until he’s beside us too.

Then Jaykob.

Then Dominic.

“Our base.” Dominic’s eyes reflect the shooting flames. “The Colonel...”

I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment, my heart throbbing in my throat. Even now. Even now he can’t call him Dad .

Suddenly Dominic shakes his head like he’s disagreeing. Like it doesn’t make sense. He steps forward again, over the wretched, dusty stuffed bear Lucien almost lost his life for, his eyes searching the blistering light.

“Dom,” Beaumont says heavily, catching his shoulder, and Dominic waves him off. “No, Dom, talk to me, we can?—”

A small delivery truck peels around a corner, then crashes into the trash cans outside the pharmacy. It slams to a stop, its horn howling, and Beaumont curses, snagging his medical bag. But before he can sprint over, the driver falls out of the truck. He takes one look at the violent fireball on the horizon and bolts.

But I keep my eyes on the captain.

Dominic turns slowly, running a hand over his jaw, taking in the shattered windows and damaged walls, the bullet blasts and the bodies and all the broken mess around us. He looks from terrified civilian to terrified civilian, as they stare at the burning ball of fire bleeding into the night. The overturned utility pole sparking, its wires writhing and snapping over the street.

So much damage in such a short amount of time.

So many people who have no defense against an attack.

His gaze stops.

The injured woman they rescued is crying silently, huddled against a shop wall. Her bandaged leg is a bloodied mess—but she’s gripping her struggling little girl with white knuckles, murmuring soothingly to her.

Dominic stares at them with dawning fear, then his gaze whips back to the blast, to where a column of roiling clouds rises, rises... until I realize he’s not looking at the explosion at all.

Overhead, those blackened clouds crawl out toward us, sludging the sky.

Horrified realization slams into his face, and he looks back at the girl with frozen dread. And it’s only as another gust of air buffets me that it finally clicks for me too—why those clouds and that blustery, urgent breeze are so, so terrible.

We’re downwind.

We’re downwind of a massive irradiated firestorm.

My eyes find Lucien, standing in stricken awe of the distant blaze. Oranges and reds flicker over his gorgeous, bloodstained face.

No .

I might have failed at much in my years. At my marriage, my professional oaths, my own sense of right and wrong. I might have sworn by everything I hold dear that I would never lay so much as a finger on him.

But I didn’t kill tonight only for Lucien to die. I sacrificed another human—my own soul —for him today. He might need to live in another country to keep me from breaking my oaths, but he will live.

Lucien’s life is bought and paid for.

But if he’s to live, we need orders, and Dominic’s breathing has shallowed, his eyes sightless as the same understanding I’ve reached takes him. There’s no base. No backup. No military or intel or colonels to save us now.

There’s only him.

Dominic and his team, who would follow their captain into that very inferno if he so asked.

There’s also me.

I can’t sling guns or drop from planes. My job doesn’t require me to risk my life—but it does require me to keep my head. To remain calm and to think , no matter what I see or hear. No matter what I feel.

I need to do my job, so that they can do theirs.

“What are your orders, Captain?” I ask him, cool and professional.

“Give him a fucking minute, Jasper. His parents were in there,” Beaumont snaps, shoving me away from Dominic. He’s charged with fear and anger and adrenaline, the shadows of everything he’s lost today darkening his usual charm.

But already I taste metal at the back of my throat. The air is beginning to burn, becoming acrid and electrical.

My pulse trembles at the taste of death, but I lift my chin and stare Beaumont down.

We don’t have a fucking minute.

Dominic’s gaze breaks from the woman and her child. He stares at me hard, ignoring Beaumont, and finally, his head tips back. I can almost see the moment the captain’s duty settles heavily on his shoulders.

There it is.

I murmur, “Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission...”

“.... Though I be the lone survivor.” He finishes the Ranger’s Creed with a low, resolute finality.

“Rangers lead the way,” I say softly, and he meets my eyes.

And finally, he inclines his head.

It’s his promise. His soul. The only prayer his father ever sent him to bed with.

I nod back, relieved. “These people need to be seen to safety, Captain—and you’re the highest ranking official here. We need orders.”

“Dom...” Beaumont starts, but Dominic’s shoulders firm, and he bends down, swooping up the girl’s filthy bear from under his feet.

“The Colonel knew the job, Beau.” He straightens, brushing off some of the dirt from a matted ear. “And so do I.”

Without waiting for his friend’s response, he strides over to the woman and her child, then he kneels beside them.

He lifts the bear.

The girl’s teary eyes light up, enough to clear the skies, and she swipes at the snot streaking her grubby face. “Look, Mommy, my bear! The man has my bear!”

Her mother is only half conscious, and tears streak through the dust on her pain-drenched face, but she works up a tight, tremulous smile for her daughter.

“Thank you.” Her words for Dominic are a choked whisper.

His jaw flexing, Dominic hands the girl the bear. .. and she beams.

She beams like she doesn’t understand that the world is about to sicken and die. The little girl doesn’t know that more bombs will come. That soldiers may even now be ripping through our towns, murdering our men and plundering our resources. That perhaps people closer to home are doing some ripping themselves. For this girl, hope only needs to extend as far as her mother.. . and that bear.

But the mother knows.

Silent, hopeless tears slip over her cheeks as her daughter dances on her toes, clutching that stuffed creature the same way I clutched Lucien to myself just minutes ago.

Dominic watches the child with dark concern.

But it’s the captain who looks back at her mother.

“No one else is dying today,” he promises, and the woman swallows.

She searches Dominic’s face desperately—and whatever she sees there makes her hopeless expression break. On a sob, she squeezes her eyes shut and nods.

Grim determination bricks Dominic’s face as he gets to his feet. “Jayk, Lucky. We need to move!”

He strides over as Jaykob whacks Lucien’s shoulder, startling him out of his awed stare.

“I— Yeah... right.” He looks up, frowning at the lightning crashing through the encroaching clouds. The very air groans, and Lucien pales. “Shit. How long have we got till that comes down?”

“Do I look like a fucking Geiger counter?” Jaykob snaps, and when several people turn around to look at him with wide, terrified eyes, he scowls at them. “We’ve got shit flying at us and windows shattering at thirty miles out—we’re already too fucking close.”

As if in answer, the raging inferno groans again, vomiting more clouds into the sky.

The low murmurs around us pick up into panicked questions, and civilians begin pushing at each other as they try to move in every direction. Something breaks inside the pharmacy, and I grimace.

This is disintegrating, just like at Darkside.

“Evac center is on the south side of town,” Dominic says, urgent, but low enough not to be heard by the civilians around us. “It’s FEMA-built, last few years, so it should be stocked and big enough to cover everyone. Maybe thirty minutes on foot.”

Beaumont looks at the sky. “We have time for that?”

“Look around. You think any of these buildings are secure against fallout? That blast fucked this town,” Dominic replies impatiently. “We’re out of options. These people need to haul ass.”

“On it,” Jaykob mutters.

In seconds he’s storming toward the surrounding people, his boots crunching on broken glass. “Everyone move! South side of town.” He pushes a man standing in the middle of the road forward. “ Go !”

A few people jump into startled motion. Several others blink at him, illuminated by violent, flickering light, and Jaykob stalks up between them like a human bulldozer.

“Get your ass to the bunker or die shitting blood,” he bellows at an elderly man with a cane.

A few shouts go up at that, but the crowd starts to move, pushing toward the evac center in a hurried horde.

“You want to choke on your own vomit? Move!” he booms.

“He has such a gentle touch,” Lucien says fondly.

“Where’s Thomas?” Beaumont asks, ignoring him, and I look away from the horrifying spectacle of Jaykob on a mission. “We have injured here—they can’t walk and carrying them will take too long.”

“So we need wheels.” Dominic nods his agreement.

“There.” Lucien throws his chin toward the road behind us, where the fallen utility pole still blocks half of the street, and a chunky sedan blocks the other half. Snaking, sparking wires writhe over the asphalt.

The convoy is stalled along the winding road, waiting for the path through to be cleared.

Thomas and two other Darkside members try to lift the sedan onto its side—until one of the electrical wires snaps up, sending them shying back. My heart pounds. One wrong move and they’ll be fried.

Another foul-tasting gust whips past us, and Beaumont meets my eyes.

His fear matches mine.

“There are other ways into town, aren’t there?” Lucien asks anxiously. “Should they go around? Meet us there?”

“Then we lose the injured,” Beaumont argues, keeping his voice low. “I can see over a dozen here who can’t walk. I’m not leaving them here.”

“We’re not leaving anyone. Lucky, help Thomas. Get them moving,” Dominic snaps. “They need to go faster. We don’t have time.”

Lucien nods, unusually serious, and before I can offer my assistance, he takes off at a run, shoving people out of the way and whistling sharply to the convoy.

“Beau, get the injured into one place. We can file them in as the cars come through.” Dominic’s eyes flick to me. “Help him.”

“Of course,” I murmur, though my gaze still lingers on Lucien as he tries to approach the lashing, sparking wires.

That boy has as much caution as he has sense.

Which is to say, none .

But in this, I need to trust him.

Dominic takes off in the other direction, helping Jaykob push people down the street, dragging them away from their looting with whipcrack orders until the civilians are moving at a jog toward the evacuation center. Until only the blaring horn of the crashed truck fills the street.

The sky darkens, and Beaumont and I work as quickly as we can to help injured civilian after injured civilian, moving them to sit beside the woman and her daughter so we can take care of the worst injuries as best we can. There are broken bones, burns, crush wounds from damaged buildings, and deep cuts from shattered glass. People blinded by the blast, or torn apart by gunfire, and a few others simply weeping over bodies that Beaumont covers with solemn sadness and then moves on from.

And all the while, those thick, greasy clouds reach out their charred fingers.

“We’re taking too long,” I mutter.

“God damn it,” Beaumont curses, moving the last person against the wall. Sweat stains his shirt.

Lucien and Thomas and the two other men have moved around to another angle, trying to avoid the wires—but they can’t seem to get enough leverage to roll the car.

“Mommy, it’s raining!”

“Eleanor, get back over here, now !” the mother snaps.

Something brushes my cheek and I touch it, then look up. Snowflakes of debris are falling. A delicate frond of silver dust lands on Beaumont’s arm and he touches it. As soon as his fingertip makes contact, it crumples.

He pales, looking up at me with stark eyes, and dread collects in my stomach.

People are wailing in pain, weeping and pulling away from the fallout... and Lucien is still in the middle of the street, the dust collecting in his hair.

I flinch.

That car needs to move now .

Stepping forward, I rack my brain—the angles are wrong, they’re never going to lift it from there, even with me and Beaumont helping. They can’t get under it. But the utility pole is too large to move, those wires too dangerous. We need distance. Leverage. We need...

My eyes land on the crashed delivery truck, its horn still shouting from the center of the road like its demanding attention.

We need a truck .

Dominic and Jaykob jog up behind us.

“The path still isn’t cleared?”

“The fuck are they doing?”

I run.

“Jasper!” Dominic snaps.

I reach the truck in seconds and yank open the door. Sliding into the front seat, I let out a relieved—perhaps slightly hysterical—laugh when I see the keys still in the ignition.

That god-awful driver just became my new favorite human.

My hands shake as I turn the keys—partly with hope, but mostly with fear. I’m built for air-conditioned offices and chess games. This sort of thing is foolish. Reckless, even. And with those wires sizzling the road? It’s certainly dangerous.

It’s something Lucien might do.

Incredibly, right now, the thought is strangely thrilling.

My pulse thundering in my throat, I back the truck up fast, turning it through the street and it squeals to a halt beside the group of men trying to heave the car onto its side.

And leaning over the filthy window, I raise one disparaging brow. “As impressive as this phenomenal display of testosterone is... perhaps you might consider an alternate solution?”

The car slams down.

Panting, Lucien wipes the sweat from his brow and looks up at me. Deathly ash falls around him, but he doesn’t pay it any mind.

Instead, he smiles at me.

It’s a slow, devastating turn of his wicked lips, and those sinful, impish dimples wreck me, bring me to my knees, just as they’ve done from the moment he first walked into my office.

“Now who’s cocky?” he teases, and I can’t help my soft smile back.

Then Thomas is looking for chains, and the men are securing them in as many places as they can manage, hooking up the truck to the sedan for a makeshift tow. If this works, we can avoid the wires entirely.

If this works, we’ll all make it.

Suddenly, the ground rumbles as down the street, a building crumbles with a resonant crash .

Everyone pauses for a moment, watching the cloud of dust scatter, then Thomas booms, “Go, Jasper! Move!”

My hands clench on the steering wheel, and I ease my foot onto the accelerator.

Please, please, please.

The truck groans, the wheels skidding, and for a taut, breathless moment, I think it will work. That we’ll clear the way. That the injured waiting for their rescue won’t be forced to swallow poison instead of air. That my friends from Darkside won’t be stuck, coffined in their cars, as toxic rain corrodes the metal around them.

That Lucien’s skin won’t sizzle and peel away with the acid drip of rain.

One of the chains flings off the truck with a loud twang and Thomas ducks to avoid it, but I ignore it all, focusing only on my foot and that accelerator.

Because, for a moment, I have hope.

The truck lets out a metallic screech, like it’s ripping apart, and sweat beads along my hairline, desperation searing me.

Please.

“Stop! Stop!” someone shouts. “You’ll burn the transmission!”

The hope dies.

I take my foot off the accelerator and brace myself against the wheel, my breathing fast and panicked as our failure hits me.

“Can we get the injured to the convoy instead?” Lucien replies desperately. “Get them to go another way?”

“Around the wires? Up that slope?” Thomas blows out a breath. “Maybe a few, if all of us help. But the time...”

“Screw the time. We do that. We’ll make it work.”

Outside, the debris begins to fall faster, and I close my eyes.

We’re done. It’s too late.

We’re going to die.

Maybe today, or maybe in a few weeks or months when sickness takes us, but we can’t withstand this level of fallout, not for long. We don’t have time.

But I know the Rangers won’t leave anyone behind... and I won’t leave them.

Surrender is not a Ranger word.

We’ll get as many up to the convoy as we can. We’ll carry them until our skin blisters and our throats swell.

“Just back up . Do any of you know a fucking thing about cars?”

Jaykob’s irritated voice startles me out of my hopelessness, and my eyes lift to the rearview mirror. He stalks in, his face an impatient wall, and he shoves Thomas out of the way to peer into the car.

“Goat-brained fucking idiots.” He scowls. “You can’t tow shit with it like this. It’s sitting in park, you dumb bimbo assholes.”

“Dude, no keys,” Lucien snaps back.

Rolling his eyes, Jaykob yanks his pistol out of its holster and shoots out the driver-side window. The alarm goes wild, but he only reaches in and unlocks the door with a scathing, pointed look at Lucien. He holsters his gun and tugs out his pocketknife—then lets himself into the car.

When Jaykob gets out again, he slams the door. “Just put the fucker in neutral next time.”

Lucien stares at him with wide, incredulous eyes. “Okay, Grand Theft Auto.”

“Have you got it?” Dom shouts. It’s more of a demand than a question.

“Got it!” Thomas calls back.

The car rolls forward a fraction of an inch, and Lucien freezes, excitement spilling over his face. “No, okay, you do have it! Holy shit, that was awesome! Show me how? Jayk? Please? I need to know how to do that.” Then he pauses, sliding Jaykob a sideways look. “How do you know how to do that?”

Jaykob swipes a snowflake of debris off his head and mutters, “Some of us shoved leotards up our assholes while we were teenagers, some of us worked on cars.”

“When you say ‘worked on,’” Lucien starts, but Jaykob slaps the roof of the car and turns back to me.

“Move, Jasper. It’ll go.”

Hope catches in my chest.

Beside Dominic and Beaumont, the civilians are watching us fearfully as I put the truck back into drive.

Please .

This time, when I push my foot down onto the accelerator, the car doesn’t scream like it’s ripping apart. Metal chains creak, windshield wipers slide through the smattered debris, and the wheels skid, hiss, then...

They catch .

Suddenly, the truck eases forward, and my heart soars. It worked. It worked !

There’s resistance, and it’s slow, but foot by foot, I drag the car out of the way. I drag it until the road is clear and the next deafening roar isn’t from the thunderous aftershocks of a nuclear bomb.

It’s from the civilians.

A chorus of horns from the convoy goes up in a riotous cheer, and the waiting group holler their happiness, clutching each other through tears.

In the street, Dominic and Beaumont are whooping, the bomb cloud at their back. Jaykob sticks two fingers in his mouth, whistling in triumph as Thomas laughs and slaps his shoulder.

My eyes sting with relief.

Through my window, Lucien looks only at me, alight with joy.

We’re going to live .

I let the others release the chains from the truck, then I pull up by the group of injured civilians, the first in line. Behind me, the convoy begins to wind into town.

It happens quickly after that.

In Jaykob’s truck, Thomas leads the convoy while we work to help civilians into vehicles. They help each other, holding out supportive arms and steadying injuries as they squeeze too many people into crowded seats. Beaumont finally climbs into the bed of his truck with two of the injured, and Dom drives them out.

And then it’s just me and Jaykob standing in the street, blankets we took from the cars wrapped over our heads and covering our mouths. The sky falls around us in black and grey.

As we wait for Lucien, Jaykob stares back at base. At the clouds that will be stamped in my mind for the rest of my life.

“You didn’t suck today,” he finally mutters.

From Jaykob?

A surprising flush of quiet pride fills me, and I slide a soft, amused glance his way. “I believe you called me a bimbo?”

Jaykob snorts. After a moment, he shrugs. “Whatever. Heat of the moment. Not like it’s true.” My Volvo pulls in beside us, and his rough face kicks into a smirk as he squeezes in beside my marble bust. “Bimbos are hot.”

Rolling my eyes, I get in, detangling the blanket from my head, and Lucien searches my face. “Are you... You’re okay?”

Those blue eyes are brilliant, fringed with lashes the darkest shade of blond. I should pull away—the thought stirs in the back of my mind—but it’s instantly lost under that wave of blue. Under the trembling, joyous relief that quakes my nerves.