Page 32 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

TWENTY-NINE

The Broadcast

ALLY

A metallic thud slams through my skull—boot against steel. I jolt upright, heart in my throat, sleep shattering around me. The outer door crashes open, hinges shrieking like something wounded.

Four guards flood the space, weapons drawn, visors reflecting the wide-eyed panic I can’t hide fast enough.

“Up. Now.”

Their voices slice through the stale air, sharp and cold. No explanation. No delay.

Just the snap of urgency that means something’s changed—and not for the better.

Rough hands seize my arms, drag me upright. My legs—asleep from hours curled on the metal bunk—refuse to support my weight. Boots scrape concrete as they haul me into the corridor.

Across the cellblock, more guards extract the others.

Malia emerges curled inward, arms wrapped around her midsection, eyes swollen from tears.

Mia follows, face blank, her fingers trembling against her thighs.

Stitch moves stiffly, her body still carrying the wounds from the whip beneath blood-stiffened clothing.

Rebel emerges last, defiance etched in every line of her body despite her splinted arm. A guard shoves her forward, eliciting a hiss of pain but no submission.

Jenna stands shakily in the corridor, bandaged hand clutched against her chest. Gray circles shadow her eyes—a testament to hours spent battling infection and pain. Her cauterized stumps must throb with each heartbeat, yet her spine remains straight, chin high despite everything.

“Move.” The lead guard gestures with his rifle barrel.

They herd us down unfamiliar corridors, not the route to the labs or work details. Overhead lights flicker, casting our shadows as fractured ghosts against concrete walls. The air changes—salt and heat replacing the sterile chill of interior spaces.

We emerge into the courtyard, but nothing here resembles yesterday’s execution ground.

The transformation stops my breath. A massive screen is mounted on the compound wall. Speakers flank the display, professional-grade audio equipment gleaming despite the darkness. A drone hovers overhead, camera lens focused downward, recording everything.

The setup resembles a theater. Or an execution chamber.

Malfor stands before us, hands clasped behind his back, smile curving lips too thin for genuine warmth. His suit—charcoal gray today—absorbs light rather than reflects it. Guards flank him like extensions of his will.

“Good evening, ladies.” His voice carries the smooth confidence of a man who owns everything he surveys. “A change of schedule. Something special I’ve arranged for your—education.”

His voice crawls beneath my skin like burrowing insects. My silence only widens his smile.

“You’re wondering about this setup.” He gestures toward the screen. “I thought you deserved to witness something firsthand. A demonstration of futility.”

Ice spreads through my chest. Whatever comes next will break something vital inside us.

Malfor steps away, produces a remote from his pocket—not the collar control but something sleeker, designed for the equipment surrounding us. He presses a button.

The screen flares to life. Night-vision green bathes us in sickly light as aerial footage fills the display.

The ocean stretches black and endless. The island edges are barely visible as jagged shadows against darker water.

Stars speckle the upper portion of the frame, but something else moves among them, cutting through the darkness.

“What am I seeing?” Malia whispers, the first words any of us have spoken.

“Patience.” Malfor adjusts something on the control panel beside the screen. “Context is everything.”

The camera angle shifts, and an image resolves into mechanical shapes.

Helicopters. Four of them, flying in tight formation.

My heart lurches against my ribs. It can’t be…

Targeting data overlays the screen, displaying altitude, speed, and distance. Numbers tick down as the aircraft approach. Another data stream shows perimeter defenses activating, tracking systems locking onto the incoming crafts.

“Interceptors deployed,” announces a mechanical voice from the speakers. “Target acquisition in progress.”

“What is this?” The question scrapes my throat raw. My hands fly to the collar around my neck, clawing at the metal edges. I can’t breathe. Can’t think past the roar of blood in my ears.

“Live feed.” Malfor’s smile stretches wider, and I catch the predatory gleam in his eyes as he watches my reaction.

“Happening right now, just beyond the visual range of this compound. Your friends at Guardian HRS believe they’ve mounted a successful stealth approach.

” His chuckle lacks all humor. “My systems detected them twenty-seven minutes ago.”

This has to be a trick. A manipulation. He’s showing us old footage, archived material designed to break us.

But the telemetry data streams in real time, coordinates updating second by second.

The tactical displays show current weather conditions, wind patterns that match tonight’s storm front approaching from the west.

Hope and terror war in my chest. Guardian HRS is here. They found us. They’re coming.

But Malfor knows.

“Audio channel open,” the mechanical voice announces.

Sound floods the courtyard—rotor wash, wind static, and beneath it—voices.

“Contact bearing two-seven-zero,” a voice snaps through the headset, clipped and urgent. “Multiple aircraft. High speed. Closing fast on our position.”

“How many?” Ethan’s voice cuts through comms, low and hard.

“At least six aircraft. ETA to intercept, ninety seconds.”

Malfor’s smile turns predatory as he watches us break. He feeds on this—our pain, our helplessness, our love being weaponized against us.

“Your Charlie team,” he says, voice silky with satisfaction, “is about to discover that heroism has its limitations.”

We’re standing. Exposed. Helpless. And he’s watching us like it’s the finest entertainment money can buy.

Because for him, it is.

“Interceptor One locked.” The mechanical voice sounds almost pleased. “Firing solution calculated.”

A streak of light cuts across the screen, so fast the eye barely registers movement. Something small, deadly efficient, launched from an unseen platform.

The lead helicopter has no time to react. No evasive maneuvers. No warning.

The explosion blooms white-hot against the eerie wash of night-vision green.

The tail rotor shears away, spiraling into darkness.

The helicopter lurches, spinning out of control, then slams into the ocean.

The main cabin holds together as it hits, sending a geyser of seawater skyward. The wreckage sinks fast into black.

“Charlie team is down! Repeat. Charlie team is down!”

No one could’ve survived.

Screams tear through the courtyard—ours, raw and ragged, echoing the panic blaring from the speakers.

“Evasive maneuvers! Deploy countermeasures!”

The second helicopter jerks left, flares arcing out in a dazzling burst of light. The missile clips its tail, sending it listing—but it stabilizes, engines roaring as the pilot claws for altitude.

The third bird banks hard to the right, flares bursting like fireworks across the sky. It vanishes into the clouds and disappears into the night.

Then—silence. Nothing but an empty ocean where three aircraft had been. No survivors visible. No movement beyond burning debris flickering against the darkness.

My knees buckle. I hit the ground hard, gravel biting through thin fabric, but I barely feel it.

They’re gone.

The words don’t make sense. My brain rejects them, shoving back like a bad equation that refuses to balance. But the screen doesn’t lie. The ocean swallows what’s left—twisted metal, scorched foam, silence.

Hank.

Gabe.

Charlie team … Gone.

The pain doesn’t come in a wave. It detonates. Shrapnel through bone. Through breath. Through my soul. I claw at the collar around my neck, needing air, needing them—needing it not to be true.

“Look at them,” Malfor murmurs, voice like oil on water. “I said, look.”

I can’t not look. He’s forced us all into a front-row seat to slaughter, made sure we watched—helpless, caged, collared like animals.

He planned this.

He wanted this.

He murdered them and made us watch.

“You bastard,” I whisper, not caring if he hears. I want him to hear. I want him to burn.

Something inside me cracks open. Not just grief. Fury. White-hot. Acid-sharp. I don’t care about consequences. I don’t care if he kills me next.

He showed us this to break us.

But all he’s done—is given me a reason to survive.

“You’re a monster.” Rebel’s voice emerges strangled, half sob, half scream.

“I am what circumstance requires.” Malfor steps into our line of sight, blocking the screen showing our last hope burning on black water. “But this lesson isn’t about me. It’s about you. About understanding your situation with perfect clarity.”

He paces before us, measuring each step, hands still clasped behind his back. “I gave you hope. The promise of rescue. The knowledge that someone was coming for you.” His smile never reaches his eyes. “Now I’ve taken that away. Hope is a luxury you can no longer afford.”

“They’ll send others.” Jenna’s voice remains steady despite everything. “Guardian HRS doesn’t abandon its people.”

“Perhaps.” Malfor nods as though considering her point. “But how many teams must die before they reconsider? How many bodies must wash ashore before the mission is deemed too costly?” He stops directly before her. “And how long can you survive waiting for them?”

The screen behind him shifts, replaying the destruction from different angles. Slow-motion footage of explosions tearing metal and flesh apart. Enhanced views of burning wreckage striking water. Close-ups of debris that might once have been human.

“Each of those men,” Malfor continues, his voice taking on the cadence of a professor delivering a lecture, “died believing they were heroes.” His smile becomes razor-sharp. “They were wrong.”