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MARA

T he soldiers had picked up the pace, racing toward us, the hounds taking the lead, partially dragging their handlers behind them. A part of me didn’t care. My heart was broken, holding Matias’s lifeless body in my arms, sobbing into the bloodied fabric of his uniform.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

He wasn’t supposed to die.

And yet…here he was. Nothing but a shell. Nothing but an abandoned vessel for the soul that was one of my best friends.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

What was I going to tell Chelsea? That right as they’d finally found each other, she’d lost him again? In what fucking world was that fair?

“Fuck.” A hand on my shoulder. “What the—?”

I couldn’t look up at Wes. I couldn’t take my gaze off of Matias’s lifeless eyes. “Wes,” I muttered, sniffling. “I don’t know what to do…” I trembled. My whole body was shaking with such intensity, I thought my flesh might rattle off my bones .

“We’ve got to go,” Javier said, his voice coming closer, and then, “por dios, no me digas…don’t tell me…”

“We can’t leave him,” I mumbled, sobs still racking my core. “I can’t leave him, Wes.”

I sensed when he crouched down at my side, a hand cupping the back of my neck. “Mara,” he whispered gently, “we have to go now. I know it’s hard—”

“No!” I screamed in his face. “I can’t leave him. I won’t ,” I insisted. And then I was sobbing again. “Wes, please ,” I begged. I really didn’t know what I expected of him.

He couldn’t pause the world and keep the earth from spinning, keep time from ticking away.

He couldn’t stop the onslaught of enemies or stifle those eerie howls that said the hounds had locked onto the smell of blood.

He couldn’t breathe renewed life into my friend’s lungs.

He couldn’t bring Matias back to me.

“Prima,” Javi’s voice sounded desperate, but he was trying to stay calm. “We have to go right now, or we’re never gonna make it out of here—”

“ Wes ,” I spun on my promised, gripping the collar of his marred uniform and stared into those golden amber eyes, witnessing the storm within. “I can’t leave him. They’ll eat him,” I desperately explained, shaking him, but he remained like solid stone.

“We gotta go now. Right now !” Javier screamed at us both.

Wes’s eyes rained pity on me. “Mara—”

“ Please! ” It was a shrill cry. Desperation clawed up my throat, digging its nails into my flesh. “Wes, please . I had to leave Jacob behind, and it almost broke me. For the love of god, don’t make me do it again.”

His brows pinched together, eyes burning like the sun, and then an emotional snap.

“Damn it,” he muttered. Like a solar flare lashing out into the universe, illuminating the sheer darkness of space, Wes shifted from pity to determination and anger.

He struck out, taking the detonator resting at my side.

“What are you doing?” Javi asked. But before he could finish, Wes was already spinning to face Apex, and the wave of death on its way.

“Fuck it,” Wes said and pushed the button.

A boom shattered the air as a fireball rose from the top of Apex Peak. Seconds later, debris was falling from the sky. I huddled down, and I felt as Wes leaned over me, protecting me further.

“Shit!” Javier groused. “?Tenemos que irnos! We gotta go now!”

As bits of embers began to fall, raining ash and dust and bits of pebbled concrete, I heard it. The guttural screams and the frightening sound of snarls, howls, yips and yaps. I looked once and instantly regretted it.

Every hound had turned on its handler, and it was a bloodbath of flesh being ripped from bone, whizzing bullets, and soldiers being consumed alive. With the tower destroyed, the hellhounds were no longer under the control of NIT-V2, and everyone was a potential victim of the beasts.

“ ?Vámonos, prima! ” Javier was lifting me off the ground, yanking me towards our van.

“But Matias!” I screamed back.

“Go!” Wes ordered, and before I could protest again, he was bending down and lifting Matias off the ground, slinging his limp body over his shoulder. He growled as he did—a deep rumble of guttural pain.

He was hurt.

I started to protest. “Wes—”

“Fucking go , Mara!” he snapped at me, beginning to limp forward as he carried Matias.

Oh god. “Give me the key!” I shouted at Javi.

He didn’t question me. He just reached into his pocket and tossed me the little black, keyless remote, and then I was off.

Sprinting like my life depended on it, which it did.

Not only my life, but all our lives. If I could get the van and drive it to them, it would save us time —

Whup-whup-whup-whup.

The loud thrumming of a helicopter overheard assaulted my ears just as the wind kicked up, causing my hair to fly about, whipping my face. Shit! Telvians…it had to be REG reinforcement. We were out of time.

“Mara!” someone screamed behind me just as the aircraft zoomed overhead, getting ahead, and then turning to face me.

Oh my god…they were going to gun us down.

Shit, shit, shit! I skidded to a halt, momentum almost throwing me forward, but I managed to keep my balance.

I stood there, unsure of what to do next when the aircraft dropped down, landing yards ahead of me, and as it landed, relief crashed over me like an ocean wave.

It was our Bell V-280 Valor—a single flame shaped into a bird in flight painted on the side, proudly proclaiming itself as a Dissenter aircraft. This was an emergency evac.

Oh thank god!

“Help Wes,” I ordered Javi, and then raced forward to get the door open on the Valor. Not waiting to see if he listened to me, I consumed the distance, slamming my hands into the side of the aircraft as I pried open the door.

“Need a lift?” the pilot asked as he glanced over his shoulder from the cockpit.

“You have no idea,” I huffed back, panting.

“Get your team in here ASAP. We’ve got enemy aircraft inbound.”

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath.

This was not going to be easy.