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MARA

I threw myself against the wall, taking cover behind an ornately carved console cabinet, aimed my stunner and fired.

ZAP! Zap, zap!

Three men dropped to the ground, motionless, but their comrades advanced, already firing.

“Mom?” I pulled the trigger again, taking down another Enforcement officer before turning my head to check on my mother.

Nora was slumped against the opposite wall, cradling her side with one hand as she fired several rounds down the opposite hallway.

Crimson glistened in the light, oozing between her fingers as she pressed down on her waist. “Mom!”

Oh my god, she’s been shot.

She grimaced, brows pinching as she grunted. “We’ve gotta get out of this hall.” She tried to move, clenching her jaw as she did. “Damn it,” she cried out, wincing.

I fired again, taking down another soldier. Shit, what are we going to do? “Can you move? ”

She fired again, the electrical pulse zipping through the air, followed by a thud of a body hitting the floor. Then she tried moving again, only to collapse against the wall once more. “I can’t.”

I cursed, taking aim once more.

“You’ve got to find your dad. I’ll cover you—”

“Hell no!” I fired again. “I’m not leaving you.”

She shook her head vigorously. “Sometimes we have to leave behind the ones we love—” She lifted her arm, wincing as she did, and pulled the trigger again. “Sometimes leaving them behind is the only way to save them.”

I blinked rapidly, feeling the familiar burn in the back of my throat and tears threatening to fall. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to help the Dissenters dispose of my father and then live freely with my brother.

I wasn’t supposed to make friends.

I wasn’t supposed to fall in love.

I wasn’t supposed to say goodbye to all the things that mattered to me.

I shook my head again, flattening my back against the wall as several shots whizzed past me. “I’m not leaving you!”

My mother fired several rounds—several thuds sounded in response—and then she was out of charges. “Shit,” she muttered, desperately reaching for another battery clip. I saw the blood bubble out of her wound, soaking through the dark material of her jumpsuit.

Knowing she needed cover, I whipped my head around the corner and fired into the opposite hallway, taking note of several more REG officers blocking any escape. We really were pinned— trapped —and there was no way just the two of us were going to fight our way out of this stupid corner.

“Mom?” I said as I fired a round, missing my target. “How are we—”

“Mara, watch out!”

It all happened too fast then. Just as I was firing another round, my mother launched herself off the wall in an uncoordinated lunge to my left. Several piercing shots made my ears ring.

BANG, BANG, BANG!

I turned to face her. Watched as she gasped and her eyes widened in horror.

Felt my heart stop mid-beat and crumble into sorrow.

The world became nothing more than the muted sounds of gunfire and screaming and death.

Then she was crashing into me, knocking me to the floor.

My hand whammed against the polished marble floor and my stunner went skittering across the ground away from me.

“Mom!” I screamed. Her body was rolling off of me, unnaturally limp. I scrambled, trying to get to my feet, just as something hit my back. I went falling face first, catching myself before my face collided with the ground.

I rolled onto my back just in time, catching a booted foot just about to crash into my face.

Instinct took over. I snagged it, twisted it, and the man came crashing down, hitting a REG officer next to him.

With one graceful kick up, I was on my feet, reaching for my gun at my hip.

But with one quick scan, I knew I would be no match for the dozen soldiers coming down the hall on my left, and the three remaining on my right.

And even if I stood a chance, I couldn’t leave my mother on the floor, bleeding out like she was.

This was it. I was done for.

***

WES

I heard her name. Heard someone scream her name in fear. And that fear crystalized into a need so great, I saw nothing else…

Heard nothing else…

Experienced nothing else…

But the unrelenting desire to have her back.

I was unleashed .

A desperate man will become a torrent of unrelenting rain that will consume the earth in the flood of his desperation if it goes unchecked. And that’s exactly what I was.

I was acid rain pouring down from the heavens.

I was a flash flood consuming desert sands and drowning out anything in my path.

I was a fucking hurricane—category 5—laying waste to anything that was stupid enough to get in my way.

I was fucking Wes —her promised, her soulmate, her servant for the rest of time.

I heard her name, and I would destroy anything that kept me from her.

I chucked another grenade, took cover, and the entire house felt like it shook with the power of the blast. Blood was art on the walls. Limbs were sculptures that decorated the halls.

“Mara, watch out!”

I heard the scream of warning, and then I was running, firing my Glock, feeling it kick in my hand as I charged the palace.

“Mom!” I heard her scream. Her —my Mara. She was so close and yet so far—an army of a dozen stood in my path.

But not for long.

Even as they turned to face me…

Even as they aimed and fired…

Even as they tried to keep me from her…

I would not be deterred.

Because I was too crude, too rash, too brass…

Because I was a hurricane and a tornado and a volcano …

And nothing—absolutely fucking nothing —was going to keep me from the one thing I loved more than my own life.

The Glock kicked back in my hand—two, three, five times—one right after the other, driving deep into the hearts of those who stood before me. There was no mountain that could resist my crashing waves, no tree that could stand against my inferno.

I was Death…

Cancer…

Plague…

The grim reaper seeking to collect.

My spare hand reached for the last grenade on my belt. I pulled the pin out with my teeth, and threw it into the mass of Telvian soldiers.

Took shelter.

Crouched.

BOOM!

The world exploded into splinters of wood, debris flying through the hall. Fire licked the walls. Soot tainted the marble.

I looked up, my path clear, and then I was sprinting into the carnage of destroyed human flesh. Of bodies devoid of life.

I felt no remorse. Felt no guilt or shame.

Because accepting who I was allowed me to do what needed to be done to save her. And I would always save her. I would always follow her into death. I would always choose to do whatever must be done to rescue her from chaos.

Because I was Wes. Not the crude, cheap replica of a better man, but simply a darker version of my brother. And just like the day I murdered my own father, glad to rid the world of a man like him, I was embracing all of who I was. And for once, I was proud.

Proud to be a crusader.

Proud to be an avenger.

Proud to be the man that would sacrifice his own soul for the woman he loved .

I was proud to be me, to be Wes.

I leapt over bodies, dodged the flames that reached out to burn me, and turned the corner of the corridor. And what did my searching eyes find but the other half of my very soul.

“Mara,” my breath escaped me, her name a sound that gave me strength. Then I was running.