Page 125 of The Souls We Claim

Suck in air.

Arianne.

I focus on her face.

The pressure of the ties around my wrists releases, and I feel something pressed into my palm. A knife handle.

I look around, expecting Bates to have crawled or some shit, but instead, it’s Jax, who is already running away from the tree.

As I’m about to use the knife, a bullet hits a man standing just off to the left, and he slumps to the floor. A second hits the floor just by West’s feet.

A third catches West in the calf, and he drops to the ground, rolling in pain.

Pain from my ribs fires through me as I make quick work to cut through the rope securing feet. My hands shake with the agony of it. But this is what Hell Week as a SEAL prepares you for.

There’s a reason you almost die trying to become a SEAL. It’s an early introduction to what the agony of being one in a live situation will feel like.

Vomit rises, and I spit it out as I try to calculate where the shots are coming from.

The cabin.

Switch must be alive, but I’m guessing his vision is blurred because the shots seem random.

In the chaos, men race for cover, and I’m just about to run to my half-brother to slice his throat when a bullet hits him square in the face.

For a second, I stand unable to move, holding my ribs.

The brother I never got to know but won’t miss, is dead.

Even as I planned to do it myself, the event still shocks me.

Gunshots sound from the outbuilding where I left Bates. Four of them. I grab West’s gun and start to run past the currently untouched cabin.

Bates only had three bullets in that fucking gun.

Four shots can’t mean he’s?—

One second.

One breath.

I collect my thoughts.

My heart races as I charge to him, my boots hitting the ground with a thud, the pain from my ribs bringing me one step closer to passing out.

A man flees from the outbuilding, and I shoot him with precision and zero remorse.

When I finally step inside, Bates and two other men are slumped on the floor.

“Fucking luckiest miss,” Bates says as he sits back up and points to a burnt-out hole in the wood framing, four centimeters from his head.

“This is going to hurt,” I say as I manhandle him to his feet. We’re a similar size, but I have the edge in weight and strength. Although that means nothing with the way my ribs feel like they’re about to pierce my lungs.

“Fuck,” he says through gritted teeth.

“I’m getting you in the house. Just fucking hold on, and fire when I say.” I hand West’s gun to him.

And then the sweetest fucking sound I’ve ever heard in my whole life breaks through the chaos.