Page 69 of Victorious: Part 3

The cell block doors are heavy steel with reinforced glass panels. Through the windows, there are rows of cells stretching into darkness. Somewhere in there, Montana’s mother is waiting for a rescue she doesn’t know is coming.

“Movement,” South hisses, pointing down the corridor.

Three figures in corrections uniforms walk in our direction, moving with purpose rather than routine patrol patterns. They’re carrying more than standard gear—rifles, tactical vests, the kind of equipment you don’t need for prison maintenance.

“That’s not normal guard rotation,” Dutch observes.

“No,” I agree. “They’re Cartel.”

The pieces click into place in my mind. Valerie is not just a prisoner anymore. She’s a loose end that needs tying up. These aren’t guards coming to transfer her to solitary, they’re coming to eliminate her before our riot gives her a chance to escape.

“Montana,” I whisper urgently.

But I turn to see him take off, the emotional dam finally bursting. He breaks from our formation and sprints toward the cell block doors, abandoning stealth for speed. The Cartel guards notice immediately, weapons swinging in his direction.

“Shit! Go, go, GO!”I bark into my mic.

Something always goes wrong.

The corridor erupts in controlled chaos. Dutch and South move to flank the guards while I pursue Montana, trying to keep him from getting himself killed in his desperation to reach his mother. Gunfire echoes through the space, gun flashes strobing against institutional walls. The women prisoners are yelling, thrashing, and screaming against their cages to let them out as Irun past them to get to Montana.

“Alpha, we’ve got company in the tunnels,” Phoenix’s voice crackles through static and violence. “Multiple contacts, armed and moving fast.”

The trap is closing.

We’re not just rescuing Valerie, we’re fighting for our own survival.

Montana reaches the cell block first, somehow avoiding the gunfire through pure adrenaline and goddamn luck. The women are like caged animals behind bars, fighting to be free while he’s working on the electronic lock. I run hard as bullets spark off the steel frame around him. The kid is completely exposed, completely vulnerable, and entirely focused on getting to his mother.

“Cover him,” I shout at Dutch and South.

They lay down suppressing fire while I sprint the last twenty yards, diving into cover beside Montana just as return fire chews chunks out of the concrete where I was standing.

“Almost got it,” Montana pants out the words, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool air.

“Faster would be fucking good,” I reply, watching gunfire advance down the corridor.

The lock clicks open as an explosion shudders through the floor beneath our boots. The shockwave travels up my legs like a threat. Either the riot has kicked off early, or Phoenix and Rip just ran headfirst into a fucking warzone in the tunnels beneath us.

“We’re in,” Montana grits out, shouldering the reinforced door open with a slam that echoes through the block like a starter’s pistol.

We step inside, then freeze.

At the far end of the corridor, lit in stuttering bursts from failing fluorescents and the throbbing orange wash of emergencybeacons, three Cartel operatives in prison uniforms drag a woman across the concrete. Her legs kick and scrape, bare feet leaving faint smears on the floor, every flail desperate and defiant. Even cloaked in shadows, even with blood matting her hair, I know that profile.

Valerie.

“Mom!” Montana’s roar tears down the hallway, jagged and raw, cutting through the gunfire and chaos like a blade.

Tactical discipline?Gone.

He charges like a human battering ram, weapon up, the tendons in his neck standing out like steel cables, every stride fueled by rage and terror. I know that kind of fury. The kind that burns through training, the kind that makes you faster and sloppier in the same heartbeat. The kind that either saves someone’s life…

… or gets you killed.

“Noah,n-no,”Valerie’s voice cracks, high and panicked.

The soldiers react instantly. No hesitation. No confusion. Trained killers.