Page 84 of Victorious: Part 3

For every nightmare we turned into fuel.

By the time we reach the inner sanctum, blood stains the marble. The hallway is littered with broken bodies, some still twitching, others already cold.

But we don’t stop to count.

We don’t look back.

Nighthawk wipes sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist. “He’s close. I can feel him.”

“So can I,” I murmur. “Let’s finish this.”

We fight back-to-back, our rhythm so familiar it feels like breathing. Blood sprays the walls. Screams echo off the marble. Javier’s house trembles under the fury of our assault.

He knows we’re coming for him.

Then an ear-piercing scream floods the halls. I spin around just in time to see Barn Owl engulfed in a flash of white-hot light. A rigged thermite trap hidden behind a false wall.

“Barn Owl!” we all call as static floods the comms.

But her body ignites in the fire, and there’s nothing we can do.

“Goddammit! Fuck! She’s gone. I should have seen it,” Kite whispers, disbelief in her eyes.

“You can’t predict everything, Kite,” I tell her, placing my hand on her shoulder for comfort.

“But we can make ourselves feel better,” Peacock states, grabbing the guard she’s already half mangled, and throws his body into the pit, keeping his head out. His screams filter through the hall as he slowly burns to death while we all stand, birds united, taking what small vengeance we can for our fallensister. The guard slowly stops screaming, his head flopping as the rest of his body turns to ash, then Peacock shoves what remains into the inferno.

“What’s going on over there?” Egret calls through comms.

We all look at each other and nod in solidarity.

The grief is a blade to the chest, but we don’t stop.

We can’t.

“Barn Own has flown. What’s your status, Egret? You and Starling securing the children?” I ask.

All of us are anxious about how the extraction is going.

“Almost home. Let’s get this done.”

Straightening my shoulders, I signal to the other birds as we turn back, focusing on the task at hand.

Javier fucking Rojas.

He’s here.

Waiting.

Hiding like a little bitch.

And I can’t fucking wait to get my hands on him.

I surge forward, blood roaring in my ears, pounding in time with my boots on marble.

“Birds, on me!” I bark, my voice cutting through the echo of gunfire and the distant boom of grenades.

We plunge deeper into the compound’s belly, hunting him floor by floor, room by room. The air is hot with gunpowder, thick with dust shaken loose from the walls by the firefight raging around us.