Red Awakening (Red Zone 2)

As if in slow motion, Keiko turned to her attacker, snatched the gun from his hand, and shot him in the leg. He fell to the terrace with a cry of rage, but Keiko was already running.

But not for the door. Not for safety. Not toward the perfect future she deserved. The one he would never have been able to give her.

No.

She was running for him.

And she was shooting as she did it. Her gun blasted at everything around her. A random deluge of deadly intent. She aimed at nothing and hit it perfectly. A stray shot caught the remaining Mercer twin, the one who’d killed him, taking the man down. And Mace laughed at her blind luck. At least he thought he was laughing.

His vision faded as blood pooled inside him. He swayed, feeling the broken brick dig into the backs of his legs. Spots danced at the edges of his vision. Tired. He was so tired.

Do not give in, the bat ordered.

Mace smiled at the bat in his mind—maybe. It could have been a real smile, on his face for the world to see. He didn’t know. He couldn’t tell the difference anymore. His eyes stayed fixed on Keiko as she ran for him. His name on her lips for everyone to read. Her black silken hair flying behind her. Tears marred her dirt-stained cheeks. Her borrowed clothes were torn. Her knees were bloody. She needed a medic. She needed care.

And he wouldn’t be the one to give it to her.

He’d failed her. All he’d wanted to do was get her safely out of the building, and he hadn’t been able to do it.

The world shifted beneath him, as though it slid out from under his feet. The pink morning sky filled his vision, and he felt like he was floating.

So, this is death?

“No!” The shout tore through him, jerking his mind back to the concrete reality that suddenly felt brutally hard.

Keiko.

Fuck, she was beautiful.

As his eyes drifted closed on the image of the woman he loved, he smiled. He’d always wondered how it all ended.

Now he knew.

Chapter Forty-Two

Top of the Righteous Center

Houston, Northern Territory

Sandi didn’t have the patience or the time to talk Freedom out of their shuttle. Plus, after all the trouble they’d caused for her brother, she figured they didn’t deserve for her to go softly with them. So as soon as the elevator door opened on the roof of the Righteous Center, she started firing. Less than a minute later, the three Freedom fighters were writhing on the ground, each with a bullet in their leg.

“A little warning, maybe,” Ignacio grumbled as he disarmed the Freedom fighters.

“I did warn you. I said, when the doors open, I’m going to get the shuttle.”

“I thought you meant you were running for the bird, not that you were going Rambo on everything in your path.” One of the fallen women tried to pull a gun on him, and he kicked it from her hand, pointing his firearm at her head. “Don’t mistake me for the friendly one,” he told her. “I wouldn’t have aimed for your leg.”

The woman sank back with a gasp.

“Get in here,” Sandi told her teammate. “You can chat up the talent some other time.”

Ignacio climbed into the back of the shuttle as Sandi fired it up. “If that’s the talent, I might take a vow of celibacy, just like mi madre wanted me to take. God rest her soul.” He crossed himself.

“She wanted you to be a priest?” That was hard to believe.

“Funny, no?” Ignacio flashed her the killer grin that had women falling at his feet. Although Sandi had never been one of them. To her, he was just another pain-in-the-ass brother.

“Hold tight.” She pushed the accelerator and took the small aircraft off the top of the building.