Ajax

Ajax rocked backward, stars exploding across his vision at the force of the blow.

If he’d had any doubts that they were up against the Extremis squad, they were extinguished now. The man wasn’t a shifter, and no human could hit him that hard.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it—Ajax had a lot of experience being hit, and hit hard.

He tumbled to the floor, that was unavoidable, but even as his bear fell he rolled over and kicked out with his hind legs, the huge claws there opening another of the squad from neck to navel in a gruesome fashion that promised a swift death.

With four downed by his own hand, and three of them now going for Ari, the odds were only three to one in favor of his enemies. Those weren’t very fair odds for them at all. The agents seemed to know it, and they began to back away, spreading out. That would be their only hope. In such an enclosed space, he would only be able to face one, possibly two of them at any given time.

He snarled angrily and accepted those odds, charging at the man nearest the big rig itself. Although he couldn’t see him, Ajax sensed the agent leaping in the air from behind him. He ignored him, his single-mindedness ensuring that the serum-empowered man in front of him went down, and did so hard.

Ajax howled as a knife dug deep into his back, puncturing through his thick skin with ease as the shifter used the force of his leap to plunge it up to the hilt. His cry intensified as the shifter twisted it. He bucked and tried to shake the man off, but he held on stubbornly to the knife, the motion only sending more waves of pain through Ajax’s body.

In his struggle to dislodge the man on his back, Ajax saw Ari leap from the truck, falling just short of the flatbed. His heart stopped as he saw the distance she had to cross, but the power of her jump was stronger than he would have expected, and she managed to get her hands on the side of the trailer.

The knife being ripped from his back jolted Ajax back to the present.

Big mistake buddy, he thought, and immediately dropped into a roll. The man on his back fell off, exposing himself to Ajax’s jaws as he bounced back to his feet in a lithe move for the big bear. The man screamed as massive teeth closed around his neck, ripping the tender flesh away in a spray of blood.

Ajax spit the remnants from his mouth and roared his challenge to the agent now standing over Arianna.

The move distracted the man long enough for her to reach up, grab his leg, and pull him off the trailer.

His eyes widened at the strength in her arms, but he didn’t have time to watch as the final two men came at him. Behind them Ajax saw the cargo truck flip and roll, taking out two of the three trailing SUVs that were too slow to get out of the way. There was a form still on the roof of the truck that tried to leap free, but it was too little too late, and he disappeared into the maelstrom of metal and glass of the collision.

Arianna finally managed to board the trailer and she moved to stand next to Ajax. By that time he had shifted back. He quickly embraced her, never taking his eyes off the duo of agents still remaining.

“Ajax, you’re bleeding. Badly,” Arianna said worriedly.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, though he wasn’t sure about the truth of that statement. He had lost a lot of blood, and was feeling sluggish. The wound itself wasn’t fatal, but the effects of it might prove deadly against the remainder of the Extremis team.

“Umm, Ajax?”

“I see them,” he said dully.

The last SUV was pulling up alongside the flatbed, disgorging four more men. They moved with the same grace of the agents facing them.

More Extremis.

They were outmatched, even with the apparent powers Arianna had been graced with. If he was unwounded things would have been different. But the wound had been deep, and he had lost a lot of blood. Even now he was having a hard time staying on his feet. The world swayed in front of him.

“I love you,” he said, his voice sounding slurred. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

Arianna held him tight, unable to reply as their end approached.

Ajax blinked.

Was he hallucinating? He could have sworn there were five agents. Now he only saw six. No, seven. But, why were they fighting each other?

Right. The rest of the plan. We must have reached them.

Ajax sunk down to the flatbed with Arianna by his side, arms around him, as four figures leapt aboard the rear of the flatbed and dispatched the agents with murderous efficiency. They worked as a team, their coordination perfect. The agents didn’t stand a chance.

“Um, who are they?” Arianna asked nervously from his side.

“Friends,” he said with a smile. “Jared, Connor, Justin, Josh,” he said, pointing at each one in turn. “They,” he told her happily, “are part of a program from back home, called the Sentinel program. I called them and had them wait at the city’s outskirts for us. I thought we might need some backup.”

“How did they get on board though?” she asked.

A pickup roared alongside them. At the wheel was Benji, who gave them a wave. In the rear they saw the third SUV ram nose-first into the concrete divider.

“Oh,” she said, giving her half-brother a wave.

“Arianna?” he said, pulling on her sleeve.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to sleep now,” he said, and slumped over into her arms, a smile upon his lips.

They had done their job.