Chapter Twenty-Four
Dammit. By the edge of resignation that’d slipped into her expression Bren was getting ready to give in and tell this soldier what he wanted to know.
Cam’s life wasn’t worth risking the entire rebel plan, but if their positions had been reversed, he would have done the same thing. Hadn’t he given this bastard a story that, even though not totally true, held a nugget of truth to save Bren earlier?
“I’ll tell you where the rebels are going to attack, but you have to let him go first.” Bren’s voice came out carefully controlled.
“You’ve got no leverage to negotiate here.” The soldier pressed the gun harder, and he had to work not to wince in pain at where the hard metal was jammed into his temple. “Tell me. Now!”
She took an uneven breath, but before she could get a single word out, Cam shifted forward, clamping a hand on the back of her neck and yanking her in for a quick, hard kiss.
“Sorry, Bren. I can’t let you do it,” he managed to get out against her lips before the soldier pulled him back again.
Instead of complying with the CS soldier’s demand to stay still, he focused all the power in his legs and pushed up, knocking into the soldier and sending them both off balance. A shot rang out, close to his ear—close enough to singe in a streaking burn and leave a ringing sound in his head. But the bullet had missed.
The soldier scrambled to get out from underneath him, but before he could get to his feet, a muted boom rocked the room, shaking the ground beneath them, sending a crack darting up one of the walls.
Thank God.
The rebels had made their move, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Cam recovered quicker than the CS soldier. He clamped his hand over the soldier’s on the gun, pushing it away and head butting him, since his other arm was useless after the bastard had shot him. Luckily, his adrenaline was amped way up, so he hardly felt the pain.
The CS soldier went down, dazed. Cam wrenched the gun out of his hand, lining up the groaning man in his sights.
“Secure the room.”
While he’d been distracted taking care of the commanding officer, Harlow and Seb had taken the other soldier, and Bartlet had positioned himself to guard the door. With the compound being attacked and the ensuing confusion, he doubted anyone would be worried about what was going on in here.
Bren had pulled her comm from somewhere and now he was stunned.
How the hell did she still have it? He’d been relieved he’d been able to stop her being stripped earlier in the holding room, simply for saving her dignity. But knowing the stakes had been so high, he was more thankful than ever.
However, as she held the comm up, he could see her hesitating.
There was every chance one or more of the strikes by her squadron of fighter jets would end up burying them in this room.
“Do it, Bren. Call in the air strike.”
Seb stepped over and set a hand on her shoulder. “There’s no question. It’s the right thing to do.”
She nodded, her expression resigned as she tapped the comm. “Alpha, do you copy?”
There was a moment of stretched silence before Alpha answered. “Reading you, Bren. We were starting to worry. Your comm is showing your position inside the camp.”
“McAllister and I were captured. The good news is we found Seb, the other men, and Shen. The bad news is, we probably can’t get out, and I can’t see what moves the rebel forces are making. I need you to coordinate the air strike.”
Alpha cursed. “Bren, I can hold off, give you a chance—”
“We can’t risk losing time or the advantage. You need to attack now.”
“Understood.” Alpha sighed, clearly not impressed. But he was a soldier. He knew, like all of them, sometimes, sacrifices had to be made. “I’ll do my best to keep the worst of the damage away from your position in the compound.”
“Just make sure you give the rebels everything they need to take this target.”
“Awaiting your command, CAFF.” Alpha’s voice was grim.
Bren took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. “Captain Alphin, bring the rain.”
“Yes, sir.” The transmission cut out, and the silence that followed almost seemed too loud. There was a faint echo in the distance—yelling, gunfire—the sounds of a battle in progress.
“You won’t survive this,” the CS soldier on the ground said in a gravelly voice. “I’ll make sure of it.”
He started to reach behind himself, and Cam reacted without even thinking, instinct taking over. Finger tightening on the trigger, he shot a single round into the man’s head.
“Dammit.” He dropped into a crouch, searching to see what the soldier had been going for—a second gun. As a commanding officer, they might have been able to use him for leverage to escape the prison. Looked like that plan had come to a swift end.
A hand landed on his shoulder. Bren stood next to him. “He would have killed you. He was going to kill you.”
Her words almost seemed to be convincing herself as much as him. He wanted to pull her into his arms, hug her, comfort her, tell her everything was going to be okay, even though he had no damned idea if that was true or not. But things had been said, and more than ever, it felt like the ghost of Jordie stood between them.
Instead, he held out the second gun he’d gotten off the dead soldier. “Take this.”
She accepted the weapon and secured it at her back, then indicated his arm. “We should do something about that.”
Oh right. Gunshot wound. Thinking about it sent a burning lance of pain radiating down his arm. “It’s superficial.”
She arched a brow at him. “I didn’t realize you were a qualified medic.”
Before he could answer that little dig, she gestured for Bartlet to come over, Seb taking up the position by the door.
Bren stepped out of Bartlet’s way as the medic took a quick look at the wound and then started ripping strips of material from the bottom of his shirt. As he tied the material tightly around the injury, the drone of jets buzzed from somewhere above them, a second before the first cracking explosion shook the building around them. Dust trickled down from the ceiling.
Didn’t seem like much point in fixing his arm. If one of those strikes by Bren’s squadron went astray, there was every chance they wouldn’t walk out of this room.