“Dominic!” His hands let go of mine, dropping to his sides. “You can’t be sorry,” I cry. “You can’t go!” I sob. “You need to stay with me.” I press one hand to his bleeding chest and one hand to my stomach. “You need to stay with us!”
Dom’s head lolls to the side as more blood seeps from his chest, between my fingers.
And the loss rips through my mind.
He’s not gone.
He can’t be gone.
Not today.
He can’t die today, of all days.
A fresh round of gunfire blasts from up the road, where I last saw the cars.
I reach into my front pocket and pull out the black handkerchief with blue lettering and put it between my palm and his body. I don’t know why I grabbed this today. I just wanted to have it with me.
Another sob breaks free.
We’ve come so far.
I press the handkerchief harder against him.
And he’s not going to make it.
Without a miracle, he won’t make it.
None of us will.
My pocket vibrates.
I’m still practically in Dom’s lap, but I reach down and pull it out. King’s name on the screen.
He must’ve hung up and called back.
I answer the call, but I can’t stop crying.
“Nine minutes,” King tells me. “Val, my men will be there in nine minutes.”
The gunfire up the road slows, one side having overwhelmed the other.
And I know what that means.
I know it’s not my side that won.
“W-we won’t last nine minutes.” I admit the awful truth.
“Can you run?”
I focus on King’s steady voice and look over my shoulder at the deserted airfield. “No. There’s nowhere to go.”
And I can’t leave Dominic.
Not while his heart still beats.
And not after it stops.
“Do you have a weapon?”
I look down at the gun next to me. “There’s a rifle.”
“Use it,” King commands.
King taught me how to shoot two summers ago. And I was good, but I haven’t practiced.
“It’s been too long,” I choke.
“You know what you’re doing, Val. You know how to do this.”
“I don’t know if I can!”
“You have to!” This time he shouts.
And I know he’s right. This is my only chance. Our only chance.
I reach for the gun with my free hand. “If-if I don’t make it…”
“Val.”
“If I don’t make it.” Tears stream down my cheeks. “I just need someone to know—”
But I can’t say it.
I can’t say the words out loud.
Because if I don’t make it, neither will they.
“Val,” King says, focusing me. “Right now, you aim at everything that moves.”
“Okay.” My voice is cracking. “Okay. I’m putting the phone down now. Thank you, King.”
“Thank me later. Now go kill the bastards who dare to fucking shoot at you. You are The Alliance, Val. Show them why.”
I set the phone on the ground next to Dominic’s thigh and move toward the front end of the SUV.
My eyes close for one breath.
Lean in.
I fill my lungs.
My hands lift the rifle, and I rest the stock against my shoulder.
I pull the bolt back just enough to see that there’s a round already in the chamber.
Them or us.
It’s them or it’s us.
I twist around the front of the vehicle.
A man crests the top of the street, his figure silhouetted with the fluffy snow fall.
I squeeze the trigger.
His face disappears.
Them or fucking us.
Movement to my right draws my barrel.
I exhale and squeeze again. Twice.
Blood sprays from his chest.
One more head.
One more bullet.
Another man down.
I roll back behind the vehicle and stay low as I rush back around, past Dominic and past the dead bad guy, until I’m at the back doors.
A pair of men appear above me, but their attention is on the front of the SUV.
Where I was.
I squeeze the trigger.
The first man falls. Half his neck gone.
The second man drops, but not before I get off one more shot.
I run back around, not daring to stop and check on Dominic.
He’s alive.
He has to be alive.
I peek my head around the front of the vehicle and see the pair of men too late.
There’s a barrage of gunfire, and I pull back, but not before a round hits the barrel of my gun, jerking it to the side and out of my grip.
It falls to the ground, past the front bumper. Out of my reach.
That last shred of hope I’m clinging to frays.
I can’t reach the rifle.
Scrambling, I crawl back to Dominic.
It’s been one minute. Maybe two. Not nine.
King’s men won’t get here in time.
“Just hang on,” I whisper to my handsome husband as I shove my hands into his pockets. “Just hang on, okay?”
Except the only clips I can find are for the rifle, and his weapon is out of ammo.
I reach around to Dom’s back and find the handgun tucked into his holster.
It won’t win against the men coming toward us with assault rifles.
But it might buy us a few more seconds.
A few more seconds together.
I reach up and put just the barrel of the gun over the top of the vehicle and squeeze the trigger.
I space them out, angling the gun a little between each shot. Just enough to keep their heads down, even as they return fire.
But then my gun clicks empty.
And all the gunfire stops.
Because I’m out.
And they know it.
I sink down onto my knees.
I failed us.
The falling snow suddenly thickens, and the blanket of silence is overwhelming.
I shuffle to Dominic’s side.
I want to sit in his lap, want to hug him and turn my back on everything. But I can’t do that to him.
I’m going to face this.
He’s dying because he was protecting me.
It’s my turn now.
Picking up the last item from his pocket, I thread my fingers through the heavy metal.
Squeezing my right hand into a fist, I kneel next to my husband and press my left palm against the hole in his chest. And I wait.
Three things I see.
The lowering sun glittering through the snowfall.
Dominic’s blood on my hands.
The empty rifle lying in the snow.
Three things I hear.
Ringing in my ears.
King’s voice shouting through the phone, somewhere on the ground.
Approaching footsteps.
Three body parts.
My heart cracking in my chest.
My baby, barely formed, in my belly.
And my soul, in the center of my being, wailing over our lost chance at happiness.
“I’m sorry, too, Dominic,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save us.” I bend to the side and press a soft kiss to his cheek. “And I’m sorry I never told you how much I love you.”
A man rounds the front of the bullet-riddled vehicle.
And I straighten, still touching Dominic, still gripping the brass knuckles.
The man’s mouth pulls up on the side as he lifts the barrel of his gun.
Our lives are about to end, and he thinks it’s amusing.
I lean against Dom.
Together.
And then chaos erupts around me.
More gunfire than before.
The sound is deafening.
So many weapons unloading all at once.
The man in front of me vanishes, his body ripping apart before my eyes.
The noise is so loud.
It’s so incredibly loud.
I brace.
Waiting for the pain.
But nothing hits me.
Nothing hits Dom.
I turn my head, craning to see where the shots are coming from.
And I see it.
I see them.
A row of people. A whole fucking row of people, walking shoulder to shoulder out of the snow with their weapons raised, aimed over my head.
They keep walking.
Keep walking and keep shooting. And I don’t know where they came from.
They materialized from the field, dressed in all-white tactical gear.
And…
I notice the formfitting snow suits. Notice the curves.
They’re women.
My mouth drops open.
There are like twenty fucking women raining down hell on the people attacking us.
Maybe more than that.
Their thick knitted face masks hide their facial features. But they’re women.
I know they are.
They keep walking nearer.
And they keep shooting.
Reloading as they move.
I can’t even tell if anyone is even shooting back at them.
The line moves closer until they’re near enough for me to see their eyes through their masks. Then their line parts, and they walk around us and our downed vehicle, never sparing me a look.
But then one person breaks off from the line. And they move toward me. Toward us. Their gun lowered toward the ground.
My shaking fist drops.
As they stop before me, the person pulls their face mask off.
And this one is not a woman. I was too awed to notice how large his build is in comparison to the rest of them.
His dark eyes are kind and calm, so when he tips his head toward Dom, I nod, and he crouches down on the other side of my husband’s outstretched legs.
The man pulls a clear bag out of his jacket pocket, and I recognize it as a collection of first aid supplies.
I stay at Dominic’s side, keeping my hand in place as I give the man room.
“Let me see.” The man finally breaks the silence, and I pull my hand away from Dom’s chest. Hesitant to stop pressing on the wound, but more hesitant not to take the help.
The stranger reaches forward and rips Dominic’s shirt open, then dumps the contents of the bag onto Dominic’s lap.
As he’s bent over, tearing open a package, I notice the man has long hair. It’s pulled back into a bun, the golden strands partially covered by the collar of his white jacket.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
The man doesn’t look up. “Later.”
I hear my name, muffled, coming from somewhere, and I realize that all the gunfire has stopped, so I can hear King shouting from Dom’s phone again.
Glancing around, I find it next to me on the ground.
One final shot rips through the air.
Okay, now it’s over.
The man wipes a little cloth over Dom’s bullet wound, then follows it with some kind of gauze bandage.
I expect him to press it against the bullet hole, but then he starts jamming it into the bullet hole.
“What are you doing?!” I half shriek.
“This is how it’s done.” He doesn’t spare time explaining to me. And I have to trust him.
What other choice do I have?
He shoves more of the gauze into the hole, then wads up the rest of it and presses it against the wound.
“Hold it here.”
I do as he says and press down with both hands. The oversized brass knuckles still around the fingers of my right hand.
King’s voice sounds from the ground again, and the man reaches across Dom’s body and picks up the phone.
He reads the screen before hanging up the call.
But I don’t care about the phone call.
Because under my palms, Dom’s chest moves.
He’s alive.
New tears stream from my eyes.
I want to fall forward onto Dominic.
I want to hug him as hard as I can.
But I don’t want to hurt him. And I have a job to do.
The man drops the phone back onto the ground. “Was Dom hit anywhere else?”
“H-his back, I think.” I don’t know who this stranger is. And I don’t care that he knows who Dominic is. I just care that he’s helping.
“Keep your hands where they are,” he says, then pulls Dom’s shoulders forward.
I brace Dom’s weight as he leans unconsciously into me, his head hanging down.
The man pulls something out of his pocket and flicks his wrist, flipping open an angry-looking blade.
In seconds, he’s sliced through Dom’s suit coat and shirt so he can find the entry wound on Dom’s back.
Split down the front and back, Dom’s destroyed clothing slides down his arms, pooling around his hands.
I hate that his bare skin is exposed to the snow. I don’t want him to be cold.
The man grabs another packet of gauze, and I can’t see what he’s doing, but I think it’s the same thing he did to his front, something to stop the bleeding.
I look down, and Dom’s slumped body is blocking my view of his chest, but I know what’s there.
Too much blood.
Even if his heart is still beating… he’s lost too much blood.
The man eases Dom back against the car just as the faint sound of sirens filters through the air.
“We took the liberty of calling an ambulance.” His voice is somehow soft and gravelly at the same time.
That tiny, frayed strand of hope twists around itself, making it stronger.
“Thank you.” I hold the stranger’s gaze. “I can never repay you for this.”
The man stands to his full tall height. “Just remember me. That’s all I ask.”
I don’t understand what he means, but I answer with the truth. “I’ll never forget you. We’re in your debt.”
He almost smiles, but then he pulls the white mask back down over his face and jogs around the back of the SUV just as the ambulance lights appear in my vision.
And then he’s gone.
And we’re the only ones left alive.
“Help is here,” I tell Dominic. “We’re going to be okay.”
But the ambulance stops down at the end of the road, on the far side of the cars. And I realize they can’t see us. And there is so much carnage, they won’t know where to look.
And Dominic is so pale.
I lean in and press my forehead to his. “You need to lie down, okay?”
Even with the stranger’s help, we don’t have time.
And I need to get the medics’ attention.
Taking my hand off the bundle of gauze, I grip Dominic’s shoulders and pull him, tugging, until I get him turned enough so I can lay him on his back. I don’t know if this is the right call, but my instincts tell me to do it.
“I’ll be right back.” I push off the ground, my legs half-numb underneath me. “I’ll be right back.”
Then, hoping all the bad guys are truly dead, I run away from Dominic. I run away from the cover, out into the open.
Waving my hands in the air, I scream.
I scream for help.
Beg them to see me.
And then they do.
And when two men get out of the ambulance and start to run across the distance, stepping around bodies strewn on the road, I turn and run back to Dominic.
And when they reach us, when the road fills with more men—King’s men—I break.
I collapse on the ground next to my husband and break.
