Quiet movement.Shuffling.Low growled commands.
It’s enough to pull my attention from Raya—whose eyes never once left mine during Vale’s asinine rant—and I glance over my shoulder to see what’s happening.
One by one, my men are dropping to their knees.Guns down.Heads high.Kneeling.Right along with me.
What are they…
An equally confused Vale whips around from side to side.“What—what is this?”
A cold mocking laugh spills over his rage.A laugh from Raya.
I snap my attention back to her.All the ill-fitted fear that stained her face a minute ago is…gone.Replaced with a taunting coldness.
Who the fuck is this woman?
“That,” she says, “isloyalty.Something that can’t be bought, only earned.These men are here because theywant to be.Because theyloveandrespecttheir leader.Because they’refamily.True loyalty is being willing to go down with your leader.Kneel with your leader.Diewith your leader.Can you say the same for your hired guns, Reverend Father?”
Vale seethes, furious.“The truth is, nephew…” His voice drips with venom.“I had no intention of letting this bitch live.”
He pulls the trigger.
I lurch forward.“NO!”The sound rips out of me before I can stop it.
A beat of deafening silence hangs…
Before I realize that the only sound that echoed throughout the room was the sound of my own voice.
No bang.No blood.No impact.Nothing.
Raya is still kneeling there.Unharmed.She turns her head, calm as ever, and looks up at Vale with a raised brow.
Vale, wide-eyed, pulls the trigger again and again and again.
Click.Click.Click.
“Funny,” Raya says with a cool, mocking laugh.“That’s the same dumb look your son had…right before I snapped his neck.”
Vale roars with rage.
I dive for my guns on the floor and aim, but Raya’s already moving.
In a sharp blur of precise movements, she grabs the hand still tangled in her hair, twists it hard, and with un-fucking-believable ease, flips him over her shoulder.Like he weighs nothing at all.
He slams to the ground with a bone-jarring thud, a cry of pain ripping from his throat.
In a blink, she’s behind him, arm locked around his throat in a sleeper hold.Vale thrashes, but in seconds, he slumps to the floor, unconscious.
Only then does she looks at me, and fucking winks.
Just like that, the spell breaks.Snapped out of my mesmerized stupefaction, I jump up and move toward her.But before I can close the gap, smoke grenades clatter to the floor in front of me.
Thick, white plumes flood the air in seconds, rising fast, clouding my vision and filling my lungs.Fuck, where did she go?Goddammit, she’s asthmatic.“RAYA!”
A chorus of coughing, cursing, and shuffling ensues.Amid the blind chaos, is the unmistakable sounds of suppressed gunfire.Controlled.Precise.Targeted.
What the fuck is happening?Where is she?“RAYA!”
On the edge of insanity, hands out, grabbing at nothing, I move in the direction she was in.Ineedto find her.Ineed to get her out of here.I need… “RAYA!”
