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“We have to get to the ship.” Every hair on the back of Maxwell’s neck lifted, his breath became shallow, and his palms slipped against the man’s skin, suddenly slick with sweat. But like Sebastian had told him, the fear didn’t touch his mind. “You’ll be safe! You’ll be safe there, I promise.”
“No! No, no!” The man squeezed his eyes shut and started shaking his head back and forth so violently that Maxwell expected to hear his neck crack.
Maxwell bared his teeth. Reasoning was done. He pulled out his gun, reached it around behind the man, and shot into the sky. With a screech, the man tore forward—away from the sound of Maxwell’s gunshot and up the ship’s gangway. His flailing arms knocked Maxwell’s gun from his hands and sent it flying away but Maxwell let it go, running up the gangway after the man instead.
He had to get the ship door shut before terrified people started running back out of the ship. Cresting the gangway, he found the civilians pressed as far back from the entrance as possible—wide-eyed and terrified and sweating, but not making a run for it yet. He just needed to close the main door and get the air filtration system on. That would keep people sane, and the door could still be opened quickly for Garrett and the old man and however many of those guards managed to extract themselves from the firefight.
He slammed the button to close the hatch but kept the gangway down and ran into the cockpit. The button for the air filtration system was around here somewhere, the button and the switch, he’d seen them. He always familiarized himself with a ship’s basics, even if he never flew. It was—
Maxwell’s heart stopped as he looked out the cockpit window.
Garrett and the old man hadn’t made it out of the warehouse yet. Maxwell could see them through the huge garage door, struggling along over the debris and through the chaos. And behind them, the qesh with the port in the back of his neck buried a bullet into a young guard’s head and then turned toward the entrance.
Maxwell saw his eyes fall onto Garrett’s back.
Without a thought, Maxwell turned and raced out of the cockpit. He slammed the button to open the door, threw himself to the ground, and rolled through the opening as soon as the door began to hiss upward.
“Garrett!” He clawed to his feet and ran down the gangway, waving his arms. “Garrett!”
Garrett looked up from the old man to see Maxwell, and concern flashed through his eyes. Behind him, the qesh saw Maxwell too, and Maxwell watched the realization and then the delight race in colors along his pale face as he leveled the barrel of his gun with Garrett’s back.
“Down!” Maxwell yelled, and Garrett—brilliant, quick, instinctual Garrett—threw himself and the old man to the ground, and the bullets flew over them, past Maxwell, and ricocheted off the ship.
Maxwell didn’t slow his sprint, flying past Garrett and the old man on the ground and making straight for the qesh. Frustration and something ugly twisted across the qesh’s face as he aimed his gun again. Despite Maxwell still running full tilt toward him, the qesh didn’t aim the barrel at Maxwell but off to the side and down.
Maxwell glanced over his shoulder and followed the line of the gun to see Garrett rolling over the old man to shield him, and a fury and a fear Maxwell had never known detonated in his chest.
With a roar and a burst of speed, Maxwell launched himself forward and slammed into the taller qesh. The man fell backward, and his arms went up, and then Maxwell heard the gun go off and knew that the shot had missed.
The bastard hadn’t shot Garrett.
They hit the ground, and before Maxwell could think, the qesh had rolled them and dug a knee into Maxwell’s chest.
“You fucking little son of a bitch.” The qesh pistol-whipped Maxwell across the face, and Maxwell’s head snapped to the side, and his vision blurred. He was in a bad position; he knew cerebrally he was in a bad position, a weak position for ground fighting. “Goddammit, this ground is hard. That hurt!”
He should have let Sebastian teach him ground fighting. He should have trained more.
“Maxwell!” Garrett’s frantic voice pierced the haze of disorientation and pain.
Maxwell blinked his eyes clear. He looked down his body, passed the thigh the qesh had braced on the ground beside him, and saw Garrett running toward him. But Maxwell’s glasses had gone flying, and Garrett’s handsome face was nothing but a blur.
“You didn’t fucking save him, you know.” The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed hard into Maxwell’s temple and ground the other side of his face into the grit of the concrete floor below him. Maxwell needed to move. He had to move. He tried to buck and twist, but the qesh crushed his chest with his knee. “I’ll just start with you.”
“Maxwell!”
Then a deafening noise.
And blackness.
Chapter Nine
No.
Garrett’s chest collapsed.
His foot caught on a rock, and he slammed down onto his knees.
No. No, no, no.
