Page 209 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

Silence.

"Collins."

I felt something inside me snap.

"He's in there."

I already knew. I didn't need binoculars to know. If Seraphina was alive… Collins would be fucking near her.

Mason folded the binoculars.

"Three teams."

He pointed.

"Derek. North."

Then at me.

"Elias. Centre."

Finally, himself.

"I'll take south."

He looked every one of us in the eye.

"No heroes."

His gaze stopped on me. Especially me.

"We get her. We leave. I already contacted my friends; they are on the way to get the girls out of here. No unnecessary casualties."

He extended an arm above his head and made a circle in the air. Then we moved like someone had cut invisible strings.

Branches catching on vests. Boots sinking into wet moss. Every snapped twig sounded deafening. Every heartbeat is louder. Every second wondering if she's still alive.

I operated the side-door breach without waiting for the countdown. My shoulder drove into the warped timber with every ounce of force I had, the old hinges ripping clean out of the concrete wall as the door exploded inward beneath the impact. I stepped through the opening with my rifle already shouldered, the muzzle sweeping automatically across the room exactly the way years of tactical training had drilled into my muscle memory. My breathing slowed. My heartbeat disappeared. Every sound around me dulled beneath the ringing in my ears as the yellow glare from the single hanging bulb flooded my vision, and the entire warehouse collapsed into one frozen frame.

Collins.

His back was to me.

His broad frame blocked half the light, but I could still see her. Seraphina was strapped to a heavy wooden chair, her head forced backwards at an unnatural angle while Collins' massive hand crushed around her throat. Her face had already turned an ugly shade of purple beneath the bruises. One eye was swollen completely shut, the other was bloodshot and desperately searching for air that simply wasn't reaching her lungs. Blood matted her hair against the side of her face, dried streaks running down a sweater. Her lips were blue. Her chest barely moved. She wasn't fighting anymore. She was losing.

Something inside me snapped. There wasn't a tactical calculation. There wasn't a risk assessment. There wasn't a single coherent thought. My finger tightened around the trigger before my brain had even finished processing what my eyes were seeing.

BANG.

The rifle kicked violently against my shoulder as the shot tore through the warehouse, the crack ricocheting off the concrete walls so violently it felt like the entire building shook. Collins let out a sharp, guttural scream as the round ripped through him, his grip disappearing from her throat as his body twisted sideways, stumbling backwards across the stained concrete. For one fraction of a second everything seemed perfectly still... and then absolute hell erupted.

Automatic gunfire exploded from somewhere deeper inside the warehouse. Muzzle flashes burst from behind stacks of pallets and rusted machinery, turning the darkness into rapid, blinding bursts of orange and white. Concrete shattered around us, spraying dust and stone into the air. Bullets punched through sheet metal with deafening cracks, ricocheting somewhere high above the rafters. Someone screamed. Someone shouted orders. Mason's rifle answered from somewhere to my left while Derek's team breached another entrance, the echo of overlapping gunfire turning the entire warehouse into one roaring wall of violence.

I didn't return fire.

I didn't even see the other shooters.

All I saw... was her.