Page 57 of Yours on the Canvas

Every sound that I heard a moment before completely cuts out. The distant hum of heavy cars on the boundary road. The steady patter of rain hitting dirt and metal. My vest creaking with each shallow breath. Mack’s slow, controlled, tactical breathing.

All of it vanishes, swallowed by a roaring silence.

Unconscious. Hospital. Ribs refractured.

My chest tears open beneath the crushing weight of my vest. The panic that hits isn’t a slow, controlled burn, it’s a sudden, violent detonation of raw terror.

Jack. My soft, fiercely brave, fragile dove.

The image slams into me, Jack lying alone on a harsh, sterile hospital bed, ribs damaged again, no one there to hold him, no one to keep him safe; and something inside me snaps cleanly in two.

I stand. Straight up. No thought or hesitation, I just need to move. Now.

“Silas, what the fuck are you doing? Get down!” Mack hisses, his hand shooting out in a lightning-fast reflex to grab the heavy nylon drag-handle on the back of my vest, trying to haul me back into the mud.

But I’m already gone. Already somewhere else. Already moving.

“We’re pulling out,” I snap, my voice vibrating with a lethal, terrifying edge that makes even Mack hesitate. I rip my rifle off the chest sling, my grip tightening automatically as the barrel swings forward.

“My house was breached. Jack ran. He’s hurt. I’m going home.”

“Negative, boss, you can’t move,” Callan barks, his voice sharp, eyes locked on the razor-thin shadows shifting up ahead in the alleyway. “We blow the op now, everything goes dark, and we leave a trail straight back to our client. Stay the fuck still. We get the intel, finish the sweep, and we finish the fucking mission, Rook.”

His words hit like bullets. Fast. Hard. Unavoidable.

“I don’t give a single, rotting fuck about the network!” I roar, turning on them with a violence that shakes through my entire frame.

I shove Mack backward into the slick brick wall, hard enough that the plates in his vest rattle against his ribs. “Let me go!”

Mack doesn’t flinch. Not even a breath. Years of joint survival and brotherhood snap into place like a reflex.

He steps right back into my space, his massive arms locking around my torso in a crushing, unyielding hold that traps my rifle against my chest and pins my arms to my sides.

Callan drops his rifle to its sling and throws his full weight into my legs, dropping me down into the freezing mud and water of the alley.

Two men holding me down. And I still try to break free.

“I need to get to Jack!” I roar, a sob pulling from my throat, as I try to break free.

“You’re out of your mind!” Mack yells directly into my ear, wrestling me down behind the cover of the dumpster as my boots slip and skid in the sludge. His grip is iron-tight, unyielding, dragging me down whether I fight or not.

“You run out of here now, you walk straight into an active crossfire and you die in a ditch!” Mack yells into my ear, his voice ripping through the chaos.

“You think Jack survived Vancouver just to wake up and find out you threw your life away because you panicked? Fight it, Silas. Get your head back in the game!”

I sob, trying to get free, throw them off.

* * *

Before I can throw them off the alleyway erupts.

A round slams into the metal dumpster inches from my head, screaming off into the dark with a whine that vibrates in my teeth. Rusted steel bursts outward, stinging my cheek and leaving a hot, bleeding graze.

“Ambush!” Callan screams, drawing his sidearm in one fluid motion as bright, vicious muzzle flashes erupt from the broken windows of the abandoned warehouse opposite us.

Bullets rip past, tearing down the narrow alleyway, smashing into the brickwork beside me and kicking concrete dust into the air. The thick, suffocating smell of sulfur and burning copper floods my throat, sharp enough to make my eyes sting.

“Move, move, move!” Mack roars, hauling me upright by the collar of my vest before my brain can even catch up.