“Clear,” Wylder called out softly. We walked down the hallway as quickly as we could before it widened to lead us to a rusted staircase. We planted another bomb at the foot of the stairs before walking into the old, out of order furnace in the center of the building.
The place was rotting away with time. There were obvious signs of the Steel Knights’ presence, Wylder’s light catching on their mark on the blotchy walls and printed on the huge crates. I had no doubt what was inside those. I’d seen the heaps of guns mixed in with straw just a few weeks ago.
Sudden footsteps brought us whipping around. “What the fuck?” a man shouted from a nearby doorway. Shit—we’d been discovered.
In the split second that it took for Wylder to shoot the man in the forehead, he’d already raised an alarm with a shrill cry. Five more Steel Knights came racing down the metal staircase, their footsteps clanging. They rushed towards us. The sound of bullets hitting the metal pipes echoed around us.
We all leapt behind the crates for shelter. Wylder and the other guys fired off shots around the wooden edges. I peeked out, gripping my gun, trying to get a clear enough view to shoot someone I was sure was on the opposite side.
One of the Demon’s Wings men with us gave a shout, and my head jerked around. More Steel Knights were coming at us from the other direction. As I whirled, the nearest one leapt right at Wylder, who was in the middle of firing at someone on the other side of the room. A knife flashed in the attacker’s hand.
No. Despite all my frustration with the Noble heir, every nerve in me resisted the idea of seeing him wounded—or worse, dead. I leapt forward with a cry of warning. Instinctively, I groped for the knife Wylder had given me, knowing I could use it better in hand-to-hand combat than a pistol.
I’d thrown myself between the attacking man and Wylder, so he slammed into me instead, tackling me to the ground. He grabbed my shirt and tried to pin me. I jabbed my knife right between his ribs. With a groan, he slumped on top of me, all dead weight.
Then Wylder was there, heaving him off me. “You okay?” he asked, his face oddly pale in the eerie dimness. His flashlight had fallen somewhere. The other men were silhouettes lunging back and forth through the fractured shadows—and then there was another Steel Knight barreling straight toward Wylder as he bent to help me up.
I grabbed Wylder’s hand, yanked him to the side, and slashed my knife at the incoming attacker. I wasn’t quite fast enough. The guy got off a shot as I bashed his arm to the side, the bullet carving a gouge through the flesh of my shoulder. I bit back a cry and stabbed again, this time managing to plunge the knife into his throat.
He fell with a gurgle. My ear drums rattled with two shots as Wylder dispatched a couple more Steel Knights men. Then he turned to stare at me, his eyes fixing on the blood streaming down my shoulder. “He was coming for me,” he said.
“No kidding, jackass,” I retorted. “So was the first one. You might wish I was dead and buried so you didn’t have to put up with me, but for some crazy reason, I happen to want you to stay alive.”
He blinked, and something shifted in his expression. A dark chuckle fell from his lips. “Maybe you really are merciful.”
Before I could figure out how to respond to that, Axel let out a yell from deeper in the room. “The last one’s placed. We’ve got to get out of here and blow this place to smithereens.”
Wylder’s jaw clenched at his dad’s right-hand man taking over the orders. “Kill anyone who stands between us and the door,” he added, sweeping his arm for everyone to go.
We took off running towards the exit, the two of us bringing up the rear so we could cover the others. I clutched my gun in one hand and my now-bloody knife in the other. But we’d only made it a few paces when another yell rang out behind us.
We swung around, Wylder cocking his gun. The others were already firing. Rather than shooting, Wylder hauled me out of the way behind one of the crates. He bobbed up over the top of it and fired back. I peered around the edge of the crate, gun ready, but our attackers had taken their own shelter.
“Whatever you think you’re going to do here, you’re never going to get away with it,” a voice called out. Did it sound a little familiar? I watched closely as one of the men rose up to take a shot at us. It was Jenner. My pulse stuttered.
He saw me too. “What the fuck are you doing here, Mercy?” he snapped.
So he was acknowledging my presence now. “I should ask you the same question,” I said. “Didn’t take you long to change sides, huh?”
“Everyone looks out for themselves. You ran off to find new company too, obviously.”
I scoffed. “At least I didn’t go running to the traitor who killed my dad and wiped out the rest of his family and inner circle in one single night. Who needs that kind of loyalty?”
Shock flared across Jenner’s features. He ducked down again, but his voice had roughened. “What are you talking about?”
Wylder let out an incredulous laugh. “As if you don’t know that Colt Bryant assassinated Tyrell Katz and his family in cold blood.”
“You mean Colt killed Tyrell because Tyrell wanted to have him assassinated. Nobody but your father is responsible for the demise of the Claws.”
“Is that the cock and bull story Colt’s been feeding you?” I made a face at the ceiling. “Do you really think my dad would spend a year making plans for my marriage and his alliance just to assassinate his future son-in-law a day before the wedding? If Tyrell Katz had wanted Colt dead, he’d be six feet under already.”
“He was biding his time,” one of the others said, but I thought I caught a trace of doubt in his voice.
“Look, I was there. It was my rehearsal dinner, remember? Colt attacked us when we were unprepared and had given him our trust. He even tried to kill me, and I sure as hell hadn’t been plotting against him. Deep down, you have to know what I’m saying is true. Unless you sold your brains along with your dignity.”
“Bitch,” another of the guys spat out. I caught a glimpse of him around the crate—he wasn’t anyone I recognized, probably from a different gang. “Stop spewing garbage. Come on, let’s take them.”
Tires screeched outside, followed by a volley of angry shouts. That didn’t sound good.