“Not a word, Noah. You gave me enough lessons over the years, not to mention the ones Mina gave me. I know how to shoot a gun, and trust me, with the way I feel right now? I need to shoot someone.”
Fuck.
“You don’t––”
“Yes, I do. I want to help protect us.”
I nod my head grimly, looking away to check our tail. “The car is bulletproof.”
“I hope theirs isn’t.”
My head whips back. She isn’t looking at me anymore. She’s unbuckled herself and is looking over her shoulder to the back.
“Just let her,” Gabe quietly whispers, low enough for only me to hear.
I don’t get time to process the change in my wife because suddenly the explosive sound of multiple guns discharging fills the air.
“Sunroof!” Gabe’s foot thumps the gas and we speed off, letting our support team engage with enemy fire. I quickly push my back against my seat, lowering it enough to slide over to the back with Ria.
With an arm around her, I press her down on the seat. “Stay down, Ria.”
I stick my gun back inside the holster inside my pant leg and grab one of the M4s Mina had stashed in the backseat.
“I’m going up there, okay? Just please don’t do anything.”
I give her a swift kiss on the forehead and hand her some loaded magazines.
“When I give you the signal Ree, hand me a new one, okay?”
Gabe opens the sunroof and I pop out of it, keeping my eyes trained on the shootout in front of me. From the tally Gabe has been taking and my count, our team managed to take two of their cars out, but three of ours are down for the count. That leaves only five teams trailing us, protecting us.
No sooner had I trained my weapon to shoot at the closest car, that a Jeep pulls up with two men coming out on either side, armed with AR-15s.
I pull back the rod, releasing the handle and engaging the safety catch.
I crack my neck and aim straight for the driver.
Shooting a round at my target, I then aim for the car right behind them and fire off another round.
Both cars swivel around before the car behind slams into the tail end of the Jeep, causing it to hit the rail and go off the bridge into the water below.
The car behind rights itself as the driver’s door opens and the body of the driver is shoved out onto the freeway. Two more heads pop out and a round of rapid gunfire fills the air.
A tint of green grabs my attention.
“Pump the gas, Reyes! Grenade incoming!”
Gabe slams on the gas, causing me to jolt forward as a bullet barely misses my ear by an inch.
Two of our cars explode in a blaze of fire in front of me.
We’re down to three cars each.
And who knows how many they have trailing behind, poised at the ready.
I take the moment of camouflage to reach inside the car and Ria hands me another round. As soon as I load, I aim for the heads sticking out of the armored cars driving past the wreckage, and I unload on them.
A groan of satisfaction escapes me as sweat pours down my face.. The intense heat from the multiple fires blazing on the freeway has me burning up, and the Kevlar underneath my clothes is not helping matters. But I focus on sweeping the scene as it unfolds in front of me in a flurry of red smoke and rapid gunshots. I stick my hand back into the car to ask for a reload.