Page 77 of Sanctuary

I have to hold on to something or I might fall over.

They’ve come up with a plan. When I start focusing again, I realize that Cole is the one who’s going first.

I suck in a gasp of automatic objection. I can’t—can’t—let Cole get killed. Del will be utterly crushed.

Before I have a chance to say anything at all, Mark bursts out, “No fucking way. You’re not fucking doing that. You’ll get killed!”

“If I don’t, all of us will get killed.” Cole is sweating. His eyes are fierce and focused—silver like a wolf’s. Del loves him so much.

“No way I’m going along with that,” Mark bites out. “Look, I’m one of them. I can get down there without getting shot. I can take out the first wave.”

“Why should we trust you?” one of the locals I don’t know asks. “You said it. You’re one of them.”

“You don’t have to trust me. But you seriously think I can make this shitshow worse? I’m going. I can get far enough down to take out the first ones. Then y’all can get the rest.”

“They’ll kill you!” Cole says in a harsh whisper.

For a moment, Mark looks more tired than anyone I’ve ever met. “Yeah, they will. But otherwise they’ll kill you. And you’re still my big brother. I’m not living with that. I just fucking… won’t. I’m the one who lay down with monsters. You’re the one who… who saved me from them.” He reaches out and grabs Cole’s forearm in a hard grip. “The good one gets to survive.Youget to survive. I’m not living in this fucking world if that can’t be true.”

“Mark.” Cole grips Mark’s forearm in return, and they share a look that slices into my heart.

Then Mark yanks his hand away from his brother’s and calls out through the closed door. “Hey. It’s me! Mark. I’m coming down. We took care of them up on this floor. Don’t you dare fucking kill me!”

Then he’s pushing the door open. Slanting one last look at Cole, whose face is twisting with barely reined in emotion.

I step over and squeeze Cole’s arm as we hear Mark still talking loudly as he descends the first flight of stairs.

At the sound of gunfire, Cole rushes through after him. Then the rest of us follow.

When we reach the landing, all six bad guys on the landing are dead.

And so is Mark. Half his head is blown off.

Bile burns the back of my throat. I quickly look away. Reach out to grab for the hard muscles of Cole’s upper arm.

He’s standing above his brother’s body, staring down at him. Motionless. Scarily tense.

“We gotta move,” Cal says from behind us in the gruff, matter-of-fact tone that characterizes the man. “Sorry, man. We’ll come back for his body, but right now we gotta move.”

Cole shakes off his frozen reaction. Turns his head to meet my gaze for a few seconds.

We share something in that look, and it surprises me. Not that I’ll ever again doubt Cole’s unwavering devotion to my sister or the core of him that will always be good. But I wouldn’t have thought he’d reach out to me in need even wordlessly. Or take solace in my presence.

But that’s what he’s doing. I squeeze his arm again. “Let’s go. We’ll come back later, and you can take his body home.”

Cole nods briefly and lifts his rifle back into position. “I’m ready.”

Before we reach the bottom of the stairs, the teams clearing the second and third floors have joined us, so we’re a much larger group than we were. As we’re turning down the final flight to the ground floor, someone starts shooting up at us again from the bottom landing.

The first couple of people duck back behind the stairs, barely missing getting shot.

Mack has joined us now, and he’s evidently the natural leader. He waves us all back up to the hallway door to the second floor. He and Aidan flank the door out of the stairwell, shooting a couple of bad guys passing by before they let the rest of us out.

I’m trying not to get ahead of myself, but this attack is going surprisingly well so far. We’ve cleared all the floors of the hotel except the first. The outside guards were all killed or incapacitated simultaneously before Aidan even opened the back door of the wall. There weren’t that many people in the courtyard when we arrived, so Maria and her women will have handled that easily and are probably already inside taking on the biggest hostile force on the first floor.

We took them by surprise and so had the advantage. We might actually be able to do this.

I’m not sure why I think this. I know better than to jinx myself with that kind of optimistic thinking. Reality will always catch up.

---