Page 77 of Ashes of Honor

I heard them gather their things behind me, but I didn’t look back.

They keptthem in the bar across from a church. Innovative. Nothing says ‘we’re the bad guys’ like holding trafficking victims across from holy grounds.

We spent every scrap of daylight left camped out across the street, eyes trained on the guards. Three out front, three in the back and one at the side. None patrolled the businesses nearby.Amateurs.Lazy ones at that.

Darkness fell, and we made our way back to the house. Suckerpunch was lounging on the porch like he owned it, tail thumping once when we appeared. With no mangled bodies left waiting, I assumed it meant things had been rather uneventful for him. Small mercies.

Memphis and Denver were tight-lipped, telling me little of their time away from the caravan. The silence between us was only broken by asking direct questions. Even then, their answers were clipped. Trained silence. Every sentence was drenched in things they wouldn’t—or couldn’t—say.

I dropped my bag onto the hardwood with a heavy thud and Memphis flinched hard enough that her water spilled across the floor. Denver didn’t even react. Just stared at Memphis shaking hands until I tossed her an extra t-shirt to dry off. They’d both avoided eye contact after that.

“Get some rest,” I said, deciding leaving them to their own corner of the house would be best. “We move out at first light.”

The sun breachedthe clouds as we approached the bar, casting long shadows across the empty streets. Two hours crawled by as we waited. Lurking in the shadows out of sight. The tension mounted with the ticking clock. I was going to miss their departure. After everything she’d worked for these last few months, I was going to let her down when she needed me the most.

Riley and Abel were staying back for the sake of The Compound and any retaliation which meant it would be her, Reina, and Tomoealonewith Hunter, Serenity, and Caleb. Uneasiness quelled in my throat. No. I wouldn’t make her face the other leaders alone. I’d meet them there just in time if I kept a decent pace. Which meant I needed this shit to wrap up.

Fucking finally. The guards scheduled to take over the back door took their time walking up to their shift change. They stood around chatting, not yet heading around the front to grab their morning coffee off the fire as Denver swore they always did. It was a small miscalculation but time was a critical currency.

We were across the street the second they wandered off. Two minutes and forty-three seconds to execute this shit of a plan.

The door creaked slightly as I pushed it open, revealing a guard standing inside. I drove my knife into his neck, not giving him a moment to react, silencing him instantly. His body hit the floor with a thud and I motioned for Memphis and Denver to follow me. Denver bit down hard on a cry, her hand covering her mouth as she stepped over the growing pool of crimson. Suckerpunch held our rear, nudging her forward with his nose and away from the body.

Stale alcohol and the stench of sweet.This place is fucking disgusting. I took in the room. Dust clung to every surface as did puke, shit, and every other bodily fluid you could imagine. Three doors lined the back hallway—two marked as bathrooms and one unmarked. Suckerpunch crossed the room, sniffing softly at the bottom of the doors, then stopped in front of the last one.

“Office. One o’clock,” I said, raising my hand to cover my nose.

We moved quickly across the bar. I kicked the door in without hesitation. The guard behind lunged for my knife, knocking it from my hand. I was fast. I slammed him into the wall, stunning him. His head hit the corner of a shelf andSuckerpunch dragged him the rest of the way down. When I stomped on his skull, the sound was pleasantly final.

“Behind you!” Memphis yelled, tossing me my knife.

I caught it midair and spun. The blade sliced through the throat of a second guard. Blood sprayed across my face as he crumpled. Suckerpunch ran to the door, standing guard, ears low, neck forward.

The girls had gotten to work on the captives, their fingers fumbling with ropes tied in intricate knots. I reached down, trying to cut through the thick bond of the girl closest to me. They were too dense to slice through quickly and using my flames risked burning her skin. She’d been through enough. Her hands fell free at the same time as the girls Denver and Memphis had worked on. The three of them standing up, wobbling with the awkwardness of newborn deer.

They crowded at the door as Memphis and I worked on the remaining two. Suckerpunch went into a frenzy. His bark pierced the air. Shrill screams rang out. Three more guards stormed the room, guns drawn, magic flaring. Their voices shouting over one another.

Suckerpunch latched thigh of the guard closest to the girls. Granting Denver the opportunity to usher the others toward the door. He tore a chunk of the guard’s leg out at his attempt to reach after them. The guard raised his gun, pointing it at Suckerpunch at the same time my view of him was cut out.

“Go, Memphis! Now!” I shouted.

A chair flew across the room and two shots rang out. Denver launched herself at the guard and pulled him back from his neck. He dropped the gun, and I took a sigh of relief at the blur of Suckerpunch launching at his jugular.

Memphis hesitated. “We can’t! Jersey and Dakota are still tied up!” Her voice cracked as she fumbled with the ropes of her friend.

Denver moved to cover the other girls at the door, the swirling air magic in her hands a warning to anyone who dared approach. It wasn’t much, but it was raging in the way any air magic I’d ever seen. Almost resembling a storm inside the palm of her hand.

I dodged a blow to the head. The squat down bought me a second to take in the room. Suckerpunch pressed his head against Denver’s thigh, forcing the group from the door and out to what I hoped was safety. If we had any luck at all, these three guards were here for the shift change and had come inside from the noise, only after the others had left.

“Everyone stop, or they’re dead!” one of the guards yelled. He dragged Jersey and Dakota into view with a gun pressed to each of their heads. Memphis backed away slowly, arms raised.

The rest of the room froze.

His partner, face bloodied from our brawl, stalked across the room. “I’m done chasing after these brats.” He muttered, vines growing through the cracked wooden floors. In two seconds, it was over. Jersey and Dakota’s necks snapped with a sickening crack.

Memphis’s scream was earsplitting—a piercing wail of anguish. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor, her face twisted in shock.

Rage surged through me, a wildfire consuming everything in its path. The guards in front of me didn’t have time to react before I incinerated them right where they stood. Their bodies crumpled into ash. The room lit with an ominous glow as flames spread, licking at the wooden walls and ceiling. The amount of water it would take to extinguish them would flood the room.

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