Page 179 of Carrick
Couldn’t stop.
Because as long as I was in combat, I didn’t have to think.
Didn’t have to process what had just happened.
Rayden was dead.
Bellamy’s brother, her only living relative, was gone.
“Stand down, Carrick!”
Quinn’s voice cut through the battle-fog in my brain, and I slowly lowered my weapon. The SUV was barely visible now, racing away at top speed. I dropped the rifle and stood unsteadily, breath coming in quick gasps as adrenaline still pumped through my veins.
I turned to look at the wreckage that had been Rayden’s car.
The wreckage didn’t even look like a car. The roof had vanished, doors blasted away, the hood peeled back like a gift torn open by reckless hands. Flames still clung to it, hungry and relentless, devouring what little was left. No screams. No last words. Just silence, thick with ruin.
I walked numbly forward, towards the burning car. The heat fought me. Wind hissed across the lot, scattering ash like snow. Something sticky clung to the soles of my boots—melted rubber, maybe. Or something worse.
The smell was the worst of it.
It wasn’t just fire and fuel and scorched plastic—it was the stench of flesh burned to chemical, blood boiled down to rot, bone ground into dust. I’d smelled death before—in deserts, in jungles, on battlefields stained with sacrifice—but this was something else.
This wasn’t war.
It was a message.
An execution.
I dropped to one knee near the edge of the carnage. Not to pray. There was no grace left in this place. Only the sickly orange glow of ruination, and the fragile echo of a boy’s final choice.
Behind me, Quinn’s footsteps crunched closer. Unsteady. I didn’t turn.
There was a shape near the center of the wreckage. Blackened. Partially fused to what might’ve once been the dashboard. A hand. Or half of one. Fingers curled like they were still trying to hold on to something. A steering wheel. A chance.
A promise.
I closed my eyes. He’d been trying to help us. Trying to give us something. To protect his sister. To undo a lifetime of fucked-up choices in one desperate move.
And now there was nothing left of him but heat and shadow.
Quinn crouched beside me. His voice came low, rough, like gravel dragged through his throat.
“Carrick. We have to go. We can’t stay here.”
I nodded dully, but didn’t move right away, just watched the flames consume what was left of the promises I’d made to Bellamy.
I had promised her.
I hadpromised.
Now I had to tell Bellamy her brother died trying to do the right thing.
Even worse—he died alone. We hadn’t gotten there in time. We missed the trap until it was already closing. And in war, even when you’re fighting for the right side, everything can be lost in the span between breath and silence.
And I’d just watched her heart get incinerated from fifty feet away.
Flames had begun to settle, no longer devouring—just slow, cruel, and certain. They moved over the wreckage with the confidence of something that had already won. Heat shimmered in the air, ghostlike and stubborn, while smoke dragged itself low across the gravel, weaving through broken steel. The wind had shifted too, no longer behaving like wind at all. It didn’t breathe or move—it pressed down. Heavy. Present. Grieving.
