Page 66 of Avenging Jessie
Dead silence.
Spence’s stomach dropped. “Son of a?—”
Brewer had shut down the hub’s power, stopping the failsafe activation before it could finish. The bastard had cut him off at the knees.
Through the glass partition, he saw Brewer heading for the rear of the warehouse, his long coat snapping behind him.
“Jessie!”
“I see him!” she shouted, barreling after the man.
Spence shut his laptop and shoved it in its sling, grabbed his weapon, and ignored the screaming protest in his injured hand as he bolted after them both.
They burst into the main warehouse floor, a cavern of shadows and sharp angles. Forklifts loomed like sleeping beasts, their forks jutting up like steel tusks. Towering stacks of drone crates formed narrow aisles, each one a choke point waiting to be used against them.
Jessie was just ahead, moving like a ghost between the rows of crates, her boots barely making a sound. Brewer scrambled past a tool area, glanced back once, and fired a quick burst over his shoulder. Jessie dove behind a forklift. The alarm klaxon continued to wail overhead, a bone-deep howl that set Spence’s teeth on edge.
He cut left, angling to flank Brewer, catching brief flashes of him going up a catwalk, down again, moving in unpredictable bursts that forced them to adjust course constantly. Brewer knew this place’s layout better than anyone, and he was using it to bleed time off the clock.
A forklift chain clanged as Brewer brushed past, vanishing behind a stack of crates. Spence’s pulse roared in his ears. Every second Brewer stayed ahead was another second the second fleet of drones got closer to Langley.
Jessie shot him a quick look over her shoulder. “We can’t let him get out through the rear bay door.”
“Let’s cut him off,” Spence said, breaking into a sprint.
They rounded the end of a crate stack—and ran straight into Brewer’s ambush.
Gunfire ripped through the narrow aisle, splintering wood and pinging off forklift steel. Spence dropped behind cover, dragging Jessie with him. Her shoulder slammed into a crate, and she yelped through her teeth, but she was already returning fire.
Brewer fired two shots, shifted, fired off two more, keeping them pinned while edging closer to the loading bay.
Spence spotted his opening near a catwalk ladder and broke left, using the angle to try to duck under it and box the man in. He caught Brewer before he got to the bay, and for the first time, Spence saw his calm crack. Their eyes met over the sights of their weapons.
“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” Brewer yelled, voice carrying over the ringing in Spence’s ears.
“Funny,” Spence shot back, “I was about to say the same to you.”
Brewer’s smirk twisted into something cruel. Something that reminded Spence of Ian Bastion at the end, when Spence and his two step-brothers had had the man cornered. Brewer opened his mouth to say something, but Spence wasn’t interested in hearing it. He squeezed the trigger.
Brewer pivoted, taking the bullet in his arm. He disappeared behind a group of barrels.
Jessie stalked up from the other side, weapon trained on the spot. Spence waved her off, and then had to whirl around when he heard footsteps coming from behind him.
The shot by the guard went wide. Metal screamed as it ricocheted. Spence fired and the guard went down.
“Spence!”
Jessie’s voice was an octave too high. He ducked, spinning at the same time, and a bullet whistled over his head.
Then Brewer was there, right in front of him. Spence brought up his weapon, but Brewer knocked it aside with his own.
The bastard was strong, and Spence’s hand was screaming. He tried to leverage Brewer’s momentum into a takedown, but Brewer rolled with it, forcing him back toward the crates.
The muzzle came up, this time steady on Spence’s heart.
Spence’s pulse spiked. He saw the twitch in Brewer’s fingers—the tiny, inevitable squeeze that meant this was it.
“Look out!” Jessie came out of nowhere, slamming into Brewer’s side. The shot cracked like thunder in the enclosed space. Pain lanced across Spence’s ribs—not his pain. Her weight hit him hard, her knees buckling as they went down together behind a forklift.
