Page 131 of Merciless

“We’re not leaving a fellow soldier behind,” Wraith assures him. “Besides, this really isn’t the way for the legend that is Kingmaker to bite the dust. We can’t have that.”

“Nah, we can’t,” Cal says, Wraith’s words comforting him somewhat.

A bullet bites into the steel beam, ricocheting off it and just shy of catching Cal’s fingers. It has him jolting back and losing his grip on the beam. “Son of a bitch!”

“Shake it off,” Wraith says.

Cal grasps the beam again and resumes lifting. “Could really do with Spartan being here right now. Never thought I’d say that. The guy bench presses five-hundred pounds every day, don’t he?”

“Not that much. But this thing is over a thousand, way out of even his wheelhouse,” Wraith tells him.

Gunfire erupts all around us, the Gatekeepers getting impatient. I guess they’re forgoing the personal route they wanted to take with killing us. Any random bullet will do now.

Cal and Wraith duck low, forced to try to lift the beam at an incredibly awkward angle.

“Fuck,” Wraith grouses. He taps his earpiece. “Cavalno, come in. Cavalno.”

“Anything?” I ask.

“Negative.”

With a roar, Wraith exerts more pressure on the beam. “Give it more,” he grits out through clenched teeth to Cal.

Snarling, Cal forces himself beyond what he should be capable of in his current state.

The beam lifts, finally high enough for me to make a break for it.

“Go! Go! Go!” Wraith orders, as he and Cal strain to hold it.

I roll out as quickly as possible, clearing the beam.

“Jesus,” they exclaim in unison as they drop the beam and it crushes the crates beneath it.

In the next second, Cal’s arms are around me and helping me behind some better cover with Wraith.

“Worst position to be in,” Wraith says, as we watch the Gatekeepers close in all around us.

“We’re sitting ducks,” I say.

“Dead men walking,” Cal grunts.

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