Page 55 of Mortala
Even if that means abandoning the girl I love.
Swallowing my pride—my guilt—I hold Kate’s nauseous stare and let misery thrust between my ribs.
“What are you going to do about it then,witch?”
Kate’s face contorts into a sneer, her uncanny laugh echoes around us soon after, filling the dimly lit living room.Its foreboding tone sends a chill racing up my spine.
Releasing my hair, her arm pitches backward.In an instant, my vision blackens when her knuckles crack against my temple.
Chapter twenty
‘Lias
Thedesertdoesn’tforgivehesitation.
Heat warps the horizon, turning shapes into ghosts and men into something harder to recognize.Out here, you don’t wait for certainty.You act, or you don’t make it back.Orders crackle through my comm, clipped and final, but they barely register.
I’m already watching him through the scope.
His movements lag as he advances.Something’s off.His eyes scan the area too slow, unfocused, hesitant.
“Possible threat,” Dom says low from beside me.
I don’t need the confirmation.I already know.
We’ve been at this for years, him spotting me while I pull the trigger and add another kill to my count.
Adjusting the rifle on my shoulder, I let out a slow, steady breath as I lock the crosshairs on him and ready my finger.As if he can sense me, his empty gaze snaps to mine through the scope.The hairs raise on the back of my neck, and I squeeze the trigger.
One shot.Clean.Efficient.He drops.
The shot echoes across the sand, followed by silence.Heavy and suffocating.The kind that presses in until all I can hear is my own breathing and the ghost of a completed OP.
A moment passes before Dom’s footsteps move in the man's direction.Standing, I follow him, alert and weary of our surroundings.My sixth sense never betrays me—keeping us both whole.
When we reach the body, I nudge it with the toe of my boot.Satisfied he’s down, Dom checks him for hidden weapons and spare ammunition.Instead, he pulls out a worn photograph.A woman and child smile at the camera, happy and carefree.
Their eyes feel like weights on me, pinning me to the sand, anchoring me in place as bullets whiz past and rip at the fabric of my uniform.Escaping their stare is futile.Behind me, boots sink into unstable terrain and pull my attention away from the dead soldier bleeding beneath me.Trapped in this hellhole, the only way out is through the bodies that stand in my way and right now, they’re trying to keep me from going home—to no one.
With my rifle lifted, aimed at the shade beneath a tree, heat manipulates my sights, causing watery ripples to form across the hardened desert.Sweat drips down my brow, sinking into my eyes where the salt burns and blurs my vision.I refuse to blink them away; not when I know something’s watching me and every second matters.
Another softthdwufffrom behind swings me around, my enemy's always at my back.
A blast takes me by surprise, sending me flying backward—free falling through the air.
Lurching, my eyes snap open.Disoriented from the sudden awareness, my pulse pummels the inside of my ears and at the sides of my neck.The pounding of my head competes with the open window and city noises beyond the threshold.Car horns blow at each other in the dead of night.First responder vehicles join the disorder with wailing sirens that fade as they round corners and dive behind buildings.It’s the slight breeze and chill settling into the room that calms me enough to slow my speeding pulse.
One eye at a time, they blink to clear away a sleep induced glaze.From the curtain shrouded window, moonlight spills within with a silvery glow.I’ve been out for a while—a few hours or a few days—who knows.
The earlier weight of confrontation has lifted.The air’s lighter, allowing for my guard to stay down while my hands shift and feel for bedding under me versus the hard floor I knelt on before KO’d me.
Stretching my legs, I tilt my head to ease the pressure building in my neck, which cracks gently.I groan.A shadowy shift snaps my attention to the left where I come face to face with someone perched, watching.My hand snaps for my sidearm only to come up empty, as I don’t have the fucking thing.
“Jesus Christ!”The sheets draped over me rustle and constrict around my legs, protesting from my sudden attempt at escape as they tighten.
Just what I need, Kate—er, Sadie?—sitting inches away.Wouldn’t put it past her to have a fucking knife in her fist; ready to jam it into my gut and watch my blood spill on her fancy ass blankets.
There she sits, however.Motionless with her hands resting in her lap and her head tilted to the side with more curiosity than should be allowed.I don’t know what scares me more: her watching me as I sleep and unsure of what I’m doing, or knowing I have to face her.Being anywhere near this woman after getting my head smashed puts me on high alert.
