Page 85 of Beyond Redemption

“She’s in and clear, TC.”

After a beat, he spoke again, “Thank you, Tower… Heavy contact here, over!”

Carlisi men began to pour through the breach, but the militia held them in a tight funnel, forcing everything through the same narrow gap so efficiently I had to wonder if that was part of Marcel’s plan.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” Kansas said, aiming before getting several shots off, hitting every single target.

I tracked the entry point and fired into it, breaking their forward push, forcing them to slow, to stagger, to lose the advantage of their momentum. It held for a moment, but then they adjusted. Smaller units broke off, spreading the pressure across a wider section of the line.

“Damn it,” I said, shifting my aim.

“South Tower, you’ve got incoming!” Thomas yelled over the radio, nearly out of breath.

Another explosion hit closer this time, and the tower took it hard. The force knocked me sideways, my shoulder slamming into one of the roof’s support beams with enough impact to send a sharp, blinding spike of pain down my arm. My grip loosened. For one sick second, all I felt was the edge of the platform against my hip and the empty drop beyond the ladder, spatial awareness that I couldn’t react to fast enough. Kansas reached and caught me, pulled me back up, then dragged me back toward the inner wall.

I took a breath so sharp it burned all the way down.

“Talk to me,” Kansas yelled, turning to shoot from where I’d nearly just fallen to my death. “Liis?”

My ears were ringing, my vision blurred, but I managed to get to my feet and get a good grip on my rifle, forcing myself to focus as I reached my hand out to Kansas. “I need eyes!”

She handed me the binos, shook her head with a half amused, half impressed grin, and then continued to take out our unwelcomed guests one by one.

Below, the enemy’s line had adjusted again. The place where I had last seen Thomas was once again taking fire, chunks of concrete breaking away under repeated hits, but he wasn’t behind it anymore. The barrier looked abandoned, the flames extinguished. His absence affected me more than the noise. My focus narrowed immediately, cutting through the smoke, reassessing angles, searching for movement that matched my husband instead of the two hundred or so other men running, dropping, and firing across the compound.

I found Travis first on the west side, advancing with Trenton a few feet back, covering him. Bodhi was still near the bunker entrance as promised, helping drag one of Marcel’s men behind a stack of sand-filled barriers before turning back toward the fight with a rifle that looked too large in his hands from this distance. Thomas, though, was unaccounted for, and everysecond I couldn’t locate him created its own kind of panic, one that had nothing to do with training and everything to do with the fact that our daughter was below ground waiting for her parents to return.

Low in my line of sight, I clocked movement at the base of the tower. A man had broken from the smoke and reached the structure itself, using the metal supports and the blind spot beneath the platform to shield his approach from the main defensive line. He was smart, using the tower as cover, and fast enough that by the time I pivoted my rifle downward, he was already inside the angle where the support beams worked for him, not me. I fired once anyway, instinct overriding geometry. The shot sparked uselessly against metal as he jerked back, then answered with a round that punched through the platform beneath me. The impact thudded through the wood, kicking up splinters, nearly knocking me off balance again.

He didn’t waste the advantage, moving for the ladder. I took a quick look. He was climbing fast, his boots hitting rungs, rubber on metal, gaining ground with adrenaline-fed speed. I got Kansas’s attention, pointed two hard fingers at my eyes, then down. She nodded, side-stepping softly to the edge, then taking a quick peek over. She silently signaled to me, and I moved into the narrowest stretch of the walkway, forcing the angle tight where he’d have the least room to clear the top and bring his weapon up. My rifle set into my shoulder, sight fixed on the opening, I waited, ready.

Kansas moved opposite, adjusting to cover the offset, setting a cross without a word. Below us, the compound was still breaking apart—gunfire, engines, voices—but it fell away. Everything narrowed to the ladder, the rhythm of his climb, and the space he was about to step into.

His hand appeared first, then the barrel of his rifle, then the top of his head as he drove up the last rungs in a low,aggressive rush meant to overwhelm us the moment he reached the platform.

Kansas moved before he could. She stepped in without hesitation, closing the distance before he could clear the opening, and swung the rifle like a club with full strength, the barrel driving up into his face and forehead with a hard crack. His head snapped back. His grip slipped, but his hands found the rungs just a few feet down.

For a moment, he hung there, scrambling to hold the ladder, boots dragging against the rungs as he fought for his footing. He managed to gain control, hauled himself up the last stretch, but when he came over the edge and stood, he was disoriented, his brain a half-step behind his body.

Kansas’s hands shot to his weapon, catching it at the grip and wrenching it away as he tried to recover. She pivoted with it, using his forward drive against him, and as he tried to correct—still dazed—she brought up her knee and drove her foot into his chest, sending him flying backward. He reached for the air in front of him, and with nothing to grab onto, his screams tore away as he fell.

Seconds later, the screaming abruptly stopped, replaced by a thud.

Kansas stepped to the edge and looked down at him, indignant. “He saw a couple of girls up here and thought he could climb up and take it solo.” She spat her gum over the edge at his broken, lifeless body. “Wrong tower, bitch.”

Chapter Sixteen

Thomas

“How’s it look?” I asked Naomi as I moved into position next to her and her squad.

“Outer fences are taking hits. Multiple vehicles inbound. They’re setting up for a push.”

I nodded to Iberra, who was posted up behind another slab not far away.

I moved into position with the layout already mapped in my head before I ever dropped behind cover. The southern tower sat where I needed it to, offset from the main line, elevated, with clean sightlines over the approach and a direct fallback to the bunker. I had sent my wife and Travis’s furthest from the fight, purposely placed them where they could see it develop, influence it, and pull back if the line gave. When Liis realized it—and she would—I’d apologize for it later, although both of us would know I didn’t mean it.

“I’ve got movement at the breach,” Ibarra said. She was settled behind a vehicle, already locked onto her angle.