“We stay in position,” she told him. “Stick to the plan, remember?”
And the plan required them to secure the rear and take out any Enforcers who tried to flee. Rylan and the others were doing their part inside.
It felt like an interminably long time before the gunfire died down and her people began reporting in.
“All clear.” Beckett, who was with Nash on the west side of the warehouse.
“Clear.” Davis and Cole from the east.
“All good here.” Xander, who was monitoring the tech from one of their trucks.
“You guys can head inside now.” The final report came from Rylan, sounding mighty pleased with himself.
Reese clicked on the radio. “Any casualties?”
A chorus of nos rang out, though she didn’t miss the note of hesitation in Pike’s voice. Shit. She hoped all her people were in one piece.
“Let’s go,” she said brusquely.
Weapons drawn, she and Sloan raced toward the two metal doors that swung open at their approach. A beaming Rylan appeared, his blue eyes dancing with mischief. “Hey, guys. Fancy meeting you here.”
Sloan rolled his eyes.
“Is everything a joke to you?” Reese asked irritably.
“Gorgeous, we just raided a weapons depot and didn’t die. I think I’m allowed to be in a good mood right now.”
He had a point.
As they followed Rylan into the fluorescent-lit corridor, the ringing in Reese’s ears eased, replaced by the wild hammering of her pulse. Holy fuck. They’d done it. They’d actually done it.
“Everyone okay?” she asked Rylan.
He shrugged. “More or less.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Your girl Sam took a bullet, but she’ll live.”
A rush of concern overtook her, spurring her to walk faster. Damn it. She’d been torn about bringing Sam along, but the woman was one of the best sharpshooters in Foxworth, the small town Reese had commandeered years ago.
“Where is she?” Reese demanded.
Rylan gestured to the set of doors at the end of the hall. “Pike’s stitching her up. Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”
Reese only moved faster. She’d be a fool to take Rylan’s word for anything—the man could be bleeding out from his femoral artery and still insist everything was “fine.” She rarely saw him without some injury that was “no big deal, gorgeous”, although he was always quick to ask her to kiss it and make it better.
She pushed at the doors and found herself in a cavernous room filled with endless rows of shelving soaring almost to the ceiling. The scent of metal, gunpowder, and blood assaulted her nostrils as she stepped through the threshold. She paid no attention to the bodies strewn all over the cement floor. Dead Enforcers meant nothing to her.
Apparently they meant nothing to Rylan too; he didn’t even glance down as he carelessly stepped over the bloodied body of an Enforcer who’d taken several bullets to the chest.
“See? She’s fine.” Rylan sounded exasperated as he pointed across the warehouse.
Reese relaxed when she glimpsed Sam. The slender brunette was sitting on a plastic chair, wearing a stony expression as Pike tied what looked like a piece of his shirt around her upper arm.
“You okay, Sammy?” Reese called out.
“Peachy,” the woman called back, then offered a thumbs-up.
Appeased, Reese walked over to the nearest aisle and poked her head around the corner. Stacks upon stacks of wooden crates met her eyes, and then she spotted Beckett already hard at work, prying a crate open with his crowbar. He grinned when he saw her, then shoved aside a sea of packing peanuts to extract a gleaming assault rifle from the crate.
“Nice, huh?” he remarked.
Her heart started pounding again, this time from excitement rather than adrenaline. When she’d been gathering intel about this warehouse, all her sources were unclear about whether it would contain weapons or ammunition. Most depots weren’t equipped to handle both, and it would have been pointless to get their hands on a shit ton of ammo when they had no weapons to use it with.
But Reese’s gut had told her that West Colony’s council members didn’t have enough manpower to guard multiple munitions warehouses, particularly with the new colony that they were supposedly terraforming along the west coast. She’d banked on the council consolidating both weapons and ammo in one place, and her gamble had paid off.
These weapons were hers now. The endless boxes of ammunition were hers. It was all hers.
Her pulse sped up at the thought, but there was no time to bask in her victory. Once the Enforcers they’d killed missed their hourly check-in with headquarters, the city would send backup.
Reese clapped her hands together, and the sharp sound echoed through the massive space. “Load the trucks,” she ordered. “We have fifteen minutes to take as much as we can. Let’s not waste time, people.”
2