We didn't need more than that.
We'd handled more than a couple missions that no one made it out of.
We knew what we were doing.
Sure, this was newer for Alaric and Donovan, but they would have to figure it out eventually. Trial by fire, and all that.
"Let's go get your girl," Huck said, punching my arm as he moved past me.
My steps felt oddly heavy as I made my way down the block, like I was trudging through quicksand. My heart felt just as heavy.
Sure, we knew what we were doing. But we usually had a better idea of the interior of a building before we infiltrated it. We had more time to throw together a plan. Or at least get some flashlights or some shit. Abandoned buildings didn't have working electric.
It would all work out.
It had to.
There was no other option.
Shy was going to make it out of this. I was going to bring her home. I was going to comfort her and tell her how much I was starting to care about her. I was going to eventually get a ring on her finger, get her name matched up with my last one. Then I was going to get her a house with a center kitchen, and get us a couple kids with her face on them.
That was the only possible outcome.
I refused to believe anything else was even an option.
Flattening myself against the side of the bakery, I pressed my ear against the boarded-up window, trying to hear anything at all inside. Shy or Joss or just the fuckers who took them, so we had some idea what to expect.
There was nothing.
I leaned past the corner of the building, seeing Huck and Remy moving toward the door.
Huck nodded at me, and I rushed up, grabbing the door, pulling it open, and letting them in.
Not a second later, I was throwing myself in behind them, hearing the sounds of bullets flying, tiny explosions that better not have been fucking happening to Shy.
There was a camping lantern on somewhere in the distance, and I hoped Remy and Huck were seeing better than I was behind them.
"That's two," Huck called out.
"But not Anton," Remy added, cursing as he turned back to me. "There has to be a storage room," he added, grabbing the camping lantern, then leading us back behind the counter, then through the small kitchen area before coming to another door.
Huck let me move in near Remy who was holding the lantern high with his passive hand while still aiming his gun as I reached for the door, feeling my heart slam once hard in my chest before throwing it open.
It was a big, open space that the lantern struggled to illuminate.
"Fuck," Huck hissed behind my right shoulder, making me scan the room to find the source of his expletive.
Joss was down, a splayed body at the far side of the room.
I couldn't even focus on him for long enough to know where he was shot, if he was bleeding out, if he was even breathing.
All I could think was that if he was shot, then what had happened to Shy?
"Door," Joss's weak voice called out. "There's a small side..."
He didn't need to finish. Because as soon as he said it, my gaze scanned around the room, and just barely caught the outline of said door.
"Wait... McCoy..." Huck called, but I wasn't listening. Hell, I barely heard him over the pounding of my pulse, the rushing of my blood, the chorus of her name in my head.
From the outside, the side door Anton had escaped from looked like another boarded-up window. That was why we'd missed it, why we didn't make sure to have someone stationed there.
I burst onto the street with my head whipping around, trying to find them. It wasn't until I heard Che's car, that quiet, unmistakable purr, moving down the next road.
I didn't think.
I ran.
Fucking booked it.
If Che had been alerted, then I was sure Alaric and Donovan were on their way, were closer, were going to be the ones to help Shy. But it didn't matter. I had to be there. I had to be the one to scoop her up and tell her I'd never let anything happen to her again.
"End of the line," Donovan's voice—slightly winded—called, making me pull to a stop and cut across an alley between buildings, making my way toward him. "Let the girl go, Anton," he called, surprisingly calm.
"Back the fuck off, or a bullet rips right through her pretty head. Try explaining that to her man."
"Explain it to me yourself," I offered, moving inward, making Anton jolt, and Shy wince as the muzzle of the gun pressed harder into her already bruised temple.
I was going to make him pay for that bruise, for the pain I saw in her eyes, for the tears on her cheeks.
"There's no way this goes the way you want it to," Donovan called even as I heard Huck's footsteps pounding pavement as he made his way up behind Donovan.
"I'm getting out of this," Anton said, gaze cutting as he pressed the muzzle deeper against Shy's temple.
The whimper she let out fucking flayed me.
I should have been reassuring her, but my voice was caught somewhere behind the vice grip around my throat.
My gaze went to hers, though, trying to reassure her.
The tears were dried right then, though, as something else crossed her eyes. Something that looked a lot like determination? But, no, that made no sense. Relief or fear, those made sense. Not determination.
To my side, Donovan made a bizarre motion with his free hand. It was strange enough to draw my attention fully for a second.
Less than a second.
Because, suddenly, gunshots were raining down from what sounded like several buildings away.
Alaric.
That had to be Alaric.
Trying to create a distraction.
Trying to get Anton to flinch.
Which he did.
And there was an opening.
Not for any of us to move in, though.
Oh, no.
My girl was a fucking fighter.
She must have grabbed something before Anton grabbed her.
Because one moment she was still as could be to avoid getting shot in the head. The next, she was raising, then slamming her hand down.
I caught the glint of something silver—a metal of some sort—before it was planted in Anton's thigh, making him jolt just far enough away from her step out of his hold.
"Shy, move," Huck yelled, voice a little sharper than I liked.
But before Shy could follow instructions, Anton had thrown himself down the alley I'd just come down.
I was sure Huck and Donovan and Che and even Alaric followed him.
Not me.
No.
They could have the bastard. As much as I wanted to put a bullet in his forehead, my worry wasn't him.
It was her.
My girl.
My girl who had crumbled to the ground, folding into herself, and shaking from head to toe.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. I've got you," I told her, tucking my gun away as I rushed forward, reaching to grab her, to pull her to my chest. "You're okay. It's over."
"I stabbed him," she said a moment later, voice trembling.
"He'll live. Not for long, but you didn't kill anyone."
"I wanted to," she admitted, pressing her face into my neck.
"Good. He deserves that."
"Betty?" she asked. "Joss?" she added, voice getting tighter.
"Betty is at Teddy's," I told her. "I don't know about Joss. He's hit, but he was talking when I was at the bakery."