Rage and Ruin | 2

7 | 0

J A X O N

I didn't think I'd ever get used to living with only one arm. Oftentimes, I found myself trying to will my left arm forward only to remember that it wasn't there anymore. Now, I couldn't even tie my own shoes by myself. The first thing I had done after getting home from the hospital was tinker in my workshop and I hadn't even really been able to do that. It was the one place I felt truly calm and confident and now it was ruined.

      And if that wasn't bad enough, everyone walked on eggshells around me. It was hard enough as it was with the clear anger and frustration radiating off my teammates, but now this? I'd rather have their rage.

Sitting in a massive room with one impossibly long table in it, I stared down at my single hand in my lap. We were in the center of the city in some other governmental building, waiting for the rest of the people we were meeting here to arrive. This was going to decide everything: what we were doing about Imperium, how to approach the Russian fortress and most importantly, how exactly we were going to kick their asses and win the first real battle of this war.

I shot a glance down the row of chairs at my teammates. Arlo kept trying to tell some dirty joke he'd just learned to anyone that would listen but I ignored him, as did Finn. I'd heard it too many times. Riley and Kane were having a lover's spat, sitting in tension-filled silence; they clearly hadn't talked through their issues from the Romanian airport.

      On my other side, Delphinium and Jake were having a conversation, looking as if they were seconds away from ripping each others' clothes off, as usual. I made a suggestive comment to them both, after which Jake delivered one of his famous cold glares and Delphinium wore a quiet smirk.

      Light from outside bathed us all in yellow midday sunlight. Glancing behind me out the window, I surveyed the other skyscrapers around us. We were high up—so high that the ground couldn't even be seen from the angle in which I sat.

      I whipped my head back at the sound of the door opening. From it came a flow of important-looking people wearing suits and professional dresses. After the string of world leaders came a second group of larger, more fit men that fanned out and stood against the walls at attention. Bodyguards. They'd remembered we were a group of criminals.

Hunt and two women I recognized from the counsel were last to enter the room before the doors were shut. They sat in the empty seats next to Jake.

"Well," Hunt began, making all the side conversations cease. "Shall we begin?"

"We should start with who exactly is going on the raid in the Russian fortress," said a woman in an accent I couldn't place.

"We're going," Riley said, placing both hands face down on the table.

One of the Russian officials asked Hunt with a raised eyebrow, "You let children fight your battles?"

"Alexi, you were there when we came to the agreement of forming them into a team to investigate the terrorist activity. You knew what we were doing." The ONNT director spoke in a hard voice, but not without politeness.

"I've also already infiltrated the inside," Riley said, to which both counsel women turned to give Hunt narrow-eyed looks, making me think they hadn't known. "I made a few rough sketches as to what the layout is." She stood and held the papers in her hand, going to the front of the room to attach them to a large board where everyone could see.

"We have a group of spies that has been patrolling the border of their fortress for days," the Russians told us. "They found another entrance leading to the top story, one that is nowhere near the main doors. It is smaller, but we should be able to get an army through."