Page 3 of Knox

“Ambush!” Damián shouts, but we are pinned.

There is nowhere to run.

Fuck.

Suddenly, a war cry erupts from above. “Argggggh!”

Björn launches himself from the shelter’s roof, hurling a paint grenade into the center of the squad.

He then tackles us to the ground a split second before the device detonates, showering the area in a blast of red paint.

The cops scream in surprise, staring at us in stunned silence as they drip with paint.

“What the fuck, Björn?” I cough, while Damián laughs so hard he can barely breathe.

“Please, don’t you dare faint at my awesome saviorship, Knoxy! But I do expect a statue of me in the office lobby by Monday.”

“Saviorship is not a word, dumbass.”

“Where did you even get that grenade?” Damián asks, still laughing as he starts helping some of the paint-drenched cops to their feet.

“I made it.” Björn grins, pleased, and then double-taps a cop who was barely grazed by the blast.

“Björn, stop shooting at him! He’s already been hit.” I point to the red splatter on the officer’s vest.

“Hit, but not dead,” Björn corrects. “And they asked for real life.”

I turn to another cop who is so soaked with red paint that some is leaking into his goggles, and help him get up. “I am so sorry… He takes things like this very seriously.”

“Don’t be sorry. This is the best day of my life.” The officer wipes at his face with the corner of his shirt, the only part of him that avoided the spray, and laughs. “I never thought I would meet a Harknett, and now I am fighting against them.”

“More like losing—” Björn says, and I glare at him.

BZZ ZZZ!

A drone flies down and floats right in front of us.

“Harknetts, you are still twenty yards away from the hostage,” says Alexios, his voice coming out of the drone. “Please stop torturing our lovely officers and finish, because Logan and Law are coming back to New York.”

“Will do… Ready?” I look at my team, and they all nod.

The drone glides up and fades into the background as we run toward the final stretch, where the bunker is.

“How many soon-to-be targets do you think are waiting for us at the bunker?” Björn asks, jumping over some roots.

“At least ten.”

We finally reach the bunker and find a concrete structure surrounded by oil drums, loose wire, and ten NYPD officers waiting behind a barricade of wooden pallets, ready to fire.

Shit!

We duck behind a rotting log.

Damián turns around, resting his rifle over the trunk, and shoots the visor of the first cop who decides to take a step forward.

“Who wants next?!” Damián taunts the cops, but they all stay still. He looks at us, smiling. “Wow, they really went all in on this simulation.”

“We should make this a yearly thing,” says Björn, taking out two tubes with extra pellets from his vest.