The instant the first gunshot had been fired, every soldier in the building had changed course to sprint upstairs. Meanwhile, Jacob clenched his jaw as he watched his target’s hand fly to his leg where the bullet had made contact. It was satisfying, in a way, to hurt the man who had tortured Iris, but it still didn’t make up for everything he’d done to her. One wound wasn’t vengeance for a life lost. His eyes flicked to her unmoving, bloodstained body on the floor just as the security team’s drone hovered into the line of sight. He didn’t need to see his king to know what the scene in this room was going to do to him. That was a situation for the men in the palace to deal with. And they did. When Iris came into view on Caspian’s screen, he had jumped up from his seat with a shouted ‘no,’ only to be restrained by the shoulder immediately by the nearest guard. All the color drained from his face, and his eyes were as round as disks as he stared at her crumpled form on the screen, the knife protruding sinisterly from her middle and the blood that had pooled around her on the floorboards. This couldn’t be real. There was no way. He refused to believe she was dead, even as Ethan grinned and said so on the other side of the drone. He parted his lips to demand that Jacob check her for a pulse, but before he could get the words out, there was a second [i]bang[/i], and suddenly the screen went black. [color=#b97703]“Wait. No. What happened!?”[/color] Tearing his arm out of the guard’s grip, the king lunged at the monitor, checking it over as if he would find a loose cord that he could plug back into place to fix the issue. “It looked like he shot the drone, Your Majesty.” Behind him, the guard frowned as he watched his ruler obsess over the darkened screen. “It wasn’t built to withstand bullets.” [color=#b97703]“Shit!”[/color] Cas, raked his fingers through his hair. He still needed to get ahold of Jacob even if he couldn’t see… He still had his comm device. It wasn’t the drone he’d been using to communicate with his security officer. He needed to focus. Gathering the pieces of his composure, he lifted his trembling hand to the earpiece he was still wearing to tap into the line. [color=#b97703]“Jacob, check to see if she’s still alive!”[/color] he ordered. “I’m a little busy right now, Your Majesty,” the guard hissed back through gritted teeth. In the time it had taken the king to remember his comm device, the team’s target had started returning fire, and Jacob had ducked for cover just outside the bedroom door. Luckily, he was wearing the same standard bulletproof uniform as the rest of the soldiers, but he’d still taken a shot to the sternum that had winded him on his way to safety. He pressed a hand against the afflicted spot as he fought to catch his breath. Unsurprisingly, Caspian had started arguing with him through his earpiece, demanding that he check on Iris right away to make sure that they could get her medical attention if she needed it. However, he ignored the shouting to focus on the more pressing issue at that moment: the man waving an automatic weapon around like a madman in the next room over. He took a breath and leaned toward the door frame with his own gun. It was starting to seem like ‘nonlethal’ wasn’t an option here. He wasn’t going to sacrifice any of his men just to take an unruly hostage—especially one who didn’t appear to be in his right mind—so, raising the pistol in his hands, he braced himself to take another shot and whirled around to plant himself in the open doorway as he fired back, this time aiming at the other man’s head.