The chaos compresses into fragments. Muzzle flashes. Shouted commands I can't parse. The acrid smell of gunpowder filling the air until my eyes water. Khalid's shoulder pressed against mine, both of us crouched behind the overturned dining table Willa positioned as cover.
A figure appears at the shattered kitchen window. Willa fires before I can react, her shots driving the attacker back but not down. He returns fire blindly, rounds punching through the wall above our heads.
"Stay down!" Willa's already moving, repositioning to get a better angle. The attacker uses the moment to haul himself through the window frame, bleeding from his shoulder but still operational.
He sees us. Me and Khalid, crouched behind inadequate cover, exposed when Willa shifted position. His weapon comes up, barrel tracking toward the fifteen-year-old boy beside me.
There's barely enough time to think, let alone act.
The pistol is in my hands. The grip is solid against my palms. The sight picture is clear. Center mass. Don't aim for limbs. Don't try to wound. Aim for the largest target and squeeze the trigger until the threat stops.
The recoil surprises me even though I'm expecting it. The first shot goes wide, punching into the wall beside the attacker's head. He flinches, adjusts aim. The second shot catches him in the vest, and the third follows before I consciously decide to fire again.
He staggers but doesn't fall. The impacts buy me a second, maybe two. His weapon wavers as he fights for balance, torso twisting from the force of the hits.
The fourth shot catches him in the neck, just above the collar of his body armor.
He drops. His weapon clatters against the floor. His hands go to his throat, a reflex that won't save him, and then he's down, blood spreading dark across the wooden planks.
The pistol stays up, pointed at his body, even after it's obvious he's not getting back up. My arms are locked, frozen in the shooting stance drilled into me at the range. The trigger is still half-pressed, ready to fire again at the slightest provocation.
Willa's voice reaches me through the ringing in my ears. "Reagan. Reagan, it's done. You can lower the weapon."
Lowering the weapon takes conscious effort. My hands don't want to cooperate. My entire body is vibrating, a live wire of adrenaline and shock with nowhere to go.
The fight continues around me, but it's winding down. Fewer shots, longer gaps between exchanges. Kane calling out positions, getting responses from Mercer and Stryker and Dylan.
Khalid hasn't moved from my side. His breathing is ragged, his face pale, but he's watching me with an expression I can't read.
"You shot him." His voice is barely a whisper, carrying neither accusation nor gratitude. Just fact.
"He was going to kill you."
"I know." He swallows hard. "I watched him aim. Watched his finger move on the trigger. And then you shot him."
The man on the floor isn't moving. Blood pools beneath his body, dark and spreading on the wooden planks. His eyes are open, staring at the ceiling with the fixed emptiness of the dead. He has a face. Features. A person, once, before he became a threat to be neutralized.
"Clear!" Kane's voice echoes through the lodge. "All hostiles down. Report."
The responses come in sequence. Stryker, operational. Mercer, operational. Dylan, operational but his wound reopened. Willa, operational. Khalid, unharmed.
Me. What do I report? That I'm alive? That I killed someone? That the weight of it is already settling into my bones like lead?
"Reagan's okay," Willa answers for me. "She's okay."
Part of me wishes Odin were here instead of back at Echo Base. Dylan says the Malinois has a way of grounding Khalid that none of us can replicate. I'm not okay. I'm standing in a room full of bodies, holding a weapon I used to end a human life, and the second wave of releases is still scheduled for morning like any of that matters now.
The next hour blurs past in disconnected pieces. Willa checking wounds, Dylan refusing treatment until everyone else is cleared. Kane and Stryker outside, dragging bodies and sanitizing the scene. Mercer maintaining overwatch from the loft, rifle still ready even though the threat has passed.
The man I killed gets dragged out with the others. Stryker pulls him by the arms, leaving a dark trail across the porch. His face catches the moonlight for just a moment. Younger than me. A person who made choices that led him here, to dying on a hunting lodge floor because a journalist put a bullet in his throat.
I wonder if he had a family. Parents who'll never know what happened to him. A girlfriend who'll spend years wondering why he never came home.
Then I stop because that path leads somewhere I can't go.
The porch is cold. I don't remember walking outside, but here I am, sitting on the steps with the pistol still in my lap. Unloaded now. Willa took the magazine, checked it, handed it back empty.
The door opens behind me. Footsteps, careful and measured. Dylan lowers himself onto the step beside me, moving slowly to protect his wound. He doesn't speak. Doesn't try to offer comfort or platitudes.
