"They won't." He says it with absolute certainty, but I hear what he's not saying. If they get inside, we're done.
I help him fortify, moving the couch to block the front door, stacking the chairs to create cover near the windows. My head is throbbing where they hit me three days ago, and my wrists ache from the zip ties, but the adrenaline is pushing through it.
Combat focus, narrowing everything down to movement and tactics, and staying alive.
Outside, I hear engines. The sound is closer now. They're moving up.
Frost positions me at the east window, checks the AR-15, and hands me extra mags.
"Stay low." His gaze is locked on mine. "Pick your shots. They want you alive, which means they'll try to suppress rather than kill. That gives us an edge. Oh, and Magnolia?"
"What?" I whisper back, my breath hitching sharply.
"Aim to kill."
The words drop flat, no trace of drama, just cold fact amid the thunder's rumble—and it hits like a spark to dry tinder.
My lips twitch and quiver as I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek. A choked snort escapes before I clamp it down, and my eyes water with effort as a near-hysterical giggle claws up from the stress-knotted core inside of me.
Oblivious to my attempts not to snort, he takes the west window, and we wait.
The storm has passed, leaving the desert air clean and cold. Through the window, stars scatter across the sky, beautiful and indifferent. The kind of night that would be peaceful if six men, maybe eight, maybe more, weren't coming to drag me back to a cartel that sees me as merchandise.
Tyler helped them. While I was here in this abandoned ranch, learning the truth about what he'd done, he was in Phoenix making new deals. Helping them track me. Selling me again.
My hands tighten on the rifle.
"Maggie." Frost's voice cuts through my spiral. "Stay present. Stay focused."
"I'm focused."
"You're thinking about your brother."
"How do you?—"
"Because I know that look. I've worn it." He shifts position, checking sight lines. "And thinking about him right now gets you killed."
He's right. I force Tyler out of my head, focus on the window, on the darkness outside, on the sound of engines getting closer, then stopping.
Silence.
"They’re here." Frost’s voice is glacial cold.
My heart is pounding, but my breathing stays controlled. Four count in. Four count out. Combat breathing. The thing they teach you in basic that actually works when everything's going to hell.
"Contact," Frost says softly. "Single tango. Fifty meters. Moving toward the barn."
I see him through my window—shadow against shadows. A scout. Testing our response.
"Do we engage?" I ask.
"Not yet. Let him get closer. Make the shot count."
The scout moves forward. Forty meters. Thirty. He's using cover well, moving from scrub brush to rock outcropping, weapon up and ready.
Twenty meters.
"Wait for it," Frostmurmurs.
