CASSIAN
The storm is already rolling in when I hear them. Not the wind, not the shifting ice that cracks under its own weight, but the rhythm of boots—too many, too measured. I can tell the Syndicate trained them to move silent, to mask themselves under weather and shadow, but sound is my oldest weapon, and I pick them apart from the night before they’re close enough to breathe my air.
I rise from where I’ve been cutting rope for the traps, my knife still in hand, the handle warm against my palm. Angie glances up from the lantern she’s been tending, eyes narrowing instantly when she reads the look on my face. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have to. Her hand tightens around the edge of the bench, and that alone tells me she’s ready. More ready than I want her to be.
The first shot cracks before I can answer the question in her eyes. The window blows out, glass shattering across the snow like ice shrapnel, firelight dimming under a spray of wind and frost. Angie ducks low, arm thrown over her head, and I move between her and the hole, instincts cutting sharper than the storm. Another shot follows, this one whining off stone.They’re not testing anymore. They’re here to kill or drag me out breathing just enough for Roman to play with.
I push Angie toward the side wall, voice a low growl in her ear. “Stay behind me.”
“I’m not hiding,” she snaps, breath tight but fierce.
“You’ll do as I tell you.”
Her mouth opens like she’s going to fight me harder, but the crack of another rifle shuts her up and I see her eyes change. She presses herself low but not away. Not out. Always beside me, even when I don’t want her there.
The door explodes inward. Men pour through in a line, six at least, rifles trained. Their gear isn’t cheap. Their masks are thermal-lined. They’re the Syndicate’s best, or at least the best Roman’s willing to waste on me. They think this hall, half-buried in snow and time, is a cage they’ve cornered me in.
I show them it’s not.
The first one raises his rifle. I move before he can squeeze the trigger, knife flashing across his wrist, the gun falling even as my boot drives into his chest. He hits the stone floor hard, and I’m already pivoting to meet the second, catching the butt of his weapon mid-swing, twisting, snapping his arm against the joint. His scream cuts through the cold, raw and sharp, but I don’t linger on it. I shove him back into the third man, driving them both toward the shattered frame of the door.
Bullets tear through the space. One grazes my arm, heat burning along my bicep, but I don’t slow. I don’t break stride. My pulse is a steady drum, my body a machine of intent. The bear claws against the inside of my ribs, begging to be released, begging to end this in seconds, but I don’t let it out. Not this time. Not like this. This fight belongs to me.
“Cassian!” Angie shouts, voice high over the thunder of gunfire. “Left!”
I hear it before I see it: another merc bursting from the shadows at my flank, blade angled low for my ribs. I turn just in time, catching his wrist and twisting until the blade clatters uselessly to the ground. My fist drives into his throat, and he collapses, gasping, dragging in snow with every choking breath.
“You should’ve stayed home,” I mutter, low enough that only he hears before his eyes roll back.
Two more rush me from the hall’s side entrance. I rip a broken beam from the splintered wall and swing, the wood cracking against helmets, helmets cracking against stone. Both drop, and the beam splinters in my hands. Blood spatters across the snow, dark against the white, steaming in the cold. My breaths grow deeper, heavier, but still steady. Always steady.
The leader comes last. Harrow. His mask is off, his face bare, scar slicing across his jaw like a brand. He’s bigger than the rest, shoulders broad, rifle cradled with precision. He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t shout. He just lifts his weapon, sight locked on me, and squeezes the trigger.
The shot slams into my side. Heat blossoms in my ribs, sharp and tearing, but I keep moving forward. Pain is a drumbeat. A memory. Mine. I close the distance before he can fire again, my hand clamping down on the barrel, twisting it until the metal screams. He struggles, grits his teeth, but I’m stronger, fueled by something older than training. I wrench it free and snap the rifle clean in half across my knee, tossing the pieces into the snow.
Harrow stumbles back, eyes wide now, the first crack in his calm. “You can’t hold forever,” he spits, voice cutting like a blade in the storm. “Roman will gut you, beast. He’ll carve you open and study what makes you tick.”
“Let him try.” My fist crashes against his jaw, once, twice, until blood pours from his mouth. I slam him into the wall, snow crumbling loose from the stone. I could finish him. I want to.Every inch of me burns for it. But Angie’s voice cuts through the haze like light through dark.
“Cassian,” she whispers. Just that. Just my name. And it’s enough.
I pull back. Harrow’s body slumps against the wall, blood dripping into the snow, staining it deep crimson. He wheezes, eyes glassy, but still breathing. I leave him that way on purpose. Let him crawl back to Roman with the message carved into his bones.
Angie steps up beside me, hand trembling but firm as she presses it against my arm, her warmth grounding me more than any vow I’ve ever made. Her eyes search mine, not afraid, not recoiling. Just steady. Just certain.
“You didn’t lose it,” she says softly. “You held the line.”
I look down at the blood pooling beneath my boots, steam rising into the cold, and I breathe slow, deeper now, control sliding through me like steel cooling under hammer. I whisper it, not for her, not even for me, but for the beast clawing at my ribs.
“The bear is finally tamed.”
24
ANGIE
The door shuts on the storm and the hall quiets, save for the rattle of the stove and the low sigh of settling wood. Cassian lowers himself onto the bench with the kind of careful control that makes my chest ache, because even when pain laces through him he refuses to let it show. I move quickly, fetching the kit I’ve pieced together—clean rags, salve, thread, and a curved needle Mary slipped me the last time she appeared like some snow-born omen. My hands are steady, though my heart is not.
“Sit still,” I tell him, forcing my voice bright, “and let me play medic before that bench decides you’re too heavy and collapses.”
