I try to push up. My muscles refuse the command. They are cement—rigid, locked, starved of oxygen. The hypoxia is setting in fast. My vision isn’t just dark; it’s graying out at the edges of my consciousness, a static fuzz that drowns out thought.
The room feels like a coffin closing in—dizziness, nausea, the world tilting on its axis. My heart hammers against my ribs, a desperate, thudding rhythm trying to pump sludge through my veins.
Get up,I tell myself.Move.
I can’t. The connection between will and action is severed.
We are going to die here. In the dark. Beside a frozen computer.
Thump.
A vibration shivers through the floor. Faint. Just a tremor in the concrete.
Thump-thump.
Charges. Linear cutting tape. Someone is laying explosives on the other side of the fused door.
I squeeze Talia’s hand. I try to speak, but my throat is raw meat.
She curls into me, burying her face in my tactical vest. Her hair is damp with the chemical fog, freezing into stiff strands. I angle my body over hers, curling around her like a shell. Shielding as much of her as I can from the overpressure.
CRACK.
The door doesn’t open—it disintegrates.
A white-hot eruption punches through the freezing fog. The blast wave slams into us, a physical hammer of heat and pressure. It rolls over my back, hot enough to singe, pushing the heavy Halon fog away for a microsecond.
Bringing fresh oxygen to my lungs.
I gasp.
Breathe.
A ringing fills my ears, high and electric, drowning out the world.
Then—light.
Blinding, searing white tactical beams carve through the smoke. They cut the darkness into slices. My pupils contract painfully, tears leaking from my eyes.
Silhouettes flood the breach. Large. Armored. Moving with the aggression of a pack. They don’t walk; they flow into the room, weapons up, scanning sectors.
“Clear left.”
“Clear right.”
I know those voices. Even through the ringing distortion in my ears, I know the cadence.
“Ghost,” I manage. It’s more of a wheeze than a word, a bubble of air forcing its way up a collapsed throat.
A beam slices across my face, blinding me, then snaps away instantly to preserve my night vision.
“I got him,” Ghost snaps.
He drops to a knee beside me, hooking an arm under my shoulder. He hauls me up with the strength of someone operating on adrenaline and fury. My legs drag, useless for a second, before the blood rushes back into them.
Brass is right behind him, scooping Talia into his arms in one sweeping motion like she weighs nothing. He checks her pupils, his face grim behind his ballistic glasses.
“Can you move?” Ghost demands, his face inches from mine.
