“It puts us by the van.”
Ghost doesn’t argue. “Do it. Brass, take rear guard. Fuse, keep her moving.”
We slam through the double doors onto the warehouse floor.
Chaos hits like a fist.
The cavernous space is a twisting labyrinth of shipping containers, forklifts, and stacked pallets towering twenty feet high. Machinery hums somewhere in the dark. Boots scrape on concrete. Shadows move with predatory intent on the catwalks above.
We are exposed.
Bullets snap in the air immediately. The crack is sharp, slicing through my eardrum. Sparks burst from a steel beam inches from Talia’s head, showering amber flecks across her hair.
I grab her vest and yank her behind a pallet stack. “Stay low.”
“I see them.” She points up. “Catwalk—two o’clock. High angle.”
I follow her gaze. High-level shooter. Elevated. He has the angle on our cover. He’s lining up a shot on Brass.
I lift my weapon, but the angle is bad. My arm shakes.
Crack.
A single shot rings out from outside the building.
The shooter on the catwalk jerks backward. His head snaps. He topples over the railing, plummeting twenty feet and slamming onto the floor with a wet, final thud.
“You’re welcome,”Whisper murmurs in my ear.
“Move up,” Ghost orders, laying down suppressive fire with his carbine. “Bounding overwatch. I move, you cover.”
Ghost sprints to the next stack of crates. He turns, firing at a group of operatives advancing from the north. “Move.”
I tap Talia. “Go.”
We break cover.
My legs are lead weights. The Halon exposure turned my muscles into stone. Every footstep feels like lifting a cinder block. My chest burns. My throat tastes like metal and fire. My vision flickers at the edges—gray spots dancing in the dark.
I stumble.
Talia grabs my vest. She hauls me forward. She doesn’t need protection. In this moment, she’s protecting me.
“Stay with me, Jackson,” she pants. “We’re almost there.”
We dive behind a forklift just as a spray of automatic fire chews up the concrete where we were standing.
“They’re flanking,” Brass yells. “Left side. Three tangos.”
“I got them.” I lean out, firing one-handed.
The recoil hurts, jarring my shoulder, but I drop one. Brass takes the other two.
“Clear left.”
“Loading dock is ahead,” Ghost shouts. “Fifty meters.”
The wide doors have been blown outward; Torque’s signature chaos stamped across the twisted hinges. The extraction van waits like salvation, engine snarling, back doors thrown open.
