Automatic weapons fire tears into the tower from multiple positions—muzzle flashes winking like deadly fireflies in the treeline below. Most rounds go wide, distance and elevation working in our favor, but wood shrieks and glass shatters as lucky shots find their mark.
"Move!" I grab her bag with one hand, mine with the other, shoving both into her arms as I push her toward the back door. "Rear deck—now!"
She doesn't hesitate, trusting me even as bullets whine overhead like angry hornets. The tower shudders with each impact, decades-old timber groaning. They're walking their fire up the structure, trying to find our range.
We burst onto the narrow balcony, and Savannah stops so suddenly that I nearly collide with her.
Forty feet below, the forest canopy spreads like a black ocean, treetops swaying in the wind. And stretching from the tower's support beam into that darkness—my emergency egress. A steel cable, finger-thick, angling down into the void, disappearing toward the ridge across the valley.
"That's not—" Her voice cracks. "Sawyer, that's not a rappel line."
"It's a zipline." I'm already pulling the trolley from its hidden mount and checking that the wheels spin freely. "Quarter mile to the landing point."
A burst of gunfire stitches across the railing, sparks flying as bullets strike metal. Savannah drops instinctively, but I keep working—muscle memory from a hundred extractions taking over.
"The angle's wrong for them," I tell her, clipping her harness to the trolley. "They're shooting uphill from eight hundred meters. Half their rounds are hitting trees."
As if to prove my point, bullets crack through the air above us—that distinctive snap of rounds passing close but not close enough. The shooters are good, but physics is on our side.
For now.
"I can't." She's gripping the railing, knuckles white, whole body trembling. Not from the gunfire—from the drop. "It's too high, I can't?—"
Another burst rips chunks from the wooden deck. They're adjusting fire, learning the range. We have thirty seconds before they dial it in.
I step behind her, close enough to feel her racing heartbeat through her back. "You climbed a cliff in pitch darkness," I murmur, securing my harness to hers—tandem configuration, no chance of separation. "You can ride a cable."
"That was different. You were there?—"
"I'm here now." I wrap my arms around her from behind, my hands covering hers on the grips. She's shaking so hard I can feel it in my bones. "We go together."
A window explodes somewhere behind us. Glass rains down like deadly snow.
"They're finding the range," I say against her ear, keeping my voice steady even as my mind runs calculations—trajectory, distance, time. "Twenty seconds before they bracket us."
She turns her head slightly, and tears stream down her face. Not from fear of the bullets—from fear of the fall.
"I need you to trust me," I tell her, tightening my arms around her ribs. "One more time."
"I'm scared." Barely a whisper.
"I know. Be scared later. Right now, just hold on."
More impacts—closer now. Wood splinters near her hip. The shooters have found their elevation.
No more time.
I plant my feet, feeling her tense against me. "On three. One?—"
Automatic fire rakes the platform.
"Two—"
The railing explodes in a shower of wood and metal.
I don't say three.
I launch us into space.
