“You are. Because you’re the mission. Because everything we found means nothing if you don’t survive to testify.” I touch her face—brief, desperate, the only goodbye I can offer. “Go. Live. Make this mean something.”
The flashlights are closer now. Twenty meters. Maybe less.
I rise from cover, weapon up, preparing for the last fight of my life.
And then the lead hostile drops.
No sound. No muzzle flash. Just—down. Collapsed like his strings were cut.
The second hostile spins toward where his partner fell—and crumples. Same silence. Same instant death.
The third realizes what’s happening, starts to run?—
Crack.
A single suppressed shot. The hostile pitches forward and doesn’t move.
Silence.
The forest holds its breath.
And out of the shadows, a figure emerges.
SEVENTEEN
“The Extraction”
CASSIE
The figure steps outof the shadows like he was born there.
Tall. Broad. Tactical gear in muted blacks and grays that don’t reflect the moonlight. A half-mask covers the lower portion of his face, leaving only his eyes visible—pale and flat, the eyes of something that hunts. He moves over the bodies of the three men he just killed without looking down, the way you’d step over debris on a sidewalk.
Diego’s weapon is up, aimed at center mass. But something in his posture has shifted—not quite relaxed, but no longer coiled to fire.
“Halo? Diego Martinez?” The voice is low, rough, British edges worn smooth by years of operating in places that don’t care about accents. “Ghost sent me to take out the trash.”
“Identify.”
“Callsign’s Thorne.” He doesn’t offer a hand. Doesn’t move closer. Just stands there, utterly still, like a predator that’s decided we’re not prey. “Ghost activated me twelve hours ago. Said I could find you here, that you probably went rogue, didn’t follow orders to observe, and that I needed to save your ass.”
“Fuck him.”
“Sounds like he was right.”
“I usually work solo.” His pale eyes flick to me, assess, dismiss, and return to Diego. “Clean up messes for people who can afford my rates. Tonight, that’s you.”
The drone whine builds again somewhere overhead. Thorne’s head tilts a fraction, tracking the sound.
“We can finish introductions later. Right now, you have an armed drone with a thirty-second targeting reset and at least one more squad converging from the south.” He gestures toward the deeper darkness of the forest. “My vehicle’s a quarter mile north. Armored. It’ll take small arms.”
Diego hesitates. The calculation is visible—trust a stranger, or take our chances alone in woods crawling with Phoenix contractors.
The drone whine sharpens. Closer now.
“Move,” Diego says. “We’ll follow.”
Thorne leads us through the forest like he can see in the dark.
