Then Axel's voice drifted back through the darkness, barely louder than a breath: "Junction ahead. Hold."
We stopped. I could hear my own heartbeat in the silence, could feel Tank's presence behind me like a physical warmth. The darkness pressed in, thick and heavy, and I focused on breathing—just breathing—while Axel moved ahead to scout.
Scraping sounds. A faint grunt. Then silence.
Seconds stretched into eternity.
"We're under the warehouse. I can hear them."
The relief hit me like a wave.
My whole body sagged against the concrete, tension I hadn't even realized I was carrying draining out of me like water through a sieve. My eyes burned. My throat tightened. We'd found it. The drain led exactly where we needed it to—not a dead end, not a flooded passage, not a useless exit in the middle of nowhere.
We wereunder the warehouse. Behind me, I heard Santos let out a shaky breath. Vega laughed—a single, nearly silent huff of disbelief. And Tank's hand found my ankle, squeezed once, his grip trembling slightly with the same relief that was flooding through me.
The gamble had paid off. We crawled forward into the junction—a wider space where multiple pipes converged, tall enough to crouch in. Faint light filtered down from somewhere above, gray and diffuse, and I could see the others now for the first time since we'd entered the pipe. Their faces were streaked with grime, their clothes soaked with sweat and worse, but their eyes were bright with the same fierce hope I felt burning in my chest.
Axel was pressed against the wall beneath a rusted grate, head tilted, listening. Declan crouched beside him, rifle ready. Through the grate, I could hear voices—muffled, distant, but unmistakably human. Footsteps. The sound of men moving with purpose.
Axel keyed his radio, his voice barely above a breath: "Nest is warm. Repeat, nest is warm."
A pause, then Hawk's reply crackled through: "Copy that. Overwatch in position. Eagle is two minutes out."
Eagle. Blade's team. They were almost there. We'd all made it.
"Overwatch to insertion team." Hawk's voice crackled through my earpiece, low and calm despite the tension I knew he must be feeling. "In position. Distraction team approaching target. Hold for signal."
Axel keyed his radio twice—acknowledgment without words.
The seconds stretched into minutes. I pressed myself against the damp concrete wall and listened to the sounds above—guards talking in Spanish, something heavy being moved across the floor, a burst of laughter that seemed impossibly normal. These men had no idea we were beneath their feet. No idea that seven Phoenix members were crouched in the darkness below them, ready to emerge like demons from the earth.
I checked my weapon. Checked it again. The familiar weight of the rifle in my hands was grounding, something solid to hold onto while the rest of the world spun with uncertainty.
Tank shifted beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched. In the dim light filtering through the grate, I could see his profile—jaw set, eyes focused, every line of his body radiating controlled tension. He glanced at me, and something passedbetween us in that look. Not words, not even really a message. Just acknowledgment.I'm here. You're here. Whatever happens, we face it together.
"Distraction team engaging." Hawk's voice again, tighter now, the professional calm strained at the edges. "Hostiles responding. Multiple vehicles approaching the front entrance. Wait for it."
Above us, the voices changed. The casual conversation vanished, replaced by shouts in English and Spanish. Boots running across concrete. Someone yelling orders. The guards had heard the vehicles, had seen Blade's team approaching.
The trap was springing—they just didn't know which side was doing the springing.
"Heavy fire at the front," Hawk reported. "Distraction team taking cover behind vehicles. Hostiles fully engaged. Insertion team, stand by."
We crouched lower, ready to move. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure the others could hear it, a bass drum rhythm that matched the distant staccato of gunfire from the front of the building. This was it. This was the moment everything came together or fell apart.
Then the world exploded.
The blast shook the concrete around us, dust and debris raining down from the grate like gray snow. Not just an explosion—adetonation, something massive and hungry that seemed to swallow all othersound before vomiting it back as a wall of noise that pressed against my eardrums and rattled my teeth.
The signal. Hawk's signal. Whatever he'd brought, it was bigger than an RPG. Secondary explosions followed, a chain reaction that lit up the warehouse above us with flickering orange light. Something had caught—fuel, maybe, or ammunition. The guards' shouts turned to screams.
"That's our cue." Tank's voice was iron, no room for hesitation. "Go, go, go."
Axel hit the grate with his shoulder, and it gave way in a shower of rust and debris. He was through in an instant, rifle up, sweeping the space above. Declan followed, then Vega, then Santos and Marco, each man flowing up through the opening with practiced efficiency.
Tank grabbed my arm. "Stay close to me."
I nodded, and we went up together.
