The shot hits the wall beside him, close enough that plaster bursts into dust and he jumps back with a curse.
It isn’t a kill shot. It’s a warning.
It stops them. It makes them hesitate. That hesitation is mine.
Luke whips toward the sound.
His eyes widen when he sees me in the shadow of the kitchen doorway.
“You think you can take what belongs to us?” He spits.
My body goes cold.
Belongs.
That word.
I raise the gun a fraction. “Leave.”
Luke laughs, sharp and ugly. “You’re alone.”
A voice outside answers, calm and deadly.
“He isn’t.”
The window by the living room flashes with a muzzle flare, one clean shot, and the nearest attacker outside drops with a scream, clutching his leg.
Blade.
Overwatch.
Luke’s men freeze.
They didn’t expect resistance.
They didn’t expect angles.
They didn’t expect the mountains to already belong to somebody else.
Luke’s face twists, anger flashing to something thinner.
“What the hell?” he barks into his radio.
A new voice answers from outside, quiet enough that it slides through the open door like smoke.
“Drop the weapons,” Havoc says. “This is over.”
Luke jerks his gun higher, swinging it toward the sound.
Bad move.
Ghost appears in the doorway like he stepped out of the dark itself, moving fast, silent, lethal. He hits Luke’s wrist with a sharp strike and the gun clatters to the floor.
Luke snarls and swings.
Ghost ducks it, then slams Luke into the wall hard enough to shake the whole cabin.
Luke wheezes, stunned.
