Her gaze searches mine, relentless. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Sin.”
I cup her face, thumbs brushing the sharp line of her cheekbones. Her skin is warm, alive, grounding. “I can keep this one.”
She swallows hard enough that I feel it under my palms. Then she nods once, sharp. “Call me.”
“Every day.”
“Every day,” she echoes, and then she kisses me like she’s trying to brand the shape of my mouth into her memory.
I leave Tidehaven with the taste of her still on my tongue and her voice looping in my skull.
The rendezvous is pine and granite, air so cold it bites the lungs even though the calendar swears it’s spring. Nash takes point, moving like smoke between the trees. Crewe flanks left, silent as death. Banks, Colt and Jace ghost along the high ground, rifles ready, bad jokes swallowed behind clenched teeth. Mack stays with the Suburban, tablet glowing, eyes flicking between thermal overlays and our green dots on the map.
We ghost through the mist, boots sinking into black, wet earth. The fog is thick, gray, turning fifty yards into five. Everything feels too close. My neck hairs stand up before my brain catches why.
Crewe signals—two fingers, sharp. Movement.
I drop to a knee, and scan. Nothing. That’s the problem.
Ambushes don’t wave hello. They wait.
Nash leans in, breath ghosting against my ear. “Quiet. In and out. Confirm, then exfil.”
I nod.
We slip closer. The first shot cracks like a breaking bone. Bark explodes off the pine inches from Nash’s temple.
“Down!” I roar, slamming him toward the nearest fallen log.
The mountain answers with gunfire. Left ridge, high and vicious. Right flank, closer to the cabin, disciplined bursts. They were waiting. Theyknew.
We hit cover. I return fire in tight, three-round groups. Colt’s rifle speaks from the rear—sharp, surgical, dropping one silhouette against the skyline. Jace and Banks melt into the fog like a wraith, moving to flank.
Crewe’s voice is ice in my earpiece. “Three confirmed shooters. Maybe five. Elevation advantage.”
Mack crackles through comms, voice tight. “Heat sigs spiking. Six—no, eight. They rolled in from the west. They’re behind us. How the fuck?—”
Because they were told. The realization lands like a fist.
Nash snaps off two rounds. One body tumbles down the ridge. Another scrambles back. We push anyway—cover to cover, tree trunk to boulder, fog swallowing muzzle flash and sound.
A grenade arcs out of the mist, and lands twenty feet from the cabin. The blast punches the ground. Dirt and pine needles rain. Chemical smoke rolls thick and acrid, clawing at my throat.
My gut lurches. “Nash!” I grab his sleeve.
“Move!” he snarls, already coughing.
We lunge through the smoke toward the cabin’s rear wall, trying to break their lines of sight. Lungs burn. Eyes stream. The world shrinks to gray pain and the drum of my pulse.
A shape coalesces in the haze.
I pivot, and slam my elbow into a windpipe. The man folds with a wet gurgle. I don’t think he’s dead but I’m not about to stop andcheck. Another silhouette surges behind him. Taser prongs bite my triceps. Electricity rips through muscle and nerve. My arm locks. I grit my teeth, force my hand to rise, force the pistol up?—
Second jolt hits my neck. The world slews sideways. I drop to one knee. “Nash!” It comes out shredded.
Hands seize me from behind. Zip ties ratchet tight around my wrists. I thrash—boot to shin, shoulder to solar plexus. A baton cracks across my ribs. White fire blooms. I taste blood.
Nearby, Nash is roaring, firing, then the gunfire chokes off. Too sudden.
