"Yes."
"Fluctuating?"
"No. Just gone."
He crosses the room and takes the phone. Walks to the center of the room, holds it up. Moves to the window. Nothing.
"Jammer." His voice is dangerously calm. "They're blanketing the spectrum. We lost our lifeline."
The blood drains from my face. "That means they're?—"
"Close. Close enough to deploy electronic countermeasures."
As if on cue, the cabin plunges into darkness.
The refrigerator hum dies. The table lamp flickers once and goes. The microwave clock blanks. Instantaneous. Absolute.
The silence that follows presses against my ears like water.
"Power," I whisper. "They cut the power."
"Get down."
He moves with terrifying speed, tackling me onto the braided rug. We hit the floor hard, dust puffing up around us.
"Stay low. They have night vision. Windows are kill zones."
He crawls for his gear bag and comes up with the rifle. I scramble for the shotgun leaning against the couch. My hands close around the stock before my brain catches up—musclememory doing the work, hands remembering what my mind can't process fast enough.
I've racked this slide until it was automatic, in daylight, over and over, and now in the dark, my thumb finds the safety, and my support hand finds the pump without a single wasted motion. The training lives in my hands. I didn't know how much until now.
High tang. Firm grip. Lean in.Kade’s words come back to me.
"Are they breaching?" My voice sounds too loud in the dark.
"Not yet." Kade moves to the wall, checks the perimeter monitor—the screen is black, wall-powered, useless. "They're blinding us first. Deafening us. They want us panicked before they come through."
"Psychological warfare."
"Exactly. They're isolating the battlefield. The assault is coming."
"What do we do?"
"We make them doubt what they're seeing."
Hand warmers.
"Do it," Kade says before I can speak. "Stay below the window line."
I move.
Crawlingacross the kitchen floor in the dark, navigating by memory. The box of chemical warmers is above the stove—I counted four packets yesterday without knowing why. My hands close on the box. I rip the first packet open and shake it violently, feeling the grit and iron filings begin to heat between my palms.
"Where?" I whisper.
"Bathroom. Bedroom. Back door. Spread the signatures."
I drag myself down the hallway. It feels miles long.
