And then it was over.
Silence again, but this one clean and sharp. The kind of silence you only get when you’ve killed everything that needed killing.
I went back to the kitchen, dropped to my knees. Jojo was there, alive and unhurt, but pale as milk.
I pulled him into my lap, held him close. “You’re safe,” I said, voice breaking for the first time all night. “It’s over.”
He buried his face in my neck, breathing like he was drowning.
The house was a mess—blood and glass and holes in every wall—but we were alive.
I caught sight of Harrison in the doorway, Barrett hovering behind him. The old man’s face was slack, all pretense gone. He looked at me, then at Jojo, then at the bodies on the floor.
For the first time, he looked scared. Not of me, but for me. Like he finally understood what I’d always known: there are some things you fight for, even if it kills you.
He opened his mouth, maybe to say something. But I shook my head.
“Don’t,” I said. “Just don’t.”
He closed his mouth, then nodded. Slow, heavy, almost a bow.
I sat there, holding Jojo, listening to his heart slow down.
Somewhere outside, the wind picked up, rattling the broken windowpanes.
The world could come again if it wanted.
I’d be ready.
I’d always heard that in a real siege, the end didn’t come with heroics. Just a slow, sickening trickle of hope, whittled down until it was gone.
We were there, all the way out. Last mag spent, blood and powder haze stinging the air, Macon’s arm slick and ugly from a grazing shot. Even Burke, perched above us in the “eagle’s nest,” had stopped cracking jokes over the comm.
All we could do was wait for the final push—Hargrove’s goons were massing behind the two ruined pickups, shouting to each other over the whine of one shattered headlight.
Jojo was curled up behind me, hands over his belly, lips moving in a prayer or maybe just the litany of every promise I’d ever made. Harrison and Barrett huddled in the far corner, their suits gone dusty and torn, the old man’s face a rictus of fear and disbelief.
That’s when the new lights appeared.
Not flashlights—these were bright, cold, the kind you use for search-and-destroy. First one set, then two more, spaced with a precision no ranch hand would ever bother with. The way they flanked the drive told me everything before the engines even killed: military, or better.
The surge of relief felt like oxygen after a too-long dunk. I could’ve wept, but there wasn’t time.
“Cavalry’s here,” I said, and even my own voice sounded dazed.
The pickups came in tandem, boxed the main approach, and parked nose-to-nose with Hargrove’s crew. For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Then four figures dismounted, moving with purpose: Decker, Hooper, Jackson, and—my throat tried to close up—Burke, who’d somehow flanked down from the house and linked with the rest.
It was beautiful. Like watching wolves cross an open field—no wasted motion, every step a threat.
They didn’t even raise weapons at first. Just advanced, slow and wide, like they were walking up on a bomb. Hooper went left, drawing two of Hargrove’s shooters with him. Jackson went right, low and fast, then disappeared in the dark. Decker hung back, hands in pockets, looking bored out of his mind.
Burke found me with his eyes, even from fifty yards, and flashed a grin like a blade.
One of the attackers panicked and fired. Two rounds zipped over the team, hit nothing. That was all the excuse Hooper needed—he ducked, popped up, and dropped the shooter with a single, ugly burst. The others hesitated, then broke for the trees.
Jackson was waiting. He dragged the first guy to run face-first into the dirt, twisted the rifle out of his grip, then calmly zip-tied his hands with a cable pulled from nowhere. Another tried to climb into the passenger seat of the nearest truck, but Deckerwas there, window down, pistol leveled casual as could be. The man froze, then dropped his own gun, hands shaking.
Inside the house, the shooting stopped.
