No quick extraction.
No safety net.
Just us… and whoever is hunting us.
We don’t stop moving until the gunfire fades into the distance.
Even then… I don’t trust it.
“Keep going,” I say, scanning the tree line. “They’ll regroup.”
“They always do,” Ronan mutters from somewhere above us, still ghosting through the ridge like he belongs to it.
We push another hundred yards before I finally signal a halt.
“Here.”
The terrain dips just enough—natural cover, limited visibility, bu
t defensible.
Good enough.
For now.
Everyone spreads out, weapons still up, breathing controlled but heavy. Adrenaline is still riding high, still sharp in my veins.
But I feel it.
That shift.
That moment after the storm where everything slows just enough to feel what almost happened.
I turn—
And she’s there.
Mila.
Standing a few feet away, chest rising and falling, hair pulled loose from whatever tie she started with, eyes still scanning like she hasn’t come down yet either.
She looks…
Alive.
Not just surviving.
Thriving in it.
And that should concern me.
Instead—
It does something else entirely.
“You good?” I ask.
Her eyes flick to mine.
