23
ARIEL
Before sunrise, the whole place felt like it was holding its breath. A thin, mean line of light pressed under the clouds, just enough to turn the dew silver and make everything look colder than it was. We parked the trucks a ridge over and walked the rest, quiet, single file, wet grass up to my shins.
The depot looked exactly like the printout: square roof, loading bay on the east side, a short apron of cracked asphalt, chain-link fence with a gate that didn’t bother to pretend it was locked. The “humanitarian aid” banner hung crooked over the dock door. The kind of lie that works because people want it to.
“Eyes up,” Wrecker murmured. He crouched, pointed. “Ghost, south angle. Ranger, creek. Doc with the sisters. Cap,”
“Front,” Cap said, already there in his head.
I should’ve been scared enough to freeze. Instead, I felt clipped-in, like the click your boot makes when it finds the right rung on a ladder. Amanda stood next to me with her hands inside her jacket like she was borrowing warmth and also hiding the portable drive she’d tucked there. She wore stubborn the way other people wear scarves.
“We look and get out,” she said, more to herself than to me. “In and out.”
“In and out,” I echoed, even though the hairs on my arms were busy writing a different outcome.
The first truck came before we finished the crawl to the fence. Headlights off. Big diesel snuffling like an animal that knew the way to its stall. It rolled to a stop on the apron and idled. Two men in neon vests hopped down, hit their radios, pretended to check a clipboard.
“Too early,” Ghost whispered in my ear, and I didn’t know how he’d gotten behind me again without making sound. “They’re shifting schedule.”
Cap flattened a palm at us from the shadow of a stunted pine. Wait.
Another truck growled up behind the first. This one’s lights were on, slicing the dark into sharp pieces. The beam caught the banner and the pretended goodwill looked even faker.
“Positions,” Wrecker breathed into comms. “No heroics. On my mark.”
A door on the far side of the building banged open and a man with a security jacket walked out with the swagger of a bouncer who liked his job. He scanned the tree line and yawned big like it was all beneath him. He didn’t see us.
Cap shifted his weight, not enough to rustle, just enough to tell my body that we were leaving “watch” and entering “do.”
The third truck swung wide and fishtailed on the wet pavement. Its brights pinned the front of the building, then swept off and nailed the trees like a cop looking for a deer. The light slid fast across our brush.
“Down,” Doc hissed, one hand on my shoulder, the other on Amanda’s. We went flat. Mud soaked the front of my jeans and stole my breath.
The light left us and hit the fence. Two men in vests pushed the gate, laughed when it gave. Real lock was for show, the chain was looped and taped, not clasped. They rolled it backand waved the truck in like they were welcoming relatives to a barbecue.
Wrecker’s voice: “Snapshot only. Count heads. Count guns. Out clean.”
I nodded even though he wasn’t looking at me. I count when I’m scared. One, two, three, vests. Four, security jacket. Five and six, drivers. There’d be more inside. There always are.
Cap angled toward the apron, staying in the low scrub, a line between us and the open. He raised two fingers, then one. Move on one. We moved.
The world lasted exactly that long.
The bay door jumped and rattled up. Floodlights on the underside of the overhang snapped on. It was still dark, but not our kind of dark anymore. The trucks revved. The men on the dock started yelling at each other about pallets and manifests and who forgot to stage what where.
All normal. Too normal.
Then the voice we all already hated rode the air like it paid toll: “Ridge units, advance. Show me my morning.”
Watcher didn’t come out himself. He didn’t need to. His words did.
The compound erupted.
Engines all at once. Doors slamming. The gate, which had been nothing, screamed as someone yanked it the rest of the way open and chained it back like the sound could do the work. A spotlight spun and caught the trees again. It found us and didn’t move.
“Go!” Cap barked, loud for the first time.
