No one would touch them without permission. No one would ask them to perform or please or pretend. They could just exist. Breathe. Begin the impossible work of remembering who they'd been before the world took that away.
Mara wasn't the girl in the cage anymore. Wasn't eighteen and terrified and convinced she'd die before she saw her nineteenth birthday. She was exactly where she was meant to be.
Reese climbed down from the cockpit, pulling off her headset and running a hand through her short blonde hair. She lookedtired. They all did after extractions. The kind of tired that sleep didn't fix.
"Clean run?" Mara asked.
"Clean enough." Reese's voice was rough from hours of controlled breathing and radio chatter. "Had to scrub the original LZ. Too many eyes. Quinn found us an alternate fifteen miles north."
"She always does."
"Yeah." Reese glanced back at the plane, then at the main house. "They gonna be okay?"
It was the question they all asked. Every time. Like saying it out loud might make it true.
"I don't know," Mara said honestly. "But they've got a chance now. That's more than they had twelve hours ago."
Reese nodded slowly, accepting that truth for what it was. Imperfect. Incomplete. Better than nothing.
They stood there for a moment, two women shaped by violence into something harder, watching the cicadas swarm in the oak trees and listening to the bayou settle back into its rhythm.
Then Reese headed toward the ops center to file her flight report, and Mara climbed back into the side-by-side.
There would be paperwork. Debriefs. Supply requests. A dozen small fires that needed putting out before they became big ones. But first, she'd sit here a little longer. Watch the sky. Remember why they did this. And prepare to do it all over again.
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Fort Liberty, North Carolina
The door blew inward on a concussive thud that rattled the walls and sent a fine mist of dust into the red-lit air. "Breach," Bulldog called, already moving.
Logan Reed—Steele to the five men who stacked behind him—flowed through the doorway on Bulldog's shoulder. Rifle up. Sight picture steady. Two silhouettes in the near corner. Pop. Pop. "Two down," he said calmly, pivoting right.
Risk slid past him to clear the blind side, movements economical and precise. "Left clear."
"Third floor, east window, late mover," Hawk's voice came over comms, smooth and unhurried. He was posted in the overwatch tower, thermal optics trained on the shoot house.
"Copy," Steele replied.
Ghost's voice layered in beneath Hawk's. "Comms clean. No signal bleed."
Bulldog hit the stairwell fast, boots heavy on metal steps. Steele followed, feeling the rhythm of the team more than seeing it. They moved like parts of the same body. Breath, step, trigger, pivot.
Second floor landing. Pop. "Target."
Risk flowed around him again, checking corners, slicing the pie with disciplined angles. Joker's voice crackled in from outside. "Vehicle's warm and waiting, princess."
Steele ignored the commentary. He moved through the final room, scanning, assessing, recalibrating. The red training lights painted everything in blood tones. Smoke clung to the ceiling.
"House clear," Bulldog called.
"Clear," Risk echoed.
Hawk's final confirmation drifted through. "Thermal's dead."
Steele lowered his rifle a fraction. "Reset."
They stepped out into the gray wash of pre-dawn, humidity already clinging to skin despite the early hour. The North Carolina air smelled of pine and damp earth. Mosquitoes hummed in the tree line.
