He adjusted elevation mid-stride, fired twice, and pivoted toward the cutout in the shared wall. The third target was partially concealed behind it. Left shoulder and head visible. He took the head shot.
The last room had two targets. One obvious, one tucked behind a barricade that required him to drop to a knee to find the angle. He cleared the first standing, dropped, cleared the second, and was back on his feet before his knee finished registering the concrete.
“Time.”
He lowered his weapon. His heart was hammering, and he let it. Blood moving, lungs working, brain still running hot from a dozen decisions made in under a minute.
It felt fucking good.
He walked back to the staging area. Ryder was already there, leaning against the wall.
“Well?” Isaac said.
Ryder jerked his chin toward the timer board. One second faster than Ryder’s best on that lane. “Don’t even say anything.”
Isaac just grinned and high-fived the man when he held his hand out.
Ian came through from his own run, weapon at his side, barely winded. He checked the board, made two marks on the clipboard, and looked at both of them. His silence was its own kind of feedback.
Good. Not good enough. Keep going.
Ian DeRose had built Zodiac Tactical from the ground up and had demanded the very best from his operatives from day one. He didn’t do active missions much anymore, but he still trained as if he might be going out at any time. Everybody respected the hell out of him for it.
They ran two more rounds. By the third, Isaac’s shirt was soaked and his forearms burned from the sustained grip. Ryder had stopped talking between runs, which meant he was locked in. Micah nearly beat both of them on round four with a lane time that made Burke whistle from the reset station.
After the last round, Isaac sat on an overturned crate, forearms on his knees, water bottle half-finished beside him. His hands were steady. His body felt wrung out and perfectly calibrated at the same time.
Ryder dropped onto the crate next to him and tossed his gloves into his open gear bag. “Tied on round three. You got lucky on four.”
“That wasn’t luck. You overcommitted on the second room.”
“I cleared it faster.”
“You cleared it sloppy. You came through that cutout at full height with your weapon still transitioning. If there’d been a real shooter behind it, you’d have walked right into the line of fire.”
Ryder’s grin faded. He looked at the course, then back at Isaac. “Yeah. I felt it when I did it. Knew it was wrong the second I was past the wall.”
“So fix it next time.”
“Already fixed.” He knocked his knuckle against the side of his head. “Filed and corrected.”
Isaac believed him. That was what made Ryder good. He could take a hit to his ego, process it in real time, and move on. Some guys got defensive. Some guys got quiet and resentful. Ryder absorbed it and adapted.
Ian was across the staging area talking to Burke. Micah was breaking down his weapon at the cleaning station, headphones on—he wasn’t ever one to talk if he didn’t have to. The energy had shifted from competition to cooldown, and the ease between them settled in naturally.
Ryder took a long pull from his water bottle. “So how was the gala the other night?”
“Fine.”
“That’s all I get? Four hours in a tuxedo, and all I get isfine?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say something happened. A beautiful woman cornered you near the champagne. You had a torrid affair in the coat check. Something.”
“Nothing happened.”
“That’s tragic. If they sent me to those things?—”
