We slowed as we came to the stretch before the gate. The fence here rose higher, the sharp tips shining like teeth under the beams. The road straightened, cutting a clean line to the gate itself. The metal bars stood closed, still and silent, but the sensor sat to the left of the post, its red diode blinking slow.
I let my hand rest firm on the rifle, muzzle angled low but ready. Every muscle felt strung tight, like the whole property was holding its breath.
Upstairs, she should be in bed. She would not know how close danger could feel when you were on the outside looking in. That was how it should stay. She stayed behind the locked door. I stayed here, where the air always smelled like threat.
“If this is a probe,” I said, eyes tracking the fence line, “they’re testing response time.”
“Then they’ll learn we don’t waste seconds.” Her reply was quiet, clipped, an answer that fit the weight of the weapon alongside her hip.
The exchange was all that needed saying. I knew she was steady because I had seen her work. She knew I was steady because she had trusted me on her flank before. There was no room for anything less.
“Camera feed’s still dark,” Alex said through the comm, voice clipped, not breaking the thread of our focus. “No visual yet.”
“Copy,” I answered, my eyes locked on the sweepof shadows.
Cam muttered, low enough it might have been meant only for herself, “She doesn’t know half of what it takes to keep her safe.”
“She doesn’t need to,” I cut back, sharp, eyes never leaving the treeline. “That’s the point.”
Silence filled the cabin again. We both understood the line. We had no proof of contact, no sign of movement beyond the ripple of wind through the grass. Still, every breath stayed sharp, every nerve stretched taut. Until we cleared it ourselves, the threat stayed real.
The SUV rolled to a stop fifty meters from the south gate. Cam let the engine idle low, the vibration running steady through the frame. Headlights washed across the fence line, catching the metal posts in a harsh glare.
“Cut them,” I said.
She flicked the switch, plunging the road into darkness. Only the dash glow remained, faint and green, throwing light across the outline of her hands on the wheel. We pulled optics into place, low-light scopes adjusting quick to the shift. The scene sharpened. The sensor light pulsed steady, a warning beacon in the stillness.
“Out,” I said.
She popped the driver’s side, her submachine gun lifted and braced. I stepped out the passenger side, rifle angled, the folded stock snug against my chest. Gravel crunched beneath my boots. Cold air carried the faint scent of cedar and dust, sharpening the edges of every sound.
We moved out in formation without a word, splitting across the front of the SUV. I took the right flank, Cam the left, weapons sweeping to cover the angles. Her profile cut clean against the pale shimmer of moonlight, her movements efficient. We had spent years drilling the same steps until they lived in muscle memory.
“Still negative on thermal,” Alex’s voice broke across the comm, flat with the focus of the job. “Could be animal, could be glitch. Watch your angles.”
“Copy,” I said, eyes shifting from the ditch line to the base of the posts.
We closed the distance slow, rifles steady, scopes scanning. Every noise pressed in harder than it should have. Branches shifting against each other in the wind.A coyote calling from somewhere past the ridge. The faint tick of heat bleeding from the SUV engine behind us.
My senses ran hot, every detail cataloged and measured against what should be here and what should not. The grass near the fence stirred, a ripple moving against the pattern of the wind. I froze, sight locking on the shadow, finger resting still along the trigger guard. Cam mirrored the halt without needing instruction, her weapon trained tight.
The sensor light blinked again, steady, red, unyielding.
I lowered the scope fraction by fraction, checking right along the ditch, then sweeping up the slope toward the trees. Nothing. No figure, no flash of metal, no heat signature bleeding against the dark. Just silence and the hum of the idling engine behind us.
Cam shifted forward, two paces at a time, boots placed deliberate, no wasted noise. I mirrored the movement, sweeping the arc opposite her. We met halfway between the SUV and the gate, rifles leveled, scopes cutting the dark.
Still nothing.
The only thing real was the sensor light, pulsing red against the wire like a heartbeat that refused to calm.
The scope caught the shadow first. A flicker at the base of the gate, faint and low to the ground. I lifted a hand in signal, palm closed, and Cam froze mid-step. Rifles up. Both of us locked into place.
Through the sight, the shadow shifted again. Small. Quick. Finger tightened, weight forward, heartbeat drumming in my chest.
I waited. The shadow moved again, darting, vanishing, then sliding back into view. Not tall enough to be a man, not yet proven anything else.
Cam’s hand came up, angled low, a clear gesture. I gave a short nod, rifle steady in the pocket of my shoulder.
