Got it.
After doing another check on the safety of his weapon, he grabbed his helmet, settled it onto his head, flipped down the NODs to make sure they were working, and flipped them up again.
The steady, familiar buzz of adrenaline that came before a mission was already starting to build. It hummed under his ribs, familiar and comforting as he worked up his loadout gear. It wasn’t the clean, sharp edge of mission focus, yet. But he knew by the time they hit the skids of the helo to spin up live, it would be.
It better be.Fucking up could cost them their lives.
His hand slid in behind the stock of his weapon again, and he cocked his head to one side.
Something is different or funky.
Anything weird or funky before a mission was never a good thing. He tried to pinpoint where the unease was coming from.
Cian.
The name flickered through his mind like a ghost, and he shoved it down hard.
No. Not now.
Getting his head back in the game took more effort than it should have, but by the time they were geared up for the training run through the kill house, he was mostly ready to rock.
Juice slapped a schematic onto the hood of the nearest Humvee, his finger stabbing the blueprint. “Three entry points. Primary here. Secondary egress through the kitchen if we get pinned. Intel says tangos areholed up in the east wing, but assume they’ve got eyes on all approaches.”
Kaze cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders. “I’ll take point on the roof. Give you eyes and cover fire if they’ve got snipers.”
Zero shoulder-checked him. “And if they don’t, you’ll just be up there sitting on your ass, enjoying the view.”
Reaper tuned them out, his gaze locked onto the squat, concrete bastard of a structure, rigged with enough traps and pyrotechnics to simulate a warzone. It was as close to the real thing as they were going to get. Close enough to make him forget the chaos that reigned in his life right now, if only for a little while.
“Stack up!” Viper ordered, and they moved into place.
Reaper took second position behind Juice, his pulse steady, and his breath even. The breach charge went off with a concussivewhump, smoke billowing into the air. They flowed inside, weapons up. Targets snapped into view—hostiles, friendlies, civilians. His finger hovered over the trigger, his brain processing faster than thought.
Shoot.
Don’t shoot.
Move.
A crackle in his earpiece. “All Stations, Three, contact left.” Kaze fed them intel from his position as Overwatch.
Can that fucker see through walls now?
He pivoted, squeezed the trigger in short bursts, his M16 barked twice, and the paper target’s head snapped back. Relieved that his body had gone into muscle memory and he wasn’t second-guessing shit, he moved through the kill house, clearing rooms with Juice as he went.
This right here is the reason for all the training and discipline.
They cleared the first room, then the second, and moved onto the third.
The world exploded around them as a pressure plate triggered under Zero’s boot. The flashbang light from the training mortar seared Reaper’s vision, as the shockwave slammed into his chest like a freight train. He dropped to a knee, disoriented, but his weapon never wavered. His ears rang, the world muffled, but Viper’s voice cut through the white noise, distorted but clear. “—Move, move, move!”
Reaper surged forward, blind but trusting his team.
A hand yanked him up from his knees. “I got you,” Juice muttered. “Good?”
“Good.”
They pressed on, clearing the final room in a storm of controlled violence, and he dropped to his knees to the left of the door they exited from. “Zero, you bastard. Watch where you’re fucking walking. You just got my ass killed.”
