Blind spots get people killed.
Blind spots got Kimber taken.
I can feel the tension humming through each of us like static. It coils in the cramped van as we coast into position, waiting, watching the residential street drown in the sickly orange wash of aging streetlights. Curtains glow softly in quiet houses. A dog barks somewhere down the block. A car rolls through, slow and oblivious.
Jory’s house sits dull and unremarkable, the way hiding places often do.
“Fifteen minutes ago,” Ronan mutters from the front seat without looking back. “That’s when he got home. We watch him for an hour, see how he settles in. Anything jumps; we adjust.” His voice is steady, but I can hear the razor edge underneath. He wants this done. We all do.
The hour drags, each minute pulled thin. Ronan stares at the camera feeds and phone pings like he can force movement through sheer will. Rowan keeps watch on the house, posture locked in stone. Beside me, Berk can’t sit still—knees bouncing, fingers tapping—her energy a wildfire beating against its cage. My nerves hum like a live wire.
But nothing happens.
No visitors.
No cars pulling up.
No movement worth naming.
His phone pings twice—harmless nonsense. A friend asking a stupid question. Someone sending a meme. The normalcy of it turns my stomach. Normal is a lie people hide behind.
The quiet is worse than noise; it invites the mind to invent danger.
Rowan breaks first. He leans forward and draws his gun, thumb sliding along the metal before he checks the magazine. The click is soft but decisive—a ritual that marks the moment before the storm.
We follow. My gun settles heavy in my hand, like it knows what we’re about to do, as if understanding what’s on the line.
Rowan glances over his shoulder at us, eyes sharp and gleaming in the dim light. A muscle ticks in his jaw. He’s collected, but his tension mirrors my own, thrumming beneath the surface.
“Ready?” he asks.
He doesn’t mean it casually. He means ready to cross a line we can’t step back from. Ready to tear truth out of someone who may not survive the telling. Ready to face the nightmare Jory is tangled in—and whether it leads us to Kimber.
I nod once. Slow. Steady.
Berk reaches forward and rests her palm between Rowan’s shoulder blades, steadying him, steadying all of us. She whispers, “Let’s go get him,” and her voice slides through me like lightning.
Because ready or not, we are going in.
We split into pairs, slipping through the yard like wolves on a blood trail. A porch light humming and flickering, nervous as the house itself. Rowan and I cover the front door, guns low, ready. Around back, Berk and Ronan move in sync, shadows cutting across the yard, their silhouettes circling like predators closing in on a doomed thing.
My pulse stays steady. My palms dry. This is what we do. This is where we breathe best.
Rowan meets my eye and touches the comm. One tap. Then—
“Now.”
We breach.
The front door cracks open like a rib cage splitting. We barrel inside and stop dead.
The universe must hate us.
Jory sits in the middle of his living room like he’s posing for the world’s worst crime-scene photo. Recliner tilted back. Lotion bottle in one hand. Dick in the other. Some low-budget porn blaring from his TV, colors flashing across his pale, sweaty face, catching the exact moment shock hits him—mouth open, eyes wide, frozen mid-stroke.
Honestly, I wish we had come in guns blazing just so I wouldn’t have toseethis.
“Hands up,” I shout, deadpan. “Not the one holding your dick.”