Emerson signals two fingers, reminding us to stay tight. We round the corner at the top landing—
And immediately take fire.
Bullets crack past my ear. Rowan dives left. I drop behind a metal support beam. Emerson rolls to the right, returning fire in controlled bursts.
There are six, maybe more, shooters dug in across the upper hall, trying to funnel us back down the stairs. They’re shouting at each other, panicked, desperate.
“Hold them! Dean wants time!”
“Don’t let them reach the rooms!”
My blood goes dark and molten, burning through me like poisoned fire.
They know exactly who we’re here for.
Rowan pops up first, firing three controlled shots that crack through the hallway like snapping bones. Two men drop instantly, the third stumbling as he tries to crawl behind a crate before Rowan puts another round through his spine.
I flank left, keeping low as muzzle flashes strobe across the dim landing. One guard pivots his rifle toward me, but Emerson tags him clean in the chest before he can stabilize his aim. He spins, firing wildly into the wall as he goes down.
A round screams past Rowan’s ribs, kissing the metal railing and sparking bright enough to light his snarl. He fires back without hesitation, nailing the shooter center mass and dropping him like a sack of meat.
The last two rush us in a panic—heavy boots, shaky hands, guns spitting desperate fire as they charge. The smart move would’ve been to fall back and regroup. Instead, they run straight into three people who’ve already died and come back as devils.
Big fucking mistake.
One rounds the corner too fast, weapon lifted, breath wheezing. I meet him head-on. My blade slides up beneath his jaw, severing the scream in his throat. He collapses against me, dead weight, before I shove him aside and move on.
The last guy barrels toward Emerson with a bellow, but Emerson sweeps his legs clean out from under him. Before the man can recover, Rowan steps in and ends it with a single shot through the throat. Blood sprays the floor in a sharp arc, then everything goes still.
But it isn’t the right kind of still.
Not the relief that follows a fight.
Not the hush before a storm breaks.
This is deliberate silence. Controlled. Rehearsed.
Rowan looks to me. Emerson checks the far door. My pulse hammers, my gun ready.
Dean isn’t within sight.
“He’s close,” I rasp. “He knows we’re coming, and he’s going to be desperate.”
Rowan wipes blood from his cheek, chest heaving. “Then we move faster.”
Another scream cuts through the hall—shorter this time, weaker. Berk’s running out of strength.
The sound lights us up like gasoline.
My lungs burn with every breath as Berk’s cries echo ahead of us, thinning, fading. Too distant. Too wrong.
“Let’s end this,” I snarl, voice scraping raw.
We push deeper into the second floor, boots pounding across concrete smeared with footprints, blood, and shell casings. The hall branches off from the wide area we just turned into a graveyard, stretching forward like a throat we’re about to cut open. Cold metal doors line both sides. Three on the right. Two on the left. One centered at the far end.
And nothing to guide us.
No more screams. No more taunts. Just the dead stillness of a place that has hurt too many people.