Counter-Attack

POV: Jarrah

The rain had turned the asphalt outside the safehouse into black glass.

I stood in the narrow doorway of the back room, pulling my tactical gloves tight over my knuckles, testing the leather until the seams creaked. The smell of gun oil, damp wool, and cold grease hung heavy in the air. In the corner, three of my men, Vance, Miller, and Cole, were checking their mags in silence, the faint clack-clack of brass against steel the only rhythm in a house that felt like a pressure cooker waiting to pop.

I didn't look at them. My eyes were fixed on the small, wooden stool near the dead fireplace where Malia sat wrapped in an oversized jacket.

She was staring down at her lap, her fingers tangled in the frayed hem of her sleeve. Her skin was far too pale, the dark circles under her eyes bruised purple by three days of running on panic and cold rations. Every time the wind rattled the loose window frame, her shoulders hitched.

A sharp, familiar ache twisted in my chest, part rage, part something raw and terrifying that I couldn't afford to name while holding a loaded rifle.

"You don't have to go," she whispered. She didn't raise her head, but her voice carried straight through the quiet hum of the room, cutting through my focus like a wire drawn taut. "Jarrah, please. It's a trap. You know what they're like. The moment you step through that door"

"If we stay in this hole for another twelve hours, they surround us," I said, my voice low and hard, though every nerve in my throat strained against the tone. I crossed the room in three heavy strides, dropping to one knee in front of her so I was level with her eyes. "We don't wait for them to finish the circle, Malia. We break their momentum tonight before they bring down the heavy armor."

"And if you don't come back?"

Her dark eyes lifted, glossy with unshed tears, searching my face with a terrifying intensity. She reached out, her cool, trembling fingers catching the edge of my vest. She wasn't just afraid for her life; she was afraid of being left behind in the dark.

I caught her hand, wrapping my rough palm around her small fingers, squeezing until I felt her pulse throbbing violently against my skin.

"I'm coming back," I gritted out, holding her stare until she nodded, once, reluctantly. "I didn't drag you out of that hellhole just to let some syndicate dog finish this. Keep your head down. Don't look out the windows. Don't touch the door unless it's him."

I jerked my head toward the shadows beside the hallway door.

Reuben stepped into the dim amber light of the single oil lamp resting on the counter. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his battered shotgun slung low across his thigh. His expression was a wall of cold granite, impenetrable, unreadable, and utterly unyielding.

We hadn't spoken more than ten words to each other since yesterday's showdown at the ridge. We both knew the score. He didn't like my call to strike first, and I didn't like the way his eyes lingered on Malia every time she moved. But there was no one else on this side of the river I could trust to hold a doorway against ten men with automatic rifles.

"She stays in the root cellar if the alarms go off," I told Reuben, standing up and stepping into his space. The air between us turned instantly razor-sharp. "You stand on the trapdoor. Nobody comes down those stairs unless they're bleeding from three holes you put in them."

Reuben's jaw muscles tightened. He didn't flinch. "I know how to guard a door, Jarrah. Worry about your own head out there in the dark. The docks are crawling with corporate spotters. You miscalculate by ten seconds, and you're stepping into a kill box."

"Then I'll make sure I don't miscalculate," I muttered.

I looked back at Malia one last time. She didn't say another word, but the sight of her sitting alone in that cold room, surrounded by shadows and guns, burned into the back of my eyelids as I pulled my hood up and stepped out into the freezing deluge.

The night was pitch black.

The rain hit my face like needles as Vance and I crouched behind the rusted hull of a discarded shipping container, two hundred yards from the eastern perimeter of the dockside warehouse. The smell of salt, creosote, and rot floated up from the stagnant water below the piers.

"Two guards on the catwalk," Vance hissed into his comm, his breath pluming white in the freezing air. "Standard rotation. Every four minutes they cross at the north ladder."

"No heavy weapons visible?" I asked, raising my night-vision optic to my eye.

The world turned a grainy, glowing green. The warehouse looked quiet too. The perimeter chain-link fence was dark, but through the thermal lens, I could see two heat signatures huddled inside the guard shack near the main gate.

"Nothing heavy on the roof," Vance whispered. "Miller and Cole are in position at the west breacher point. On your command, boss."

My thumb rested on the side of my rifle's safety. My heart was thumping a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs, but my hands were dead steady. This was the work I knew. Striking fast, hard, and clean before the enemy realized they were no longer the predators.

"Three... two... one. Execute," I growled into the radio.

POP.

Miller’s suppressed round took out the floodlight on the west wall. In the same second, Vance and I sprinted across the open mud, our boots making no sound against the wet earth as we closed the distance to the side entry door.

Vance slapped a magnetic charge against the hinges. A muffled thump vibrated through the metal, and the door swung inward.

We flooded the interior.

The warehouse was a cavern of concrete and iron. Row upon row of wooden crates stretched toward the high steel rafters. My rifle came up, sweeping the kill zone.

"Clear left!" Vance barked softly.

"Clear right!"

We pressed forward through the maze of crates, our boots clicking against the slick concrete. But as we reached the central staging office where our informant swore the syndicate leader was coordinating the hunt a cold knot of dread began to tighten in my stomach.

The desk was empty. The computer monitors were dark, their power cords sliced clean through.

In the center of the wooden desk sat a single, battery-powered tactical radio. Its LED light was blinking a steady, mocking red.

"Jarrah..." Vance whispered, his rifle lowering slightly as he looked around the silent, hollow room. "Where the hell are they? This place... there's no perimeter team. There's nobody here."

My blood ran instantly cold. The air in my lungs felt like jagged glass.

A decoy.

It wasn't a staging ground. It was an empty shell designed to draw me, Vance, Miller, and Cole miles away from the safehouse to strip our defenses down to a single man.

"Fall back!" I roared, turning on my heel and barreling back toward the entrance. "It's a feint! Get to the trucks, NOW!"

I jammed my finger onto the comm button on my collar, my voice cracking with sudden, overwhelming panic.

"Reuben! Reuben, do you copy?! They aren't here! Secure the root cellar! Shut down the"

Static crackled in my earpiece. A harsh, tearing sound of interference filled my ear, followed by the muffled, rhythmic heavy thud of automatic gunfire coming through the speaker.

"Jarrah!" Reuben's voice burst through the static, distorted, breathless, and frantic over the heavy roar of splintering wood and shattered glass in the background. "They were already inside the perimeter! They bypassed the tripwires"

"Reuben! Where is Malia?!" I screamed, vaulting over a stack of pallets, my legs burning as I sprinted into the pouring rain toward our vehicle. "Reuben!"

Through the comms, a heavy, brutal thud echoed, followed by the sound of a body slamming against stone. Then, a chillingly unfamiliar voice spoke calmly into Reuben's open microphone.

"Thank you for clearing the way, Captain. She's coming with us now."

A single gun blast killed the signal, leaving nothing in my

ear but the dead, hollow whistle of pure static.