53. Jonah
Jonah
T he first shot misses my head by inches.
Concrete explodes beside me.
“Contact!”
I swing left instinctively and fire twice before the operative fully clears the corner.
Both rounds hit center mass.
He drops hard.
The second hostile pivots toward me—too slow.
Lance’s shot catches him clean through the chest.
The body slams against the corridor wall.
“Well,” Ronan mutters behind me, “there goes stealth.”
“Nope.”
Doesn’t matter now.
Silence died the second that first round hit concrete.
Now speed matters more.
The narrow corridor fills with echoing gunfire and pounding boots somewhere deeper inside the facility.
They know exactly where we are now.
“Sienna—routes?”
She’s already moving beside me, tablet glowing faintly against her hand while she tracks the internal structure in real time.
“Right corridor splits ahead,” she says quickly. “Take the narrow access lane. Left side loops to the main floor—they’ll trap us there.”
I don’t hesitate.
“Right!”
We cut hard into the side corridor.
Tight.
Claustrophobic.
Barely enough room for shoulders and weapons.
Perfect.
Bad terrain for large tactical pushes.
Good terrain for killing them before they surround us.
Footsteps thunder behind us.
A lot of them.
“They’re pushing fast,” Cal says.
“Good.”
I stop at the choke point and pivot back toward the corridor entrance just as shadows flood the hallway.
Controlled bursts.
Two operatives drop instantly.
The third collides into the bodies before he can fire.
The rest stack up behind them.
Blocked.
Confused.
Exactly what we need.
“Move!”
Nobody hesitates.
We run.