19. Ever #2
The first bullet hits the doorframe as I clear the threshold. The second punches the exterior wall. I slam the door shut and engage the inner lock with my shoulder still against it. The remaining drones swing toward the windows like insects finding light.
“Down,” I say.
Deacon is already there beside me, gun raised, body angled in front of the hall where Reva and Delia stand behind Shiloh.
Reva has Homer clutched so tightly the cat’s ears have gone flat, but she has stayed off the window line.
Delia is pressed to the interior wall, one hand braced against it, eyes fixed on the glass.
The first bullet strikes the window.
Reva flinches.
The sound is ugly from inside. Not shattering. No starburst. Just a hard, flat ping that sends the impact blooming white for half a second before the glass holds.
Another round hits.
Then another.
Homer yowls.
Reva curls around him, but she does not run forward or freeze in the open.
Shiloh reaches back without looking and puts a hand on her hip, guiding her another step into cover.
Delia moves with her. That matters. She does not bolt for an exit.
She does not try to prove anything. She stays where I told them to stay, watching the window take fire with a face that says she has seen this before.
“Bulletproof,” Reva says, voice thin.
“Resistant,” I correct automatically.
Her gaze snaps to me. “Can’t you just let me have my delusions?”
“No.”
A round hits near the far panel. Then the next. The drones are not trying to breach. They are testing rating, response, interior positions. Counting how we move when pressure starts. Somewhere, someone is watching the feed and learning what kind of house we built.
I don’t like it. Eventually they’ll find the weaknesses. Eventually the house will give them up.
Deacon fires once through the narrow gun port built into the side panel near the door. The shot takes one drone out of the air. It drops past the deck light and vanishes below the window line.
The last drone hovers.
For two seconds, it does nothing. It faces the living room, camera fixed on us through glass that has taken every hit without giving them what they came for.
Reva stares back at it. Delia’s voice comes from behind her, quiet and certain.
“She knows where I am.”
No one argues.
The drone lifts, backs away from the house, then darts toward the marsh. Another rises from the tree line to meet it, staying just outside a clean shot. They retreat together, quick and smooth, until the gray rain swallows them.
Silence returns too fast.
The cabin hums around us, sealed and bright with alerts. The windows show impact marks like pale fingerprints across the glass. Bits of broken drone smoke on the dock, one rotor still twitching in a puddle.
I lower the rifle.
My heart is steady. That is training. The anger beneath it is something else.
Reva shifts Homer in her arms. The cat complains, then immediately shoves his face into her elbow as if he had not been seconds from death and deeply offended by the experience.
“Is it over?” she asks.
“This part.”
Shiloh’s jaw tightens. “Well, that’s a comfort.”
“Accurate.”
Deacon looks at Delia. “Did she know about this location before?”
“No.” Her answer is immediate, then less certain. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” Reva asks.
Delia’s eyes cut to her. “I was not briefed on every one of Isabel’s secrets, Reva.”
The sharpness flares, then gutters out almost as quickly.
Reva takes a breath through her nose. “Right. Sorry.”
That apology costs her. I see Delia recognize it.
Deacon steps closer to the window, careful to stay off the direct line. “This was not a strike.”
“No,” I say. “Recon with live-fire testing.”
Shiloh’s mouth goes flat. “That is a fun phrase.”
“They wanted to confirm who was here, what the glass could take, how fast we responded, and whether we would expose exits.”
“And did we?” Reva asks.
I look at her.
Wet hair from the morning now dry around her shoulders. Cat in her arms. Eyes too wide and too bright, anger under the fear. Delia beside her, bandaged and pale, the same shape in a different kind of damage.
“No,” I say. “You stayed where I put you.”
Something flickers in her face—pride, maybe. Relief. A need for praise she would rather swallow glass than admit in front of Delia.
I give it anyway because she earned it.
“You did good.”
Her fingers tighten in Homer’s fur. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You moved low, stayed off the glass, got Delia with you, and kept the cat from becoming orange paste.”
Homer growls at me.
“Heroic,” Shiloh says softly.
Reva looks down at the cat. “You hear that? Try gratitude.”
Delia reaches over and touches two fingers to Homer’s head before seeming to remember herself. The motion is quick, almost hidden, but Reva sees it. So do I.
Small things matter when everything big is on fire.
I move back to the office and start pulling footage, signal data, telemetry traces, whatever the drones gave me before they pulled back.
Deacon follows, still holding the gun, while Shiloh stays with the women in the living room.
Through the open door, I hear him tell Reva to put the cat down before she bruises his ego, and I hear her tell him Homer’s ego is load-bearing and deserves the pressure.
I bring up the drone feed, capture fragments, signal bounce, direction of retreat.
They came from three origin points, probably launched from boats or portable cases on the far side of the marsh.
Whoever controlled them knew the general location before the first pass. They did not just stumble onto us.
Deacon stands beside my chair. “Sabine?”
“Maybe. Maybe someone saw the extraction route. Maybe they tagged the van. Maybe Isabel let Delia go just long enough to track it.”
His face goes still. I regret the last sentence as soon as I say it, but I do not take it back because we have no time for softer guesses.
Behind us, Delia speaks. “She didn’t let me go.”
We turn. She stands in the office doorway with Reva and Shiloh behind her. Reva is still holding Homer. Shiloh has one hand near her back, not touching now, just ready.
Delia’s face is pale, but her voice holds. “Isabel doesn’t let people go. If she had planned this, she would have hit while I was still half-broken and you were congratulating yourselves.”
Reva flinches at half-broken. Delia sees it and looks away.
I lean back from the keyboard. “What’s your theory?”
Delia steps into the office and looks at the screen. “Show me the route the drones took.”
I glance at Reva. She lifts her chin in a silent don’t you dare shut her out.
I pull the map wider and trace the flight path. Delia studies it, eyes narrowing on the south marsh, the service road, the old drainage canal.
“There,” she says, pointing with two bandaged fingers. “That canal connects to a maintenance path behind Sainte Aurelia.”
Deacon leans closer. “Old convent route.”
“Yes. Mostly forgotten, except by people who move things they don’t want seen.”
“Like people,” Shiloh says, voice light without being unserious.
Delia ignores the comment. “If they had someone watching the convent from that path after the extraction, they wouldn’t need to tag the van the whole way. Just get the general direction and then conduct an aerial search.”
I stare at the map. She’s right. That annoys me because I should have thought of it first.
Reva looks between us. “So she knows Delia is here.”
“Yes,” I say. “And you. And Deacon.”
Her mouth presses together.
Deacon’s gaze moves to the living room windows, then to the impact marks. “How long before they come harder?”
“Depends on what they learned.”
Shiloh asks, “And what did they learn?”
I look at the screens, at the cabin schematic, at the feeds still glowing green. The house is strong. Strong enough to take bullets from drones. Strong enough to stop a small team if they come stupidly. Strong enough to make us comfortable if we let it.
That’s the danger.
“They learned the glass holds,” I say. “They learned we have cameras, quick response, and at least two shooters on-site. They learned Reva and Delia are both inside.”
Reva’s hand settles on Delia’s sleeve for half a second before she pulls it back.
I pull up the exterior sensor grid and start shutting down anything that might give a second pass better data. “They also learned we are not leaving in panic.”
Reva studies me. “Are we leaving?”
The room goes quiet.
I look at Deacon first because he already knows. Then Shiloh, because he hates it. Then Delia, because she is the reason and the proof.
Finally, Reva.
Her face changes as she reads mine.
The cabin was a good hole. Hidden, armed, hard to reach, harder to breach. It bought us time after the hospital, gave Reva walls, gave Delia a place to land.
But now Isabel has seen the walls. Walls are only useful until the enemy learns their shape.
“Not right this second,” I say.
Reva’s jaw tightens.
“But yes,” I add. “We can’t stay here.”