Chapter Scout
Scout
There.
Something shifts.
Not movement.
Not sound.
Pattern.
I stop.
Logan stops instantly with me.
No question.
No hesitation.
Trust.
“What?” he asks quietly.
I don’t answer right away.
I’m looking at the ground.
At the space between us and the structure ahead—an old building, half-collapsed, nothing remarkable at first glance.
Except—
“It’s too clean,” I say.
Logan’s gaze follows mine.
“Yeah.”
No debris.
No natural scatter.
The ground is clear in a way it shouldn’t be.
And that means—
“It’s marked,” I say.
A beat.
“For what?”
I inhale slowly.
Then—
“Movement.”
The word lands sharp.
Because now I see it.
Not fully.
But enough.
“This is a funnel,” I continue. “We step through that, we’re exactly where he wants us.”
Logan’s jaw tightens.
“Kill zone.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Calculating.
Then—
“We go around,” he says.
I shake my head slightly.
“No.”
His eyes snap to mine.
“Scout—”
“If we go around,” I cut in, “we lose control of the field.”
A beat.
“And we give him time to adjust.”
Logan studies me.
Measuring.
Trusting.
The weight of the decision sits between us.
Because there isn’t a clean option.
There never was.
“We go through,” I say.
Carefully.
Precisely.
“On our terms.”