Chapter 15
Kara
The courtyard air bit cool against my skin. The alarm thrummed in my ear like a danger metronome. Shadows stretched across the walls, every shape an enemy until I cleared it myself.
Cam moved a step ahead, body angled left. Her rifle tracked the perimeter in smooth arcs. I swept right, the pattern automatic. We had cleared ground like this a hundred times before. Tonight the only difference was the reason we were here.
The shift was immediate and complete. Lockdown was not a drill. No second guessing. Threat was assumed until proven otherwise. Until we had eyes on the south gate, this place was compromised.
I adjusted the strap of my rifle against my shoulder, the stock tight, the reticle steady on the darker line of trees past the courtyard wall. Movement there would mean escalation. It would mean Sabine was in danger, and nothing got close to her. Not while I was standing.
Cam’s hand flicked, a signal forward. I acknowledged with a nod and kept my angle. Her breathing was even in my ear, a steady counterpoint to the alarm. No wasted movement. No wasted words.
The black SUV sat by the garage, dark against the low light spilling from the house. Cam kept her MP7 up as we closed the distance, her stride steady and sure. I slowed a half step short of the hood and brought my SCAR to my chest. The chamber check snapped loud in the quiet.
Cam angled to the driver’s side. She popped the door and slid in without hesitation, setting the submachine gun next to her. I pulled the passenger door open and slid inside. The rifle laid across my knees, safety clicked to fire, one finger resting light against the guard.
“Command, Bravo moving,” I said into the mic, voice clipped.
Alex’s voice came back low, threaded with static. “South gate motion sensor still tripped. No visuals.”
“Copy.” I glanced at Cam as she started the engine, dash lights washing faint blue over her face. Her eyes stayed locked forward, hands set on the wheel at ten and two.
I toggled the second channel. “Ellie, keep her in the room. Lock it down until I give the all clear.”
The pause was short, voice curt when it came. “Copy.”
The word clipped clean, but I pictured her standing outside Sabine's door, rifle up, every line of her body making sure the reporter stayed put. Good. That was where she needed to be. Out here, we would clear the line. In there, Ellie would hold it.
Cam shifted the SUV into gear, tires crunching as she accelerated on gravel track. The headlights swept wide arcs across the property road. The beams caught low brush and the shimmer of dew on grass. Tires ground over loose stone, every crunch sharp in the night.
My eyes ran the pattern I had drilled into myself a hundred times.
Left treeline first, shadows deep where the branches crowded low.
Right drainage ditch, narrow but long enough for someone to lie flat and wait.
The iron fence gleamed ahead under the moonlight.
Every detail logged, every gap measured for what it could hide.
“South camera feed still dead,” Alex’s voice broke over the comms, calm but tight. “Motion sensor trip only. No visual contact.”
“Copy,” I answered. My gaze stayed outside, not giving ground to the thought of interference. Bad cable or bad sensor maybe, but until I saw proof, it stayed threat.
Cam kept the SUV steady, eyes cutting side to side, not just trusting me to see it all. The woman was imposing behind the wheel, posture loose but every muscle ready. Good. She was steady in ways a lot of people were not. She could drive one-handed and fire with the other if it came to it.
The land rolled shallow ahead, a line of cedar marking the split where the road bent toward the south gate.
My senses spiked with each turn of the tires.
This was why the property was layered. Fences were barriers, gates were chokepoints.
Anyone who reached this far had already gotten closer than I liked.
I toggled the mic again. “Confirm perimeter trip is single point, south only?”
“Affirmative. No other hits.” Alex’s reply was short. She would be leaning over the console, dark hair draped over one shoulder, eyes tight on the screens.
We slowed as we came to the stretch before the gate.
The fence here rose higher, the sharp tips shining like teeth under the beams. The road straightened, cutting a clean line to the gate itself.
The metal bars stood closed, still and silent, but the sensor sat to the left of the post, its red diode blinking slow.
I let my hand rest firm on the rifle, muzzle angled low but ready. Every muscle felt strung tight, like the whole property was holding its breath.
Upstairs, she should be in bed. She would not know how close danger could feel when you were on the outside looking in. That was how it should stay. She stayed behind the locked door. I stayed here, where the air always smelled like threat.
“If this is a probe,” I said, eyes tracking the fence line, “they’re testing response time.”
“Then they’ll learn we don’t waste seconds.” Her reply was quiet, clipped, an answer that fit the weight of the weapon alongside her hip.
The exchange was all that needed saying. I knew she was steady because I had seen her work. She knew I was steady because she had trusted me on her flank before. There was no room for anything less.
“Camera feed’s still dark,” Alex said through the comm, voice clipped, not breaking the thread of our focus. “No visual yet.”
“Copy,” I answered, my eyes locked on the sweep of shadows.
Cam muttered, low enough it might have been meant only for herself, “She doesn’t know half of what it takes to keep her safe.”
“She doesn’t need to,” I cut back, sharp, eyes never leaving the treeline. “That’s the point.”
Silence filled the cabin again. We both understood the line. We had no proof of contact, no sign of movement beyond the ripple of wind through the grass. Still, every breath stayed sharp, every nerve stretched taut. Until we cleared it ourselves, the threat stayed real.
The SUV rolled to a stop fifty meters from the south gate. Cam let the engine idle low, the vibration running steady through the frame. Headlights washed across the fence line, catching the metal posts in a harsh glare.
“Cut them,” I said.
She flicked the switch, plunging the road into darkness.
Only the dash glow remained, faint and green, throwing light across the outline of her hands on the wheel.
We pulled optics into place, low-light scopes adjusting quick to the shift.
The scene sharpened. The sensor light pulsed steady, a warning beacon in the stillness.
“Out,” I said.
She popped the driver’s side, her submachine gun lifted and braced. I stepped out the passenger side, rifle angled, the folded stock snug against my chest. Gravel crunched beneath my boots. Cold air carried the faint scent of cedar and dust, sharpening the edges of every sound.
We moved out in formation without a word, splitting across the front of the SUV.
I took the right flank, Cam the left, weapons sweeping to cover the angles.
Her profile cut clean against the pale shimmer of moonlight, her movements efficient.
We had spent years drilling the same steps until they lived in muscle memory.
“Still negative on thermal,” Alex’s voice broke across the comm, flat with the focus of the job. “Could be animal, could be glitch. Watch your angles.”
“Copy,” I said, eyes shifting from the ditch line to the base of the posts.
We closed the distance slow, rifles steady, scopes scanning. Every noise pressed in harder than it should have. Branches shifting against each other in the wind. A coyote calling from somewhere past the ridge. The faint tick of heat bleeding from the SUV engine behind us.
My senses ran hot, every detail cataloged and measured against what should be here and what should not.
The grass near the fence stirred, a ripple moving against the pattern of the wind.
I froze, sight locking on the shadow, finger resting still along the trigger guard.
Cam mirrored the halt without needing instruction, her weapon trained tight.
The sensor light blinked again, steady, red, unyielding.
I lowered the scope fraction by fraction, checking right along the ditch, then sweeping up the slope toward the trees. Nothing. No figure, no flash of metal, no heat signature bleeding against the dark. Just silence and the hum of the idling engine behind us.
Cam shifted forward, two paces at a time, boots placed deliberate, no wasted noise. I mirrored the movement, sweeping the arc opposite her. We met halfway between the SUV and the gate, rifles leveled, scopes cutting the dark.
Still nothing.
The only thing real was the sensor light, pulsing red against the wire like a heartbeat that refused to calm.
The scope caught the shadow first. A flicker at the base of the gate, faint and low to the ground. I lifted a hand in signal, palm closed, and Cam froze mid-step. Rifles up. Both of us locked into place.
Through the sight, the shadow shifted again. Small. Quick. Finger tightened, weight forward, heartbeat drumming in my chest.
I waited. The shadow moved again, darting, vanishing, then sliding back into view. Not tall enough to be a man, not yet proven anything else.
Cam’s hand came up, angled low, a clear gesture. I gave a short nod, rifle steady in the pocket of my shoulder.
We advanced.
The shadow crouched low, then darted sideways, quick enough to spike the pulse at my throat. My cheek pressed harder against the stock, sight lined clean.
If this was a person, they would be dead before they cleared the fence.
Three paces closer. My breath held, trigger finger curled half-tight.