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Nine.
Eight.
Hallie Mae’s face flashed—her eyes, blue and fierce, her voice, “Come back to me,” and my chest burned, the promise I’d made a chain I’d drag through hell.
Seven.
Six.
I pictured her in my bed, her skin soft under my hands, her love pinning me to a wall and making me pay attention.
Five.
Four.
The ground shook—an explosion, close, dirt raining down, and I ducked, heart slamming, the fight tightening around us like a noose.
Three.
Two—
The comms crackled, Elias’s voice bursting through, urgent, sharp. “Merry Christmas, motherfuckers.”
Ryker froze, finger off the trigger, eyes flicking to me. “The fuck, Elias?”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Elias said, voice light. “Incoming?—”
Before he could finish, the sky roared—blackhawks and little birds, a squadron tearing through the night, blades chopping like thunder, their shadows swallowing the peninsula.
A loudspeaker blared, cold, final: “Department 77, lay down your weapons. This is your only warning.”
The aircraft hovered, their floodlights cutting the dark, pinning 77’s men like rats.
Some complied—rifles clattering to the ground, hands up, fear breaking their ranks, faces pale in the harsh light.
Others didn’t—fools, firing up at the birds, muzzle flashes sparking like desperate stars.
The response was apocalyptic—miniguns roaring, a thunderous barrage shredding the night, rounds tearing through men, walls, earth.
Spent casings rained down, pinging off the dirt, the rooftops, a metallic hail that drowned out everything.
I shielded my eyes, the air vibrating, ground shaking, as 77’s holdouts were obliterated—bodies dropping, blood misting, the house’s facade splintering into dust.
Then—quiet.
Not silence, not yet—the choppers hummed, rotors slowing, the wounded groaned, but the gunfire stopped, the fight snuffed out like a match in a storm.
I stood, slow, M4 still raised, scanning the wreckage—bodies strewn like broken dolls, debris smoking, the peninsula a graveyard under the stars.
Ryker clapped my shoulder, blood smeared on his grin, eyes wild but alive. “It’s over.”
I nodded, chest heaving, the weight crashing in—we’d survived the meat grinder, the trap, the missile that’d nearly ended me.
Hallie Mae’s face flashed before me—her trust, her love, the promise I’d kept, against every bullet, every odd.
I pressed my comms, voice rough, throat raw. “Elias, you still there?”
“Still here,” he said, relief thick. “You good?”