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I need this—to outmaneuver whoever’s laying traps in my name before they bury me in the fallout.

I’ve clawed my way back from firestorms and wreckage, from betrayal by the man who claimed to love me, and from the gutting silence of losing my crew.

Letting anyone in, especially Kade, isn’t a luxury—it’s a threat.

It’s not just a distraction. It’s vulnerability.

And I’ve already risen once from the ash with nothing but scorched pride and a spine of steel—I won’t scatter again. I can’t afford to.

“I said what I said.”

The corner of his mouth—not a smile, more a slight compression—acknowledges my obstinacy. “Then I’m coming.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“This isn’t about need.” He steps closer, voice dipping into command. “It’s about operational security. You’re compromised terrain. Anyone smart would protect key terrain.”

“Is that what I am? Terrain?”

“Flammable terrain,” he corrects, his voice low, rough-edged.

His gaze slides over my throat as if it was a brand, hot and deliberate, and I swear I feel it sear straight to bone.

Sparks flick inside my chest—sharp, insistent, magnetic.

My pulse jumps, wild and traitorous, pounding where his attention lingers.

I hate that he seems to feel it. Hate even more that some part of me wants him to.

I pivot, boots striking concrete like punctuation marks, my spine rigid with defiance.

The door yawns open ahead, darkness pressing in from the corridor.

Behind me, his steps fall into rhythm with mine—silent but undeniable, the kind of presence that slips under your skin and takes root.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t need to. His nearness is a weight, a warning, and a vow all at once.

A shadow that isn’t cast but follows like instinct. And I let him. I hate that I let him.

Tool Cache 3-Alpha

The training center sleeps, hushed and watchful under a thick blanket of dusk.

Sodium lamps at the vehicle depot cast sickly halos across the gravel, their faint buzz the only mechanical sound against the thrum of crickets sawing through the dark.

A lone coyote yips, sharp and hungry, somewhere past the fence line.

The night smells like oil, scorched metal, and something older—something waiting. I slip the bolt cutters into my belt and unlock the chain on the cinder-block cache. The steel door groans open, sounding too loud in the silence, a warning no one’s listening to. I enter, closing the door behind me.

Inside, rows of red drums gleam under my flashlight. I pop the first seal, insert a sampler straw, and inhale cautiously. Diesel, gasoline… and a faint, acrid tang that shouldn’t be here. I set the sample jar aside, pulse pounding.

Kade’s presence brushes the doorway before I hear his boots, the sound resembling a pressure drop before a lightning strike.

The hair on my arms lifts before my brain catches up.

Something primal, something older than fear, whispers that he's near.

The air bends around him—dense, electric, charged with a predatorial gravity that makes every instinct in me snap to high alert.

“What did you find?” he asks.

I lift the jar. “Accelerant.”

He steps into the cramped space, door swinging shut behind him with a low metallic groan that echoes off the concrete walls.

The click of the latch reverberates a warning.

Darkness settles, broken only by my flashlight’s narrow beam slicing through the dust-laced air.

His scent—clean sweat, iron-rich heat, something wilder I can’t name—clings to me, thick and undeniable, embedded in every breath.

The air thickens. Every breath stretches tight in my lungs, heavy with tension and something far more dangerous than fear.

Confinement turns charged, intimate, like the moment before a backdraft or flashover. One wrong move and everything ignites.

“You agreed to backup,” he murmurs.

“I agreed to nothing. I can handle myself.” My voice sounds huskier than planned.

A fingertip grazes my wrist, feather-light yet electric. “Handling yourself doesn’t preclude accepting cover.”

“Cover means trust. That’s a hard commodity to come by these days.”

His hand—broad, calloused—slides to my elbow, steady, claiming. “Earned, not given. Let me earn it.”

I swallow, throat parched and raw, each breath dragging across nerves already frayed.

Outside, the wind rattles the corrugated roof in angry bursts, a warning drumbeat through the night.

Inside, the air thickens, heavy with something volatile and near combustion.

The tension presses against my skin, dense and scorching, hotter than any accelerant I’ve ever handled.

It doesn’t just smolder—it threatens to ignite.

I spin, jar sloshing, heart kicking hard against my ribs.

Footfalls scrape across gravel just beyond the cache wall—too slow for deer, too deliberate for wind.

Two shadows move like ghosts in the alley, long and dark, slinking between patches of weak light.

My breath catches, tension crackling along every nerve ending.

Whoever they are, they’re not lost. They’re looking for something or someone.

Kade steps in front of me, all controlled tension and lethal intent, every inch of him poised to strike.

The air changes—denser, hotter. A low, rumbling growl vibrates in his chest, deep and feral, human in shape but not in origin.

The sound skates across my skin like the first lick of fire against tinder.

Every hair on my arms stands up. My lungs forget how to work.

Primal instinct doesn’t just scream—it roars.

Danger lingers in the air, thick and electric.

So does awe—sharp and staggering—as if I’m standing too close to something sacred… and about to witness it unbound.

Metal clanks outside: someone prying at the lock.

Kade looks over his shoulder, eyes igniting with a strange inner light—an otherworldly gleam that flickers, embers caught in a storm wind, hinting at something ancient stirring just beneath his calm exterior. “Stay behind me.”

The command surges through me—smooth and unyielding, velvet drawn over a live wire.

It grips my spine before my brain can catch up, demanding obedience with a force that feels almost primal.

My lips part, ready to push back, to reclaim the illusion of control—but the door shudders under a blow so hard it rattles the concrete floor beneath us.

The sound isn’t just loud—it’s a warning, raw and real.

My argument dies in my throat, smothered by the rush of an incoming threat.

I flick my radio to transmit. Static hisses—jammed. Sabotage.

Kade strides forward, shoulders rolling with slow, lethal precision—a predator slipping into kill range.

Each step radiates intent—controlled, commanding, unshakable.

The air ripples around him, heat shimmer rising as though his body emits more than mere human warmth.

It’s subtle, but undeniable. The shadows recoil, bending away from him, as if even darkness knows it can’t hold dominion over what he is.

I feel it too—an elemental pull, the sensation of standing too close to an unseen flame.

My breath shortens. My spine locks. Something is coming, and Kade is no longer hiding from it.

My pulse hammers, a violent drumbeat in my ears, drowning out thought.

Instinct screams at me to fall back, to find cover, to run—but I can’t.

Some stubborn, furious part of me anchors to the heat radiating off Kade’s back, refusing to move.

It’s not courage—it’s defiance. I’ve already lost too much.

I won’t lose this moment to fear. The tension sings through my blood like fire dancing up a fuse.

No way am I sitting this out. Not when I finally feel something worth standing for again.

Another bang—closer, heavier, filled with intent. The roar of splintering metal fills the air—a war cry—the sound too big, too violent, too final. It’s not just an entry—it’s an incursion. And behind it comes the heat, the fury, and the promise of fire unleashed.