Page 99 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

“Identify.” Ethan keeps the rifle trained on center mass.

“Ghost.” The man steps forward, flanked by three others. Flickering light reveals battle-worn faces and dead eyes. He gestures to each shadow behind him. “Brass. Halo. Whisper.”

Silence crashes down.

Cerberus. The unit that shouldn’t exist. The ghosts that operate so deep in shadow, most of us thought they were just stories to scare recruits.

“Cerberus?” Blake straightens, disbelief raw on his face.

“How the hell are you here?” Ethan’s voice stays glacial, but disbelief flickers in his eyes.

“Your little swan dive off that bird puts us exactly where we want to be.” Ghost’s voice cuts too smoothly, too calculated for what comes next. “Guardian HRS thinks you’re dead, and so does Malfor.”

The cave shrinks around us.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Blake’s shoulders bunch up tight.

“It means you weren’t informed, but your crash was part of the plan.” Ghost delivers the bombshell without blinking.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re smoking.” Walt shakes his head violently. “Our chopper took a direct hit. I was there. I saw it.”

“Yeah, that part wasn’t in the plan.” Ghost’s eyes narrow slightly. “Made it look extra real though, didn’t it?”

“Bullshit.” Rigel surges to his feet. “We nearly fucking died out there.”

“This?” I gesture to my blood-soaked leg. “This shit is real.”

Ghost’s shoulders rise and fall. “Sometimes shit happens. Mission complications. You weren’t supposed to get injured.”

Ethan takes a dangerous step forward. “Mission complications?”

“Injured?” Hank’s voice drops to a whisper that’s somehow more frightening than Rigel’s shout. “You put us through hell without warning.”

“You’re saying that near-death ocean swim was intentional?” Hank’s voice is low, menacing.

Ghost doesn’t flinch. “The plan was always for Charlie team to go down. Chopper takes a hit. Team swims to safety. Cerberus provides shadow support.”

“We were meant to crash?” The words slam into my chest. My throat closes. “To swim?”

“You knew?” Hank looks from Ghost to the pilots huddled under their mylar blankets.

One pilot drops his gaze. “Only the flight team was cleared. Full comms blackout. Couldn’t risk Malfor intercepting anything.”

Betrayal floods my mouth, bitter as bile. I remember endless strokes through black water, burning muscles, death circling behind us like a shark.

“Jesus.” Blake rubs his hand down his face.

“Would’ve been nice to get the memo.” Rigel’s voice rises, heat blazing off him.

Ghost shrugs. “Three miles in the ocean, in the dark. Not your day to die. Guardian HRS knows that. Malfor doesn’t. He doesn’t know you’re more resilient than he thinks.”

Halo slams a battered black case onto the rocks. The lid hisses open, revealing rows upon rows of sleek, deadly bumblebee drones glowing under an ominous red light. Not a dozen—a hundred. Each is no bigger than my thumb but humming with lethal purpose.

“If you girls are done crying about your funeral and if your feelings aren’t too butt-hurt no one sent you a sympathy card, maybe we can get back to saving your women?” Halo’s eyessweep over us, a smirk begging for someone to try him. “Or are we gonna sit here and braid each other’s hair?”

The words sting like a slap.

Nobody speaks. Our eyes burn with enough fire to answer.