Every muscle in her body trembled and her legs threatened to give out. But her voice came out clear.
“You take all of us, or no one.”
8
Fox yankedoff his balaclava and pushed past Pav. “Harper.”
Pav clocked the shift immediately—Fox’s voice softened, stripped of command.
Harper’s eyes went wide. “Thom?”
“Yeah.” Fox pulled her into a brief, crushing hug, his rifle swinging awkwardly over his shoulder. “It’s me.”
She made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, or a sob, her hands fisted in the back of his jacket. “How did…where…”
Pav switched his attention to the compound outside. Flames reached for the sky, consuming the administration building. Gunfire still broke the dark in short, brutal bursts. Black smoke dirtied the falling snow.
They didn’t have time for reunions.
“I’ll explain later. What matters now is getting you out of here.” Fox released Harper and held her at arm’s length, his gaze flicking past her to the women clustered in the barrack. “This wasn’t the plan?—”
“I don’t care.” Her chin lifted, her voice hoarse. “All of us or none of us.”
Fox exhaled and shook his head. “Okay. We take them all.”
Harper’s shoulders dropped a fraction, her eyes gleaming bright as she nodded.
Fox tapped his comms. “Zak. We’re taking all the women. Twelve.”
Static, then Zak’s voice. “We don’t have transport for twelve extra people.”
Fox frowned. “Then we improvise.”
Every extra body slowed extraction. Twelve women. Hostile terrain. A storm moving in fast, visibility already degrading. This was how missions unraveled.
But Fox had made the call.
Harper turned back to the barrack, switching seamlessly into Russian. “Everyone up. Stay together.”
The women scrambled to their feet, some crying, others, their faces blank with fear.
Pav followed Harper into the barrack. “Injured?”
“Three,” Harper said without looking at him. “Mobile, but weak.”
“The weak ones stay.”
Her head snapped up. “Excuse me?”
“We can’t carry casualties through a firefight.”
“They’re not dead weight.” Her voice was glass. “They’re people. And we’re taking all of them.”
Pav held her gaze. Bruises darkened her face. She was shaking, but she didn’t flinch.
Fox stepped between them. “Pav. We take them all. Figure it out.”
Pav’s jaw locked.
