Page 10 of Crossfire Creek Siege

None of it was elegant.

None of it was ideal.

But it was real, and in her head, realism beat heroics every time.

She pictured the armory at the far back of the hangar. A reinforced door, a keypad. Of course it would be locked.

That was supposed to be the point.

But she let herself imagine the possibility of getting there, breaking the seal, finding something that actually stopped someone in full body armor. It felt ridiculous and necessary all at once, like planning to land a jet with a seized engine.

A tremor of sound ran through the concrete. Hushed voices, boots close enough that she could hear the soles slap on the floor. Her hand tightened on her Glock, and she felt the ache in her temples deepen into a fine, humming pain.

If the migraine spiked, the room would tilt and the world would narrow to memory and noise. If it didn’t, she might get them to the armory. Either way, she had to keep moving.

She pushed forward, counting breaths and steps, mapping exits in her head as she went. She told herself, they’d figure something out.

They had to.

Slow footsteps continued to echo through the hangar, deliberate and unhurried. Whoever was out there was hunting. Each sound bounced through the cavernous space, finding its way into the concrete culverts where Rena and Gage crawled. They moved quietly, elbows and knees scraping against grit, breath shallow in the close, stale air.

When they finally reached the end of the tunnel, Rena peered through the narrow gap. About ten feet away, another culvert opened, and she spotted Noah and Lily crouched inside.

Thank God. They were both alive.

Noah had positioned himself near the edge, weapon drawn, body tense and ready. His expression was grim but steady, every inch the leader, even in this chaos.

Lily was beside him, her arm pressed against the side of the culvert, her hands gripping one of the laser-tag guns. She’d rigged it with a splintered piece of wood, tied on with what looked like a strip of party ribbon. It was crude, improvised, but a makeshift bayonet in a teenager’s hands.

The girl was shaking, her eyes wide and glinting in the dim light. But she wasn’t panicking. She was breathing slowly, focused. Terrified, yes, but holding it together in a way most adults couldn’t.

Gage eased forward beside Rena, their shoulders brushing in the tight space. Across the short gap, Noah gave them a small nod, his mouth set in a hard line. Lily noticed, too. Her chin lifted a fraction, a tiny, defiant gesture that said she was ready for whatever came next.

Rena and Gage crawled toward Noah and Lily. Every few seconds, one of the boots scraped the floor, the sound reverberating through the concrete like a threat that wouldn’t end.

When she reached the edge of their culvert, Noah mouthed. “The lock on the armory’s jammed.”

He glanced toward Lily, then motioned deeper into the tube. He was going to move farther back with the girl, keep her hidden, protect her the only way he could, by shooting anyone who came close.

Rena nodded, understanding. She mouthed, “Where’s Owen?”

Noah’s reply came in a quick tilt of his head and a whisper. “Far side. With the kids.”

She wanted to ask more. She wanted to know who these SOBs were who came here to kill them. But she didn’t dare. One sound too many could give away their position.

Whoever these men were, they had planned it. A strike against Crossfire Ops itself. That kind of hate didn’t come from nowhere. With everything the organization did, all the missions, the enemies they made, it wasn’t hard to imagine someone wanting payback.

What was hard to imagine was how they’d pulled it off. Breaching this facility should have been impossible. Layers of security, surveillance, countermeasures. But tonight, at a birthday party, the protocols had been stripped down to nothing.

They’d made themselves a target. And now, in the dark belly of the hangar, surrounded by killers, they were paying the price.

Rena’s gaze drifted upward, past the haze and broken shadows, to the disco ball hanging from the rafters. It turned slowly, glinting weakly in the low light from the still-burning candles. The sight was absurdly out of place, like a relic from another world, one where the biggest worry had been whether the frosting color matched the theme.

Gage followed her line of sight. “Let’s go for it,” he whispered. “Better angle from up there.”

Her pulse kicked hard. It wasn’t a bad idea. Height meant visibility, and visibility meant they might actually have a chance. Still, it was a hell of a climb for two people with injuries and a swarm of armed men prowling the floor. But she didn’t argue. There wasn’t time.

They slid away from the culvert, bodies low, pressing to the floor as they moved. Smoke still lingered thick in the air, the aftermath of the flashbang turning everything gray and grainy. The battery lights and candles cast just enough glow to make out shapes but not much more.