Page 24 of Crossfire Creek Siege

She clinked her glass against his bottle, the faint sound echoing in the quiet room. “Then we both pass,” she said.

For a few blessed minutes, they kept the tone light, bantering just enough to keep the night from caving in. Gage had a way of doing that, pulling her back from the edge without even trying. His grin, his dry humor. It was the kind of armor she didn’t know she needed.

But then his expression shifted, the easy charm fading into something quieter. He set his beer down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “How bad did it get for you on that rafter?”

Rena’s fingers tightened around her glass. She hadn’t expected him to ask, not like that, not with that soft edge in his voice that cut right through her defenses. She looked away, tracing the rim of the whiskey with her thumb.

“Bad,” she admitted finally. “The flashbacks hit hard. The noise, the smoke, it all blended together. Took everything I had not to lose it.”

He nodded, no judgment, no pity, just understanding. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Same.”

That single word, same, hung heavy between them, threaded with everything they didn’t need to explain.

He sighed, a low sound that seemed to carry all the exhaustion and adrenaline still coiled inside him. Then he stood and crossed the space between them, moving with a slow, deliberate certainty that made her pulse jump.

“Gage…” she started, but he was already there, his hand sliding to her arm. His touch was warm, grounding. He tugged gently, pulling her up from the chair.

Her body reacted before her brain caught up. The exhaustion, the heat still humming through her veins, the hours of fear and tension. It all cracked open at once. She ended up against his chest, his heartbeat hard under her palms.

“This is a bad idea,” she managed to say, though her voice had lost all conviction.

“Yeah,” he said, his breath brushing her cheek. “Most of the best ones are.”

Then his mouth was on hers.

The kiss hit like a live wire. Hot, fast, consuming. A slam of scalding heat that burned straight through the fog of exhaustion. Her fingers fisted in his shirt, dragging him closer as his hand slid up her back, steady but hungry. The taste of beer and adrenaline and something undeniably him flooded her senses.

For the first time in days, she wasn’t thinking. She was just feeling.

The kiss deepened, rougher now, years of restrained chemistry snapping free. The world narrowed to the sound of their breathing, the thud of her heart, the heat that made her dizzy.

Then, a sharp sound cut through the air.

Gage froze, forehead pressed to hers, his breath uneven, and it took her a moment to realize the sound was his phone ringing in his pocket.

Pulling away from her, Gage yanked out his phone and glanced at the screen. “It’s Noah,” he relayed to her.

He hit speaker, and Noah’s voice came through, clipped but charged with energy. “Good news,” he said without preamble. “The techs created a computer program to factor in everything we’re looking for. Means, motive, opportunity, and no alibi for the time of the attack, and we’ve narrowed the suspect list down to three.”

That pulled Rena’s attention like a magnet. Three. After hours of staring at faces, it was finally something solid.

“Who are they?” Gage asked, his tone all business again, though Rena could still see the tension in his jaw.

“I’ll get into that at zero-seven-hundred,” Noah said. “We’ll meet in the briefing room. The night team’s cross-checking intel now, and I want everyone fresh when we go through the details.”

There was a pause, the faint sound of shuffling papers. Then Noah’s voice came back, lower, colder. “The three will all be interrogated. By the time we’re done, we might finally have the answers we need.”

Chapter Eight

Steam still clung to the mirror when Gage stepped out of the shower. His shoulder ached like hell, the stitched wound pulling with every movement, but it wasn’t the pain keeping him awake. It was the waiting.

He’d managed maybe two hours of sleep, if that, and even those had been restless, filled with flashes of gunfire and smoke. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the hangar. The kids. The chaos.

Now, with the dawn creeping pale light through the barracks window, he moved on autopilot. Training uniform of camo pants, olive Crossfire Ops tee. Boots next, laces cinched hard. He holstered his Glock that he’d retrieved from the hangar floor before even thinking about coffee. After last night, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d walk anywhere in the compound without a weapon.

The barracks were quiet, the hum of the air system and the faint drip of the shower the only sounds. He caught his reflection in the mirror. Eyes bloodshot, jaw dark with stubble, exhaustion stamped into every line. But beneath it all was a focus that burned steady.

Thirty minutes, maybe less. Then Noah will give them answers. Names. Motives. Something to make sense of the madness that had blown their world apart.