Page 66 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

"Fourteen klicks back the way we came." Rook throws the Land Cruiser into gear and cuts a tight three-point turn on the narrow track, the diesel roaring in protest. The tires spin in the mud, catch, and the vehicle lurches back down the road. "Eight minutes if I don't hit anything."

Eight minutes. In eight minutes, a trained assault team can clear a building, secure the occupants, and disappear into the jungle.

I reload. Magazine five.

Four rifle mags remaining. Two for the SIG. The Ka-Bar. The folding blade.

Every round I burned in the ambush is a round I don't have for whatever's waiting at the end of this road. The doubled loadout that felt excessive ninety minutes ago is now dangerously thin.

The Land Cruiser screams through the pre-dawn darkness, the headlights carving wild arcs through the mist as Rook attacks the switchbacks. The diesel howls, the cracked windshield vibrating with every rut and pothole.

"Bronco." I don't turn around. "How much belt do you have left?"

"Two hundred, give or take. Burned the first belt."

"Save it. If the facility is compromised, I need that gun on the approach."

"Copy."

The jungle thins as we descend the ridgeline. The canopy opens in patches, revealing the pre-dawn sky—dark gray just beginning to bleed orange at the eastern horizon.

Then I see it.

Through a gap in the tree line, low on the horizon, an orange glow pulses against the gray sky. The color is wrong for dawn. Too concentrated. Too bright. The light flickers with the telltale rhythm of open flame, casting a shifting halo above the canopy that bleeds into the mist like a wound.

"Wraith." Bronco's voice is quiet. "That's the logging facility."

She's in there. She's in there, and I left her. I left her sleeping on a bed with the taste of my promises on her lips. I walked out the door, and I left her.

The Land Cruiser hits the straightaway and Rook floors it. The diesel screams. The jungle blurs. The war I planned to fight is behind me.

The war I'm going to lose is ahead.

16

The Sacrifice

LILY

The bed is cold.

My hand slides across rough canvas, searching for the scarred expanse of Dax's chest. The warmth I fell asleep against—the slow hammer of his heartbeat beneath my palm, his arms crushing me into safety—is gone. The space beside me holds nothing but cooling fabric and the fading scent of gun oil and sweat.

I sit up in the dark.

The rusted window grate filters a thin wash of gray pre-dawn light into the secure room. The heavy wooden door is closed. The chair where his plate carrier hung is empty. The concrete floor where his boots stood is bare. The only evidence that a six-foot-four weapon of a man occupied this room is the scratches he scored into the backs of my thighs.

He didn't wake me.

He extracted himself from the bed, dressed in the dark, strapped on body armor, counted his magazines, and walked out the door without disturbing me.

Come back. You owe me lessons.

I pull on my pants from the pile on the floor. My feet are bare. My sneakers are somewhere, but the dancer in me doesn't reach for them. Bare feet grip concrete the way pointe shoes grip a stage.

My father's compass hangs heavy against my chest. My father's last gift. An encrypted drive that started this war rides inside it still, reseated after Cipher copied every secret it carried—the original around my neck, the copy on his tablet. The silver casing is warm from my skin. I close my fingers around it briefly, then let it drop.

I open the door and step into the main room.