The second wave came like a flood.
Dark figures poured through the shattered gates, boots pounding against gravel, rifles raised in perfect, merciless unison. My magazine emptied in a violent rhythm, every shot cracking through the night like thunder, but still, they advanced.
Beside me, Ellie stayed crouched low, her breaths sharp and shallow, eyes blazing through the chaos. She didn't tremble. Her fear had hardened into resolve, and somehow, that was the only thing keeping me from breaking under the weight of what was coming.
"Tristan!" she shouted over the barrage, her hand jerking toward the hedges. Three more masked men broke left, circling wide.
I pivoted, my arm burning where the knife had torn through earlier. Gritting my teeth, I dropped one with a clean shot. Ellie was already moving before I could take the other, and she snatched another chunk of stone and hurled it hard. It struck one square in the face, staggering him just long enough for me to finish him.
But the third didn't stop.
He vaulted the wall and lunged toward her. Ellie didn't back down. With a sharp, desperate cry, she drove her knee into his gut. His knife clattered to the ground, and before he could recover, she kicked it away just as I sent him sprawling with a bullet to the chest.
My chest heaved, and sweat poured down my back. Blood from my arm slicked my grip, but I couldn't let go; I couldn't falter while she is here.
"They're not stopping," Ellie gasped, ducking as another volley shredded the stone above her head.
"No," I growled, slamming a fresh magazine into the pistol. "They're not."
And that was when it hit me that no one was coming fast enough. The estate's defenses had been overrun, and the security was scattered across the grounds. Not Charlie, Jamie, or hell, even Father, as they were all too far away, too tied down in their own battles.
Today, this fight was ours, and ours alone.
The thought should've terrified me. But instead, when I looked at Ellie with a flushed face, determined eyes, and her trembling hands that never once faltered, I felt something steady ignite in my chest.
We would finish this.
I caught her wrist, pulling her close behind the wall as another burst of bullets lit up the air. My forehead brushed hers for the briefest second, grounding us both. "Listen to me," I rasped. "We can't run, but I'll make sure you're safe. Nothing will happen to you while I'm still breathing."
Her reply was fierce, immediate. "Then I'll breathe with you."
The words hit harder than the gunfire.
I rose again, firing controlled bursts, cutting down two more as they pushed through the fountain's ruins. Ellie crouched beside me, scanning the chaos, her sharp voice cutting through the noise. "Right side, two incoming! Left, one behind the hedge!"
Her calls threaded into the gunfire like a lifeline, anchoring me back every time I nearly slipped into the haze of violence.
Another man broke cover, charging with a raised rifle. Ellie didn't hesitate. She flung the small gun with all her strength, and he screamed, firing blindly, bullets ricocheting uselessly into the stone. I silenced him with a single shot.
For a heartbeat, the world stilled.
The only sounds were our ragged breathing, the hiss of dissipating smoke, and the faint crackle of fire licking at broken stone.
No more shadows, no more pounding boots. Only bodies, scattered across the garden like fragments of a nightmare.
Ellie leaned back against the wall, her hands trembling now that the adrenaline had finally begun to ebb. I pulled her into me, my bloodied arm wrapping tight around her shoulders, anchoring her against my chest.
She didn't resist. She pressed her face into me, voice muffled but steady. "We did it."
I looked out over the carnage, the bodies, the smoke, the wreckage of what used to be home, and felt my pulse thundering like war drums.
"No, Ellie," I said quietly. "You did it. Together."
And in that moment, I realized something brutal and beautiful: I wasn't alone on this battlefield anymore. I knew, with terrifying certainty, that I never wanted to be again