The Legion didn't wait long.
Boots pounded outside the hut, voices in clipped radio bursts. Cross shoved Reyes deeper into the shadows and flattened himself by the door. Elena crouched opposite, pistol raised. Their eyes met for the briefest moment—a silent agreement.
The door shattered inward. Black-clad soldiers poured in.
Cross fired first, cutting the lead man down. Chaos exploded in the tight space—gunfire deafening, muzzle flashes blinding. Elena moved like lightning, snapping a man's wrist, stealing his rifle, and turning it on the next. Blood sprayed across the wooden walls.
Cross rammed his shoulder into another attacker, slamming him into the rotted frame. He jammed his knife upward beneath the man's vest and ripped free.
But even as bodies hit the floor, more followed. The hut was a death trap.
"We're boxed in!" Cross shouted.
Elena's gaze flicked to the floor. A hatch half-buried in dust. She kicked it open. "Basement tunnel. Move!"
Cross grabbed Reyes, dragging him into the dark hole as bullets tore splinters from the walls. Elena covered them, then dropped in last, slamming the hatch shut just as a grenade clattered into the hut above.
The explosion shook the earth. Dirt rained from the ceiling. In the flickering light of a single lantern, Elena's face was calm but sharp.
"Kane doesn't just want you dead, Cross," she said quietly. "He wants you alive. He needs what's in your head."
Cross's stomach sank. "What the hell are you talking about?"
But she only said, "Keep moving."