Rain hammered against the metal rooftops like machine-gun fire.
The night smelled of cordite and adrenaline.
Riley Cross crouched behind a crumbling wall, her rifle steady in her hands.
"Ghost Fox, status," her commander's voice crackled through the headset.
"Target secured," she replied calmly, glancing at the trembling young man beside her. He couldn't be older than twenty—still too soft, too alive. "Extraction in progress."
"Timer's unstable. Thirty seconds."
Of course it was. They never got the easy missions.
The red LED on the explosive blinked faster, mocking her heartbeat.
Her brain calculated the distance, the delay, the odds. Saving the kid meant she wouldn't make it out.
She shoved him hard toward the exit. "Go!"
He hesitated. "What about you—"
"Run, rookie!"
He ran. Riley sprinted the other way.
Her hands moved like memory, pulling at wires, cutting the right color, then the wrong one.
Click. Too late.
The blast turned the world white.
Heat swallowed sound. Pressure crushed breath.
Her last thought, absurd and sharp, was:
Damn. I didn't even finish lunch.