The silence hit harder than the chaos. No echoing insults, no passive-aggressive banter, no murder-eyes being thrown across the room
Just cold concrete, humming wires, and the flicker of a dying fluorescent light overhead—like even the building was too scared to breathe around them.
Sam stood in the center of it all, arms finally slack at her sides, gun holstered, jaw unclenched for the first time in hours. A full sixty seconds of peace. Maybe seventy. She could feel her heart start to slow. The silence almost felt holy.
Lilly leaned against the rusted metal doorframe, eyes on the breaker panel but mind light-years away. Ava sat cross-legged on a crate like a smug little gargoyle, picking at the dried blood under her nails, pretending like she hadn't nearly caused World War III two hallways ago.
Sam exhaled.
Then the breaker panel sparked.
And something started beeping.
Lilly spun, gun in hand. Ava was already on her feet.
Sam swore under her breath. "No, no, no—don't tell me this place is rigged."
The wall next to the panel split—literally cracked—and hissed open with a blast of compressed air. A hidden door. Reinforced. Old tech, government-grade. And from behind it?
Footsteps.
Multiple.
Boots on concrete.
Lilly cursed. "We triggered something."
"No," Ava said grimly, cocking her pistol. "You triggered something."
"Oh, here we go again—" Lilly snapped, stepping into Ava's space, again.
"Seriously?" Sam shouted. "Now?! You're picking now to fight again?!"
Ava didn't flinch. "I'll pick every damn time she lies."
Lilly's fists clenched. "Say that again."
Sam stepped between them; teeth bared in frustration. "We don't have time for this—"
But it was too late. The hidden door slammed all the way open—and what stood behind it wasn't just guards.
It was a woman in a pristine white suit, flanked by two soldiers with pulse rifles. Her smile was acid.
"Found you," she said.
Sam's peaceful minute had expired.
And now...
All hell was ready to collect.