RONAN The knife hovered an inch from Nguyen’s neck. I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. The gunshot sounded hollow in my damaged ears, more like a distant thud than an explosion. When I opened my eyes, Nguyen was staring straight at me, frozen. Red and white matter coated the refrigerator door in a grotesque spray. The armored attacker lay sprawled on the floor, his body twisted at an impossible angle. My hand began to shake. The weight of what I had just done settled into my chest, heavy and suffocating. Nguyen moved first. Slowly, carefully, he reached for the pistol. His hand closed just below the barrel, steady and deliberate, and he gently eased it from my grip.He rose to his feet and swept the room, rifle tracking every corner, every shadow. I dragged myself upright and sat against the cabinet. My gaze locked onto the fist-sized hole where the entire side of the man’s head used to be. I couldn’t look away. Nguyen returned and lowered himself to the floor beside me. I pulled my legs in tight and hugged them to my chest. My mouth felt like sandpaper. My stomach twisted, threatening to empty itself. He pushed his visor up and buried his face in his hands. I looked at him, confused by the sudden break in his composure. After a long breath, the sergeant lifted his head and exhaled. “They’re dead.” For a moment, I didn’t understand who he meant. Then I turned my head. O’Brien lay a few feet away, eyes wide and glassy, a clean bullet hole punched through his right temple. A thin trail of blood had already reached the floor. Near the side door, another attacker lay motionless, a dark pool spreading rapidly beneath him. “Jackson?” I asked, my voice barely audible. Nguyen tilted his head toward the back of the house. “Other side of the island. The one who came through the front got him. You and I are only talking because the man you shot had a rifle misfire. No sidearm.” “Should we check outside?” I asked. “See if more are coming?” He shook his head. “Drone shows none. I’ll keep it up for five more minutes, then recall it before the battery dies.” We sat in silence. That’s when the smell reached me, metallic, sour, unmistakable. The same smell as the tent, from what felt like a lifetime ago. “I’m sorry,” I said finally. Nguyen broke from his thoughts and looked at me, brow furrowed. “These men are from the group that’s been tracking me since this began,” I said. “I thought I covered my digital tracks. Guess I didn’t.”He stared at the ceiling, thinking it over, then leaned his helmeted head back against the kitchen island. “We’ve known about them. They avoid direct infantry fights. Usually they turn our own air force on us.” He paused. “You must be pretty important. Any idea how they found you?” I shook my head, then glanced back at the refrigerator. Blood had formed dozens of thin trails, creeping toward the floor. The man’s brains still clung to the metal. I looked at the screen mounted on the wall. And then it hit me. “Whoever’s running this figured out who I was outside the agency.” I pushed myself to my feet, adrenaline cutting through the haze. “Once they did that, they could find my family. They were probably monitoring internet traffic from this house. When I reactivated everything, it tripped their system. They were watching my family.” I didn’t wait for a response. I walked straight toward the vehicle bay. “Where are you going?” Nguyen shouted.“I’m going to find my family,” I said without turning back. “You can come or stay. Your choice.” Nguyen forced himself up, groaning as pain caught up with him. “Give me a second.” He moved to his three fallen men, knelt, and reached beneath their armor. One by one, he pulled free their rubber-lined dog tags and pocketed them. He gathered unspent ammunition and weapons with practiced efficiency. Then he crossed the room and stopped beside me. His rifle was secured. In his hand was the pistol, the one I had used. He held it out. “This war isn’t just a digital one,” Nguyen said. I looked at the weapon. For a split second, the memory of the trigger pull echoed in my skull. I pushed it down. I took the pistol and stepped into the vehicle bay.