The next morning broke grey and thin, a sea-mist rolling in from the harbour that clung low across the cracked streets. It dampened sound and made the whole world feel muffled, like the city itself was holding its breath. For once, Cal didn't mind. The quiet seemed right for what they were about to do.
Twenty fighters and the entire excavation and engineering team stood gathered in the skyscraper exit, packs strapped, helmets fastened, weapons checked for the fifth time. The air carried the sharp tang of oil and sweat, layered over the heavier musk of damp canvas and rust.
Carts had been loaded through the night: two-wheeled rigs reinforced with salvaged axles, their loads covered in tarps. Beneath those covers were the guts of their ambition scavenged toolkits, hammers, picks, pry bars, rolls of coiled wire, lengths of steel rebar, and boxes of nails and bolts. Lanterns, rope, sandbags, even a half-functioning portable welder that Rusty had bullied back into service with a mix of curses and scavenged spare parts. One cart bore crates of food, another water barrels lashed tight with straps, a reminder that the first days on the peninsula would be about surviving long enough to dig in.
Cole was already in his vest, pacing the line like a soldier inspecting raw recruits. His rifle was slung tight but his eyes kept moving, sharp and restless. Every now and then he'd stop to adjust a strap or tug at someone's shoulder plate until it sat right. His voice cut through the mist in low bursts: "Tighter there. Keep your line of fire clean. Double-check your sidearm, you're not out there with just the main."
Rusty stood apart, crouched on one knee beside the welder, muttering to himself as he tested the seal on a fuel canister. His fingers tapped against metal as though coaxing it awake. Behind him, two of his apprentices hauled bags of tools onto one of the carts, their arms already corded with sweat despite the morning chill. Rusty didn't look at Cal when he spoke, but his words carried. "First job's the Presidential Library. Windows get sealed first, doors reinforced second. We clear floor by floor, no exceptions. If there's time left after, we start mapping power lines and see if the generator salvage can be brought in."
Cal nodded silently, letting the man outline his plan. Rusty knew his craft better than anyone.
Lia wasn't going. She stood off to the side in her coat, arms folded, lips tight as she watched the team. She'd already argued her case and lost.
Cal had told her straight: "You're needed here more than there."
Now her eyes followed every motion of the departing team with a kind of fierce quiet pride, though Cal could read the worry under it.
The mist swirled as the team shifted, the sound of boots scraping pavement, weapons clinking against armor plates. For a moment, Cal let himself stand still in the center of it, breathing it all in. The smell of sweat and steel. The weight of expectation pressing down from a hundred pairs of eyes, most of them too young to have ever known a world that wasn't at war with itself.
This wasn't just another scavenging run. This was different. This was planting a flag.
"Alright," Cal said finally, his voice low but carrying. The murmurs stilled, all attention snapping toward him. "You know why we're doing this. The skyscraper won't hold forever. The QZ won't tolerate us forever. We need ground of our own defensible, useful, away from the politics choking this city. The peninsula gives us that. You're the first to touch it. You're the ones who make it more than a dot on a map."
He let the silence linger after his words, then added: "Stay sharp. Don't get sloppy. You're not just building walls, you're building the first piece of something bigger than any of us. Don't forget that."
Cole raised a hand in signal. The team began to move, carts creaking, boots striking the damp ground in steady rhythm. The fighters flanked the carts, rifles at the ready, eyes scanning every shadow. The engineers followed close, their packs heavy with tools and blueprints stuffed into waterproof cases.
Cal walked with them as far as it was safe to do so, that would take them toward the waterfront.
One by one, they moved, weapons clutched tight, carts moved.
Rusty paused to glance back at Cal, smudges of grease already marking his cheek. "You'll get your stronghold," he said simply, then vanished into the dark.
Cole was the last to go, helmeted head tilting back. "We'll send word when we're in place." His tone was ironclad, but Cal caught the flicker of something else in his eyes trust. And a burden shared.
Then he too was gone, swallowed by the mist.
For a long moment, Cal stood there, staring at the spot where they'd vanished. The mist thickened around him, muffling the city.
He turned back toward, Lia falling into step beside him. She didn't speak, just slipped her hand briefly against his sleeve in a gesture that was equal parts warning and support.
The first stone had been set. The question now was whether it would be foundation… or a grave.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The trek towards the destination was tense but mercifully uneventful. Mist still clung low, the air heavy with brine and the faint stink of rotting seaweed. Every creak of cart wheels on cracked asphalt sounded too loud, echoing across the water. The peninsula loomed ahead, a strip of land jutting out into the harbour, its edges broken with docks and skeletal boat sheds, its heart dominated by the hulking silhouette of the Presidential Library.
The Library itself looked like a mausoleum. Its glass front was fractured into jagged shards, some panes replaced by yawning black voids. The white concrete had weathered into a mottled grey, streaked by years of salt and rain. A faded banner clung stubbornly to the front: "Education is Freedom." The words fluttered weakly in the breeze, mocking in their optimism.
Cole raised a fist and the column halted just short of the entrance. Fighters spread out in practiced arcs, rifles up, boots whispering over the cracked pavement. The carts stayed in the center, flanked by engineers gripping tools like weapons. Rusty muttered something under his breath, already scanning the upper levels for weaknesses in the structure.
"Clear the front first," Cole said, voice clipped. He didn't have to shout; the team was listening. "Two by two. Eyes sharp. Rusty, hold your people back until we sweep it."
The double doors gave way under a careful push, hinges shrieking like an animal. The sound echoed through the cavernous interior, bouncing off marble floors and hollow walls. Dust swirled in the shafts of pale light that broke through the broken glass.
Inside, the Library was a grave.
Displays still lined the walls, faded posters of presidents, timelines of speeches, a model of the Constitution under a cracked glass case. The air was thick with the smell of mildew and old paper, so strong it coated the back of the throat. Every footstep kicked up clouds of dust that hung heavy in the air, glittering like ash.
The silence was broken by small sounds: the squeak of boots on tile, the faint rattle of loose glass, the hum of nervous breathing.
Then came the first growl.
From a side office, a shape lurched a runner, clothes hanging in tatters, its face a half-collapsed ruin of fungus. It shrieked and bolted forward. The two lead fighters didn't flinch. One dropped it with a burst to the chest, the other finished it with a round through the head. The echo rang loud in the vast hall.
"Contact," Cole muttered into his radio. "Small group. Expect more."
They moved slowly through the ground floor, sweeping corridors that once hosted school groups and academic tours. Broken chairs and tables lay scattered, children's drawings still pinned to faded corkboards. One paper, barely legible under grime, showed stick figures standing in front of the Library, smiling under a cartoon sun.
A second infected lunged out from behind a collapsed display wall this one a stalker, its fungal plates bulging, eyes flashing as it skittered sideways. Mara put it down with two clean shots, then reloaded, muttering, "Creepy little shits."
More came in fits: a pair of runners trapped in an upstairs office, put down by bursts of gunfire; a clicker in the collapsed west wing, its shriek rattling the ceiling before Cole's team tore it apart with overlapping fire. None of them were fresh. These were stragglers, forgotten things locked away when the outbreak first swept Boston. Their movements were jerky, their bodies brittle with age and hunger. But they still fought with that blind, endless desperation.
By late afternoon, the Library was theirs.
Barricades went up across the shattered front doors, steel panels dragged from nearby sheds and welded crudely into place. Sandbags formed a second line behind, giving the defenders something solid to fall back to if the barricades broke. Engineers scouted the upper floors, marking weak spots with chalk, sealing stairwells they couldn't secure. Lanterns were strung along the main hall, their flickering glow chasing back the shadows.
Rusty stood in the middle of it all, wiping sweat from his forehead with a filthy rag. His voice carried a rare note of satisfaction: "We can hold this. Needs work, but it'll stand."
Cole, still helmeted and streaked with grime, gave a curt nod. "First step's done. Cal will want word by nightfall."
By the time the sun dipped low over the harbour, the Library was no longer just a relic. It was a foothold.
The radio crackled just after sundown.
Cal sat at his desk in the Alleyway House, the lantern burning low beside him, papers and scavenged maps spread in uneven piles. His hand stilled over a half-scribbled note when Cole's voice came through, rough from a day's worth of barking orders but steady as bedrock.
"Library secure," Cole reported. "Entry barricaded. Ground floor cleared. Minimal resistance, Casualties: none. Lanterns strung. We're holding."
Cal leaned back, exhaling slow through his nose. It was one thing to plan, another to hear it said like fact. "Good work. How's it feel?"
"Like a tomb," Cole admitted. "But a defensible tomb. Rusty says bones will hold if we brace it. Mara's uneasy. Says it's too quiet."
Cal tapped the map absently, eyes on the peninsula circled in red ink. "Then we'll fill the quiet with our own noise."
There was a pause on the line. Cal could almost hear Cole's smirk before the man answered. "Copy. We'll make it ours."
Static swallowed the rest, leaving Cal in the hush of the room. He stared at the map a long time, the weight of the choice pressing down. It wasn't just a scavenger's stash this time. It was land. Territory. The first real move toward independence.
The next morning, the Library woke to the sound of hammers.
Rusty had his engineers moving before dawn, their boots echoing through the hollow marble hall.
Sparks spat as scavenged rebar was cut, measured, and welded into frames that braced sagging ceilings. Steel panels were dragged across floors and leaned against shattered windows, the ringing clang of metal on stone reverberating like church bells in the empty halls.
"Two teams on the east wing," Rusty barked, chalk in hand, scribbling on a wall map he'd taped to a cracked column. "Brace here, here, and here. Don't waste panels on anything higher than second floor until the ground level's solid."
His crew answered without hesitation. Theirs was a rhythm born in the ruins: mark, cut, weld, brace. By midmorning, the Presidential Library no longer looked like a relic. It looked like a construction site.
One hall, once a gallery of campaign memorabilia was cleared of rubble and set with rows of scavenged cots. Thin blankets were spread across them, lanterns hung on hooks driven into the walls. The smell of dust began to mix with the sharper tang of oil and heated steel, the smell of something being built.
Another hall was stripped of old banners and turned into a workshop. Tables scavenged from collapsed classrooms were lined with tools: wrenches, hammers, boxes of nails, salvaged wires. Rusty prowled between them like a hawk, checking welds, cursing softly at a bent nail, praising a brace that held without groaning.
At the main entrance, Cole directed fighters as they stacked sandbags waist-high behind the welded barricade. Overwatch positions were carved into upper windows, steel plates giving cover to marksmen who could see the causeway clear to the mainland. Every angle of approach was considered, every fallback marked in chalk.
Out on the lawns, Noah had his own ideas.
He stood at the edge of the open green, boots sinking slightly in the damp grass. The sky above was a pale wash of grey, gulls wheeling overhead and crying sharp. He gestured with his rifle toward the stretch of field between the Library and the water.
"Farmland," he said flatly. "Good soil. Too much shade here, but that open patch? We could break it for crops. Potatoes. Beans. Stuff that doesn't die easy."
One of the younger scouts raised a brow. "You really think we'll be farmers?"
Noah gave him a look, sharp as broken glass. "Will you use photosynthesis like a pretty little flower on the rooftop?"
The scout shut up.
Noah crouched, dragging a hand through the grass, tugging up a handful of damp earth. He crumbled it between his fingers, nodding once. "We could haul dirt from the mainland too, dump it in the parking lots. Expand fields. Not much, but enough to feed a hundred if we rotate right, there are also more spaces we can farm on like rooftops and clear space outside, move all the junk and debris and start making a resemblance of a wall"
He stood, eyes cutting toward the docks. Wooden planks sagged, boats bobbing half-sunk against the pilings. The water stretched wide around the peninsula, currents restless.
"And this, this is gold. If we can get even two of those boats patched up, we can move without touching the mainland. Fish the harbour. Run supplies in and out faster than patrols can sniff. Everyone else is choking on checkpoints. We'd be ghosts, there are also small islands outside the harbour we could use."
Rusty overheard, wiping grease from his hands, and snorted. "Boats don't float on dreams. Half of those hulls are shot to hell."
"Then we fix them," Noah snapped back. "Better than waiting for Renner's hounds to strangle us."
The two glared at each other, but Cole stepped in, calm but cutting. "Enough. Both of you. We'll try the boats when the Library stands. Not before."
They didn't argue after that. But the idea lingered, heavy in the air.
By late afternoon, the Library no longer looked abandoned.
The front doors were sealed with welded panels and sandbags. Inside, lanterns glowed against marble walls, their light catching on rebar braces that stood like ribs against the sagging structure. The new barracks smelled faintly of oil and sweat instead of rot. The workshop echoed with the steady ring of hammers, the buzz of a makeshift welder cobbled from salvaged car batteries.
Out by the water, Noah and a pair of scouts tested the docks, hammering loose planks back into place, hauling the half-sunken boats closer to shore.
Mara had climbed to the roof, her rifle slung as she scanned the skyline. Through her scope she caught shapes in the distance on the mainland, figures too far to identify, lingering near the ruined streets. Watching.
She reported it down the radio, voice even, but the unease stuck to her words.
That evening, the radio on Cal's desk hissed again.
Cole's voice came through, steady but weary. "Day one complete. Ground floor secure. Barricades holding. Braces set. East hall cleared for barracks, west hall for workshop. No casualties. Small skirmish with three runners from the lower offices that we opened, handled. We've got eyes on the water and on the causeway. Mara reports distant figures shadowing us, no approach yet."
Cal's hand tightened on the edge of the table as he listened.
Rusty's voice cut in next, rough and proud: "She'll stand, Cal. Needs more steel, but the bones are good. Another week and this place will be a fortress."
Then Noah, with that dark edge of conviction: "We get boats, we get food. We get boats, we get freedom. Think on it."
The radio went silent.
Cal sat back, lantern light flickering across the maps spread in front of him. His eyes lingered on the red circle around the peninsula, a thin line connecting it to the mainland.
A foothold. Their first real one.
------------------------------------------------------------
The call came in near dusk, when the lamps along the barricade were just being lit and the harbour wind had picked up enough to carry the stink of salt and wet stone. Cal was at the Alleyway House, hunched over his maps, when Mara's voice cut through the static of the radio.
"Movement again. North rooftops this time. Two, maybe three. Watching the causeway. Too far to identify."
Cole's voice followed, clipped and harsh like a snapped blade. "This isn't random strays. They've been on us since yesterday. Pattern's clear."
Cal pressed a hand against his temple, jaw tight. The room was dim around him, the only light the jittering flame of the lantern that threw long, crooked shadows over the maps pinned to his desk. He leaned forward, speaking low into the receiver.
"You're sure they're watching you, not just drifting through?"
Mara didn't hesitate. "They had glass. Scoped. I saw the flash. They're looking right at us."
For a second, the only sound was the faint pop of the lantern. Cole reached for his radio, then Cole's spoke into it.
"One group, Cal. That's all it takes. One group making enough noise on that corridor, and we've got another horde on our throats. We've seen it before."
Cole could hear Cal exhale through his nose.
"Rotate the guard shifts there like the skyscraper," he said finally. "Every corner covered. No weak spots. Anyone watching should see we're not half asleep."
Cole gave a short, sharp acknowledgment. "Copy that."
But Cal wasn't done. His voice dropped lower, hardening into something cold.
"Scouts follow them back. I don't care how long it takes, I want to know who's tailing us. If they're hostile, kill them. Quiet. Leave nothing but shadows. And if they're carrying notes, maps, anything bring it back, if you catch one alive get any information out of them you can."
"And if they are no longer useful?"
"There is a harbour isint it? We need someone to see the damage the boats sustained below the waterline that we cant see, and if they die so be it."
The silence on the line stretched long enough. Then Mara spoke, her voice stripped of its usual dry humour.
"Copy, boss."
Cole followed, and though his tone was even, Cal heard the approval under it. "We'll get you answers."
The radio clicked dead.
Hours later, Cal stood outside the Alleyway House, looking out at the dark streets of the QZ. The air smelled of smoke and stagnant rainwater. He watched a pair of his own patrols pass silently across the mouth of the alley, rifles slung but eyes sharp, their shadows vanishing into the deeper dark.
It wasn't just paranoia anymore. Whoever was out there had resources. A scope, discipline, the patience to sit and watch a ruined museum from a rooftop for hours. That wasn't random looters. That was faction work. FEDRA's hounds. Firefly spies. Independents testing their reach.
Didn't matter which. They were already too close.
Cal's hand tightened at his side, nails pressing into his palm. The peninsula had to stand, and that meant showing the world that shadow games didn't work against them. If people wanted to test his walls, they'd bleed for it.
Inside, the house was busy. Runners moved supplies, messages, crates of scavenged goods. But Cal walked straight back to his office, lit only by the lantern and the glow of Boston's dying skyline through the cracked window.
He sat, eyes on the maps again. The peninsula pin gleamed red in the flicker of the light.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Joe returned late, just as lanterns were being lit along the Alleyway House's hallways. His boots were scuffed, his jacket damp from the drizzle outside, but his eyes held the steady gleam of someone who'd found exactly what he'd been tasked with.
Cal was waiting in his office, maps and reports spread across the desk. The moment Joe entered, Cal leaned back, arms folded, eyes sharp.
"You said you had people."
Joe gave a tight nod. "I've got six. Not scavenger trash, not looking to stab us in the back. They want in."
One by one, the recruits were led in. Cal kept the lantern low, letting the shadows press in; it wasn't just an interview, it was a test.
The first two were ex-FEDRA soldiers. Their uniforms were long gone, traded for mismatched jackets and patched jeans, but the way they carried themselves backs straight, hands close to imaginary rifles gave them away. One, a broad-shouldered man with a scar running down his cheek, spoke first.
"Name's Riker. This is Vaughn. We're done being dogs on a leash. FEDRA'll work you till you drop, then toss you in a ditch. We want better."
Cal studied them for a long moment, then asked flatly: "If FEDRA ordered you to shoot me tomorrow, would you?"
Vaughn's lip curled. "They asked something close to it. That's why we left."
Cal didn't smile, but he gave the smallest nod. "You stay here, you fight for yourselves and the people next to you. Not orders. Not flags. Just survival. Understand?"
Both men answered without hesitation: "Understood."
Next was a woman in her thirties with two teenagers in tow. Her clothes were worn thin, and her kids' eyes carried that hollow, hungry look Cal had seen too often in the QZ's alleys. She clasped her hands together tightly.
"We just… we want somewhere to stop running. Somewhere the kids can sleep without listening for boots at the door. I'll work. They'll work. Just don't turn us away."
Cal leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "We're not FEDRA, and we're not Fireflies. Nobody here's going to force you into anything you don't want to do. But if you stay, you pull your weight. That means cleaning, scavenging, guarding whatever we need."
The woman's shoulders sagged with relief. The teenagers both nodded, too eager to speak. Cal motioned Joe to lead them out.
Last came the smugglers. A wiry man named Beck and a stockier partner, Lyle. Both had the easy swagger of people used to skirting rules and making coin where others saw walls.
"Robert sent us," Beck said, grinning faintly. "Said you were the one worth knowing these days. He's not wrong."
Cal didn't return the smile. "If Robert sent you, he trusts you. But I don't."
Lyle chuckled, shaking his head. "Fair. That's why we brought more than words. Out west, there's a camp. Twenty or so, mostly families. They've been scraping by, but FEDRA patrols keep leaning on them confiscating food, and doing whatever they want with them. They're hanging by a thread. Said they'd join someone stronger, but moving twenty people, half of them kids? Not without help."
Cal's fingers drummed against the table. Twenty more people. Supplies, mouths to feed, but also hands to build and defend. If they could get them straight to the museum peninsula, it would be a show of strength and a way to grow without FEDRA catching the scent right away.
"When the Library's stable," Cal said slowly, "we send a team. Straight there, straight back. No detours, no noise. If FEDRA's already leaning on them, then time isn't our friend."
Beck inclined his head, grin sharper now. "Knew you'd get it."
Cal leaned back, surveying them all with steady eyes. "Here's how it works. You're not here because I need bodies. You're here because I need people I can trust. If you're with me, you stay because you want a better shot at life than either FEDRA or Fireflies will give you. If you're not in it for that, walk out now."
No one moved.
Cal gave a short nod. "Then welcome."
Later at night when he was in bed, his parents long asleep, Cal also halfway asleep before a flash came.
Not a real flash, not light that anyone else could see, just the cold imprint of the System across Cal's vision, floating above the lantern glow of his desk like a ghost.
[Main Mission: Hold the Line]Progress: Day 5 / 14
He stared at it until the letters blurred. The same thin bar, crawling forward one notch at a time, mocking him with its steady inevitability.
Neutrality. That was the mission. Not winning, not expanding, not burning his enemies out of their holes. Just… holding. Surviving.
Every day they lasted without FEDRA dragging them into a cell, without Fireflies sending a knife through his ribs, without another masked bastard loosing a horde down their throats, the bar moved forward.
Five days done. Nine to go to get more people, people he desperately needed. They have the guns but not enough people to wield them.
Cal sat up in his bed, exhaling slow, eyes tracing the wall with that damnable hello kitty poster that he for years says he will take down. Neutrality sounded simple on paper. But nothing in Boston stayed neutral for long.
His mind kept circling the last week like a dog chewing the same bone.
FEDRA inspectors with their clipboards and thinly veiled suspicion. Renner breathing down his parents' necks. Every crate counted twice, every ration card weighed like gold, their eyes always sliding back to him as if waiting for the moment he slipped.
The Fireflies were no better. Quiet now, but watching. Marlene's messengers slipping through alleys. Scouts shadowing them from the rooftops.
And then there were the others. Whoever tipped the infected onto them. Whoever pulled that trigger to set off the car alarm. The memory of the abomination roaring through fire still made his skin prickle. That hadn't been chance. Someone wanted them dead, and the dead were just the tool.
Neutrality, he thought bitterly. To the System it was a quest timer. To him, it was balancing knives on his tongue.
He shifted, resting elbows on the desk, eyes fixed on the maps spread across it. Pins marked the skyscraper, the sewer routes, now the peninsula. Every location was both an anchor and a target. The more they built, the easier it was for enemies to aim.
He thought of Lia, steady but sharp-eyed, keeping the house in order. Of Rusty with his endless schematics and grease-stained fingers. Of Cole, still and unbreakable as stone. Of Joe, who kept finding strays worth keeping. Of his parents, torn between duty to FEDRA and loyalty to him. Of Tasha and her quite frankly disturbing personality that has grown on him over the years.
He thought of every new recruit who'd walked through their doors in the last week, looking at him like he could give them something better. Safety. Stability. A future.
And he thought of the System itself, always waiting, always pushing. As if it knew the truth better than he did: neutrality was temporary. A pause before the inevitable.
Cal closed his eyes, letting the silence stretch. The bar would tick forward tomorrow, and the day after. And when it reached the end, he'd have to step off the fence, one way or another.
Inside or outside. FEDRA's leash, Fireflies' promises, or the wild unknown.
For now, he breathed. For now, they held.
But the clock was ticking.
And neutrality was running out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The peninsula had started to breathe like a living camp. Lanterns burned low in the library windows, shadows of guards moved across the barricades, and the murmur of quiet conversation at night no longer felt frantic but routine. They'd cleared the ground floor, reinforced the main doors, even managed to string up a few makeshift fishing lines off the docks. For the first time in weeks, Cal had gone to sleep with the smallest sliver of relief in his chest.
That relief lasted until the crack of glass and the whoosh of fire woke the peninsula.
A bottle arced from the dark, smashing against the still-drying barricade near the causeway. Flames flared high, licking the wooden braces before the guards even shouted. Panic surged, boots pounding as buckets were filled and thrown, wet canvas slapped against burning wood. The fire went out, fast, cleaner than anyone expected but the smell of scorched timber lingered, curling into every nostril, stinging every pair of eyes.
It hadn't caused real damage. But it had landed its mark.
A message: We know where you are.
Or they were testing the defences, seeing how flammable everything was.
Cal woke to the radio pressed against his ear, Cole's voice low and tight through the static.
"Reyes. You awake?"
He rubbed grit from his eyes, sitting up in the dark of his room at the house, sheets twisted around him. "I am now. What happened?"
"Firebomb. Half-built section of the barricade on the causeway. No casualties, no collapse. Put out in under two minutes. But someone got close enough to throw it."
Cal swung his legs off the bed, pulse kicking harder the more Cole spoke. "Any eyes?"
"None yet. Bastards know how to move in the dark. But we've got two sets of night vision still working. I say we set a trap."
Cal was silent a beat, the System's cold prompt still lingering from the night before in the back of his mind. Neutrality. Hold the line. But neutrality didn't mean being blind.
Cole continued, his voice calm but the weight behind it clear: "They'll try again. People like that always do. This wasn't a warning shot, this was a test. They'll keep poking until they find a soft spot. Let us hunt them. Two teams, rotating watch, night vision ready. Next time they come close, we grab one alive."
Cal pressed the radio to his forehead, eyes closed. He could almost hear the fire still crackling, the frightened mutters of the peninsula crew as they stood in the dark, looking at their barricades and wondering if they were already doomed before the place was finished.
"Alright," he said finally, voice rough but steady. "Do it. I want one breathing. Doesn't matter if you have to drag him through the mud with every limb broken. Someone wants to play games? Fine. We'll play. And then we'll see what they know."
On the other end, Cole grunted approval. "Copy. We'll catch our rat."
The radio clicked dead, leaving Cal alone with the sound of rain on the glass and the faint, bitter smell of smoke that still seemed to cling even here.
For a second he sat, staring at nothing. He didn't feel relief at giving the order. Not anymore. Just the slow, heavy truth that their fight had already begun, not with hordes or barricades, but with whispers, knives, and fire in the dark.
And if they wanted to burn him out, they'd better make sure they finished the job. Because if he caught one alive, there'd be no fucking mercy.