Page 5 of Crossfire Creek Siege

The kids whooped and clapped, their excitement spilling over. Ruby and Owen moved through the crowd like practiced sentinels, keeping watch while pretending not to.

Rena and Gage hung back near the wall, both half in shadow. He looked amused, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as the lights strobed across his face. Rena crossed her arms, feeling the heat of the day still trapped inside the steel walls and wondering, not for the first time, how she’d ended up here. Guarding a birthday cake and teenagers instead of flying through the sky.

Still watching their joy, she couldn’t help it, some part of her eased. It wouldn’t last. But for now, she let herself breathe in the noise and color and remembered what normal almost felt like.

Lily stood at the head of the long table, cheeks flushed from excitement and heat. Someone handed her a lighter, and she leaned over the towering pink cake, touching flame to each taper-style candle one by one. The room glowed gold for a heartbeat, all that sugar and shimmer turning her into a kid and a commander at the same time.

“Okay, everyone,” Lily called out, her voice ringing clear over the thumping music. “You ready for the first challenge?”

A chorus of cheers went up. Gage groaned softly beside Rena. “Laser tag,” he muttered. “Called it.”

“Try to contain your enthusiasm,” Rena said dryly, but there was a hint of amusement hiding in it.

The kids swarmed toward the staging area near the equipment racks, grabbing vests and sensors, laughter ricocheting off the concrete walls. Ruby moved in to help with the straps, Owen adjusting a headset that slipped down over one kid’s eyes. Noah stood near the back, phone in hand, grinning like a proud uncle.

Then—noise.

At first, Rena thought it was part of the soundtrack, some bass-heavy transition before the lights shifted again. But it wasn’t music. The sound had too much depth, too much vibration. The unmistakable chop of rotor blades. One chopper. Maybe two.

Her body went still.

Then came another sound, sharper, electronic. A crackle that hissed through the speakers, killing the music mid-beat. A few kids laughed nervously, thinking it was part of the show.

It wasn’t.

The hum of the lights stuttered, flickered once… twice… and then died.

Darkness swallowed the hangar, sudden and absolute, the kind that pressed against her skin. A few startled gasps cut through the silence before someone whispered, “Whoa.”

Rena’s eyes adjusted slowly. The only light left came from the battery strands twined around the cake and the flickering birthday candles still burning at its center, tiny flames defying the dark.

Beside her, Gage shifted, his voice low. “That’s not part of the program, is it?”

“No,” she said, her pulse already spiking. “No, it’s not.”

The rotors outside grew louder.

And the party went still.

Chapter Two

The low thump of rotor blades kept rolling through the hangar. Closer this time, heavier. Gage’s instincts kicked in before his brain caught up. He started toward the doors, his boots echoing on concrete.

Could be a Crossfire Ops bird returning from a mission, he told himself. The teams rotated through odd hours all the time. But something about the cadence of the blades didn’t sit right.

Wrong pitch.

Wrong rhythm.

He glanced over at Noah, half expecting the man to give him a grin, a nod, something that said Relax, it’s part of the show. But Noah was already moving, his face tightening as he gave a small shake of his head.

So, not part of the show.

Gage kept moving. Rena fell in right behind him, quiet and sure, her hand brushing the sidearm on her hip. The glow from the birthday candles threw dancing shadows across the floor as they crossed the wide space.

At the doors, Gage pressed his ear to the steel. The rotors were close now. Too close. He could hear the whine of engines throttling down, the faint scrape of boots on gravel outside.

He grabbed the latch and pulled. Nothing. Tried again, harder. The handle didn’t even rattle.