I woke to the sound of glass breaking.

My blade was in my hand before my feet touched the floor.

Across the room, Dez was already up, his rifle aimed low. Karla blinked fast from her cot, trying to orient herself. Mateo was standing still so still he almost disappeared into the shadows.

Another crash echoed through the courthouse. Something metal this time. A shelf, maybe. Or a can knocked over.

Then nothing.

Silence thick enough to taste.

We moved in a formation we didn’t need to speak aloud anymore. Karla at my left, Mateo at my right, Dez on high ground. We were good together. Efficient. Trusting. But more than that we were scared in the same ways.

The noise had come from the evidence locker.

We moved down the stairs slow, careful. I hated how loud our breathing sounded. Like we were inviting death to find us.

The old hallway smelled like mildew and dried rot. A bloodstain curved along the wall, half-scrubbed. From before we got here. From someone who didn’t scream loud enough.

I gave Mateo the signal, and he kicked the door in.

A raccoon scrambled out.

Karla cursed under her breath and lowered her gun.

Dez laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Little bastard almost made me shit myself.”

I should’ve relaxed. But I didn’t.

I stared at that shelf where the animal had been perched. It had torn through a box of old court documents, yellowed and brittle. I leaned in.

That’s when I saw it.

A photograph. Torn and bloodstained. A little girl. Bright eyes. Big smile. Front tooth missing. She was wearing a backpack with cartoon stickers on it Peppa Pig and My Little Pony.

Something twisted in my stomach.

She looked like my niece.

I touched the photo with my fingertips. My mouth went dry.

“You okay?” Mateo’s voice broke through.

I nodded, but it was a lie.

We spent the morning tightening barricades. Reinforcing the perimeter. Moving supplies to the storage closets we’d locked from the inside, in case we needed to hide something fast. Or someone.

There was a feeling in the air now.

A shift. An itch. Like something was coming, and it wouldn’t knock when it got here.

Karla was irritable. Snapped at Dez three times before breakfast.

He gave up trying to lighten the mood and went to sit on the roof alone.

Mateo stayed near me, helping quietly, his movements calculated and controlled. Always watching. Always listening.

I didn’t ask what was on his mind.

I knew it was the same thing on mine.

Around noon, Dez came back down with a wild look in his eyes.

“There’s smoke,” he said. “Northwest. Not far. Maybe six blocks.”

We all looked at each other.

Smoke didn’t just mean fire.

It meant someone was there.

Alive. Burning something. Making a scene.

Which meant they were either too stupid to care about getting spotted or they wanted to be found.

“Could be a signal,” Mateo said.

“Could be bait,” Karla added, already reaching for her rifle.

I stood and looked out the window. The smoke wasn’t thick. Just a thin grey tail against the overcast sky, curling slow and lazy like it had nowhere to be.

“I want eyes on it,” I said. “No engagement unless you’re attacked.”

“Who’s going?” Dez asked.

“Me, Mateo, and Karla.”

He frowned. “I can help.”

“I need you here. Someone has to protect the base.”

He didn’t like it. I saw it in the way his mouth tightened. But he nodded. Because Dez followed orders. Even when he hated them.

We moved fast and quiet, weaving through old streets and alleys, staying behind rusted-out cars and collapsed storefronts. The city was still. The kind of still that makes your gut clench.

Saint Hollow didn’t do stillness well. It was a city of echoes screams bouncing off glassless windows, bones crunching under old boots, flies buzzing around long-forgotten meals.

The closer we got, the more I felt it.

That awful familiarity.

The church on the corner was half-collapsed. That’s where the smoke was coming from.

I stepped ahead of the others, peeking through the broken frame of the doorway.

And I saw it.

A firepit, burning low. A tin pot hanging over it.

No one around.

But something was off.

The fire was fresh but the pot had rust on the bottom like it hadn’t moved in weeks.

It was a decoy.

“Fall back,” I hissed.

Too late.

Gunshots cracked the silence. The bullet whizzed past my head, close enough I felt its heat.

Karla dove left. Mateo pulled me back by my arm, and we scattered behind a half-buried truck.

“They were watching us,” he said.

I gritted my teeth. “Cowards.”

Another shot. Closer this time.

“They’re not trying to kill us,” Karla said, crouched low. “They’re herding us.”

That was worse.

We moved fast, breaking cover. I took the lead, swinging us through an alley behind a hardware store. They didn’t follow. Not yet.

Whoever they were, they wanted us scared.

And they wanted us to run.

We made it back to base, breathless, shaken, and pissed.

Dez met us at the door, eyes wide. “What the hell happened?”

“Ambush,” I said. “We didn’t see their faces. Just bullets.”

“You think it was the gang?” Karla asked, her voice still shaky.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I think they’re close.”

Mateo nodded slowly. “They were testing us.”

I went straight to my cot and sat down, fingers twitching.

Not from fear.

From rage.

Somebody thought they could outmaneuver me. Thought they could scare me off. But they didn’t understand. I was born into violence. Molded by it. I was raised in a world that taught me if you want to live, you better be ready to bleed for it.

And I would.

I’d bleed. I’d fight.

But I wouldn’t run.

Not yet.

That night, as the others slept, I stayed on the roof with my machete across my lap.

I looked out at the empty city, and I wondered if the people hunting us were watching me right now.

If they were, I hoped they saw my face.

Because I wasn’t afraid.

I was waiting.