Page 143 of Jax
Stella’s throat bobbed once. Twice. Then she set her jaw, pulled the floor plan closer, and laid it flat like she was driving a stake through her own doubt. She didn’t thank me. Didn’t soften. She just bent over the paper, eyes narrowing, hands steady as she traced the lines.
Not sidelined. Not broken. Repurposed.
For war.
Hours passedin a choreography that needed no direction. Niko confirmed Quinn’s shift drops while Sully laid out gear with near-religious precision: radios, bolt cutters, thermal scopes, each one checked and aligned by muscle memory. Carrick cycled drone footage and blueprints, his fingers twitching with restless control. No one checked the clock. Time folded in on itself. We moved by instinct now, not hours.
Near midnight, the storm arrived in fragments. First, the wind, dragging rough across the roof. Then the rain—soft, steady, a percussion against the metal siding that warned of something heavier building. The sky didn’t flash. It brooded, thick and swollen, holding everything it hadn’t yet released.
I watched it build through the window. And in its reflection, I caught Stella bent over the plans, pen clenched, jaw tight. She wasn’t waiting to be invited in anymore. She moved like she’d always belonged, and the plan adjusted around her without resistance.
A low, rumbling peal of thunder rolled across the sky. It was the warning bell before a reckoning. And every breath we took inside it was an answer.
32
Jax
The SUV satlike a sentinel in the gravel drive, black, silent, and still. Inside the house, the team was finishing final checks. Frequencies confirmed, gear inspected, radios tested, blades secured. No one spoke unless it was mission-critical. That’s how it always was in the minutes before we crossed a line we couldn’t uncross. Precision replaced adrenaline. Breathing slowed. The noise moved inward.
Inside, the living room had transformed into a staging ground. The coffee table was buried under stacked ammo clips and comms gear, Sully’s half-eaten protein bar wedged precariously between two flash-bangs. Carrick stood at the far end, his back to us, sharpening a combat blade with the kind of calm that made you wonder if he was meditating or preparing to gut something. Maybe both.
Sully, sprawled on the floor like a sun-drunk lion, cinched the straps on his thigh holster while whistling the opening to Eye of the Tiger, off-key. Loud on purpose.
“Can’t believe I’m going into an op with a guy who doesn’t know the key of B minor,” Jax muttered.
Sully smirked. “Didn’t realize musical aptitude was part of breaching protocol, Beethoven.”
“I’ll revise the manual,” I said, flipping open my portable comms case.
Niko didn’t join in. He occupied his usual post by the window, syncing frequencies and triple-checking the comms grid like the entire mission hinged on shaving off a millisecond of delay. It didn’t, but try telling him that. The man had calibrated his watch to GPS satellite time and still checked it every two minutes like it might betray him.
Deacon moved between us with quiet efficiency, loading weapons into the trunk case like they were sacred artifacts. He didn’t speak or grunt or flinch, just worked. You could always tell how serious Deacon was by how little noise he made. In other words, he was almost always serious. Tonight, he was nearly a ghost.
There was comfort in the rhythm of it. Each man falling into pattern, each task holding a familiar choreography. Repetition made things feel controllable. Like if we loaded our gear the same way, and folded the maps down the same creases, maybe we could bend the outcome to our favor.
Carrick finished with the blade, held it up to the light, and gave a grunt of approval. Without turning, he held it out. Sully crossed the room and took it in silence. Ritual complete.
It was superstition disguised as habit. But after enough years in the field, you stopped questioning what kept you breathing.
My turn came next.
I ran a systems check on my HUD scanner, adjusted the wrist module, and pulled the folded schematic from my chest rig. I didn’t need it; I’d memorized the layout three days ago. But unfolding it, scanning it line by line, and then sliding it back into place? That was part of the ritual, too.
I noted movement and breath, Carrick’s fingers twitching once, Sully checking his belt clasp for the third time, Niko mouthing numbers under his breath, Deacon pressing his thumb to the mag with just enough force to stop short of bullets flying everywhere.
No one said be safe. No one wished each other luck. You didn’t jinx a job like this by pretending it was anything but surgical. I did one last sweep with my eyes and nodded to no one in particular. We were ready. Or close enough to fake it.
Just then I got a ping from the motion detectors at the end of our driveway. I flipped through a couple of screens on my tablet until I found the video feed that I wanted, and watched as a pickup truck made its way towards our house. “We have incoming.” I stated matter-of-factly.
The others looked up sharply, and I showed them the black and green video feed. “They’re right on time.” I added with a small smile.
Niko nodded, and headed towards the door. A few minutes later he returned with two people in tow.
Seth and Angela Boyd wore expressions more serious than I was used to seeing on their faces. They understood the gravity and danger of what we were attempting tonight, and knew how important their role was in it: staying here with Stella, Bellamy, and Maddy.
All five of the Reapers were needed to make sure this op was a success, but there was no way in hell that we were going to leave the girls behind here with no one to guard them. The Boyds may have been out of the game longer than us, but they were both trained soldiers, and Seth was an EMT. If anything went sideways here while we were gone, they’d handle it swiftly and efficiently.
We exchanged muted pleasantries, and then Niko took them towards his office to go over the security feeds and perimetersensors. I took the opportunity to head outside for some fresh air.
