Page 25 of Rescuing Aria
Jon
Razor doesn’t blink.Doesn’t breathe loud enough to hear. Just murmurs?—
“On your call, Delta-Three.”
He’s not a man anymore. He’s a weapon. Silent, still, and waiting for the signal to detonate.
“Reading you five-by-five,” Blaze crackles in over comms. “Storm’s already mapped the building. Three possible entries, two weak load-bearing walls. Kid’s got a gift for structural analysis.”
“Don’t call me kid,” Storm cuts in. “I’ve blown up more buildings than you’ve digested brain cells.”
I catch the grin tugging at Razor’s mouth—but only for a heartbeat. Then it’s gone, and all that’s left is the steady arc of his scope sweeping the window line.
“We’re in position at the south entrance,” Blaze says. “On your go, Jon.”
I inhale once. Sharp. Grounding.
“Delta moving in three—two—one… Execute.”
My finger taps the comm switch, and we flow.
Razor moves like water over stone—quiet, smooth, lethal. There’s no tension, no wasted energy. Just precision. The kind that isn’t learned through training. It comes from surviving shit no one should’ve lived through.
He ghosts through the breach point ahead of me, rifle up, eyes cutting through shadow. No hesitation. No fear.
Only purpose.
What follows is twenty minutes of flawless rhythm. Razor’s not just good—he’s scary good. We don’t speak. Don’t need to. His pace matches mine without lag, without anticipation—just pure, instinctive sync. When I pivot right, he’s already watching my six. When I drop to one knee behind cover, he shifts elevation, angling for a better shot window. It’s like running point with a guy I’ve trained with for years.
Hand signals, head tilts, sharp nods—everything lands without a hiccup. We sweep and clear methodically, converging on the interior of the warehouse structure where Blaze and Storm already hold position. The space smells like old oil and dust—fake smoke from the sim-rounds clings to the air.
“Two tangos down,” Blaze reports, jerking his chin at the splattered training dummies, center mass tagged in tight blue groupings.
“No visual on the asset,” Storm adds, crouched by a stack of crates, eyes scanning. His rifle is angled low, but his posture says ready.
“Third hostile’s probably guarding them.” I flatten against the doorway, motioning Razor to cover the opposite angle. My pulse ticks higher. Something’s off. “Feels like a setup.”
Razor slides into position, rifle steady, eyes sweeping the corridor ahead. “It is. Your team leader set this up to fail. She thinks like me.”
Right on cue, Mac’s hulking silhouette appears at the far end of the hallway, shield raised like a battering ram. Jenny’s behindhim, flanking left, already laying down suppressive fire. Sim-rounds crack through the corridor, blue paint spattering against the cinderblock walls and floor.
“Back exit!” I bark, diving behind a steel support column as a round kisses past my cheek and explodes against the concrete.
“This way!” Storm doesn’t hesitate.
He barrels into a maintenance room, his shoulder slamming into the push bar. The metal door groans open, revealing a narrow, dimly lit service tunnel lined with exposed pipes and utility conduits.
“Service corridor leads to the basement,” Storm calls back, breath controlled but urgent. “Saw it on the floor plan earlier. Could be a secondary hold.”
Razor signals me forward—go—and drops back into rear cover with Blaze. I pass the word with a clipped gesture, and we file in, single line, fast and tight. Sim-rounds pepper the frame as Blaze steps through last, snapping the door shut behind him.
“Nice pull,” Blaze mutters, clapping Storm on the shoulder. “Mac hates the basement routes. Gets twitchy.”
“I heard that,” Mac’s voice grumbles through comms. “And it’s called tactical awareness, not claustrophobia.”
The corridor narrows, light flickering from a busted overhead bulb. Our boots crunch on gravel and debris as we press forward. The smell of damp concrete and machine oil thickens. Sound echoes weirdly down here—everything sharper, like the air’s listening.
Then I see it. Far wall, behind a scaffold of rusted pipes and stacked crates—a yellow vest, unmistakable against the gray.
