“Exactly,” Glenn deadpanned.
Marsh cracked a grin but didn’t shift his focus.“Keep it up.I need a count.We drop below ten, we move to sweep.”
“Copy that,” Ricky said.“I’ve got rear perimeter with Hogan.No motion yet.”
Another shot rang out.Ezra’s voice followed.“Guy tried to flank near the drainage ditch.He won’t be trying again.”
Marsh swept his scope, heart thudding steady, cold, the way it always did in a fight.Controlled.Focused.Until—
A scuffle of motion to the south.Two figures.Close.Too close.
“Oren?”Marsh snapped.
“Engaged,” came the reply—tight, strained.
The next noise wasn’t over comms.It was real.A grunt.Flesh hitting earth.Then a pained curse.
“Oren!”Ty’s voice flared, more emotion than command.
Marsh turned in time to see Dale vault over the rebar stack like a man possessed.The flirty charm vanished, replaced by a predator’s focus honed by years of battle.He landed low and fast, shoulder driving into the attacker’s midsection to knock him off balance.The man slashed with a blade—too late.Dale caught the wrist, twisted until Marsh was sure he heard bones pop over comms, and forced the weapon free.
The knife hit the ground, but Dale wasn’t done.He drove his knee into the man’s ribs, following with a vicious elbow to the throat.As the attacker staggered back, gasping, Dale seized him by the collar and drove him face-first into the dirt, a sharp crack silencing him for good.
Panting, Dale stood over the body, blood on his hands, chest heaving not from exertion—but rage.Cold, focused rage.The kind, Marsh knew, that only surfaced when someone he cared about got hurt.
The man didn’t rise again.
Dale turned and moved toward Oren, who still lay crumpled on the ground, one hand pressed to his bleeding shoulder.He hadn’t moved much—whether from pain or shock, Marsh didn’t know—but Dale dropped to one knee beside him instantly, expression tightening with worry.His hands, still slick with blood, hovered for a beat before he reached to check the wound.
“You still with me?”Dale asked, voice quieter now.
Oren blinked up at him and gave a nod.“Ah, yep, still here.”
“Oren?”Marsh barked.
“I’m fine,” Oren said in a low voice.“Knife to the shoulder, not deep.I got one.Dale got the other.”
Marsh exhaled.“Good.Stay down.Hogan, cover him.”
“Already on it,” Hogan’s voice came, steady again.
The channel buzzed.
“Vehicle,” Sam said.“Black SUV, just cleared the tree line.Three heat signatures—driver, passenger, one in the back.”
Marsh’s blood went cold.
“The Colonel,” he said.“He’s here.”
He didn’t say Eli’s name.Didn’t need to.Everyone knew how this would have affected him.
Marsh shifted positions, moving closer to the front of the site.Moving to meet the colonel head on.
Not on my watch.You don’t get to touch him.You don’t get to look at him.You don’t get to breathe the same goddamn air.I swore I’d keep him safe, and I won’t break that promise.Not today.
Gunfire flared again to the west—two sharp exchanges, then silence.
“Clear left flank,” Hogan called.
