Chapter 2 - Crimson in the Snow
The silence outside the cabin stretched thin, pulled taut like a wire about to snap.
Inside, the air smelled of iron, antiseptic, and gunpowder. Orion gestured with two fingers toward the eastern wall, signaling to Ren that one intruder was circling around the perimeter toward the kitchen window, while two remained at the front porch.
"They think I'm incapacitated," Orion breathed into Ren’s ear, his hot breath brushing against her neck. "They don't know my father is alive, and they don't know you're armed. Use that to your advantage."
Ren nodded, her hands gripping the wooden stock of the shotgun. Her heart was beating frantically, but the muscle memory from her years in war zones flooded back. She wasn't just a nurse who ran away; she was a survivor who had patched up soldiers under heavy artillery fire in the Middle East.
Glass shattered.
The kitchen window disintegrated inward as a flashbang grenade bounced across the hardwood floor.
"Close your eyes!" Orion roared.
Ren slammed her eyelids shut and covered her ears just as a deafening CRACK and a blinding white light exploded in the cabin. The sensory shock wave rattled the wooden beams, but Orion had already moved before the flash hit.
A heavily armed mercenary burst through the front door, his assault rifle raised. Caesar lunged first. The 180-pound mastiff hit the man’s chest like a freight train, tearing him to the ground in a flurry of snapping jaws and thrashing armor. The man screamed, trying to raise his rifle, but Orion was already there. A single, muffled shot from Orion's pistol cracked through the air. The mercenary went limp.
Simultaneously, a second shadow ducked through the broken kitchen window, pointing an automatic weapon toward the unconscious body of Aldrich Steel on the table.
Ren didn't hesitate. She rolled from behind the counter, raised the shotgun, and pulled the trigger.
The blast echoed like thunder in the enclosed space. The heavy 12-gauge spread hit the mercenary squarely in the chest plate, sending him flying backward back out through the window frame, crashing into the muddy flowerbeds outside.
"Move!" Orion shouted, grabbing Ren by the arm and pulling her down just as a hail of submachine-gun fire ripped through the front walls of the cabin. Splinters flew everywhere. Paper, medical supplies, and shattered glass rained down like hail.
Orion leaned over the edge of the window frame, firing three precise shots into the dark treeline. Three suppressed pops answered his effort. A wet thud out in the bushes confirmed his target was down.
Silence returned to the forest, heavier and colder than before.
Ren was breathing heavily, her chest heaving as she reloaded another shell into the chamber of her shotgun. She looked down at her trembling hands, then at the blood pooling on her floor, then at the man standing beside her. Orion was bleeding again—the violent motion had torn three of the fresh stitches along his ribs—but he didn't even seem to notice. His eyes were fixed on her, filled with an intense, unreadable mixture of shock and dark fascination.
"You shoot like a soldier," Orion said, his voice low and raspy.
"I worked in a field hospital in Helmand for two years," Ren replied, wiping a streak of soot from her cheek. "I learned that if you don't shoot back, you end up on the operating table."
Orion stepped closer to her, his towering frame blotting out the moonlit window. For a fraction of a second, his gloved hand reached out, his thumb gently catching a small drop of blood on her jaw, wiping it away with startling tenderness before snapping back into his cold persona. "They were just the advance team. Marcus sent a radio signal before his men pushed in. In less than an hour, the entire Steel Syndicate hit squad will be surrounding these woods."
"Then we need to move," Ren said, turning to check on Aldrich. Miraculously, the old man was still breathing. The heavy oak table had shielded him from the stray bullets. "Your father can't survive a bumpy truck ride. If his heart rate spikes, he’ll go into hypovolemic shock."
"We aren't taking a truck," Orion said, leaning against the table to steady himself as a wave of dizziness hit him. "There’s an old coal mine three miles north of here. It connects to an underground bunker system my family built during the Cold War. It’s fortified, supplied, and unreachable by thermal imaging."
Ren looked at the vast forest outside, shrouded in mist and darkness, then back at her ruined home. The sanctuary she had built over three agonizing years—the place where she had buried her past, her grief, and her name—was gone.
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"I'll gather my medical supplies," she said, her voice dropping into an icy composure. "If we’re going into the dark, Mr. Steel, you better make sure I live long enough to regret saving your life."
Orion looked at her, his dark eyes burning in the dim light. "If anyone tries to end your life, Ren Callaway, they’ll have to tear through mine first."
