Los Angeles, California

  Heart pounding, Allison Myles ran through the alley, half-blinded by the glare of a pulsing red light. She wended her way past overflowing trashcans and dodged pallets piled against graffiti-scrawled walls.

  Footsteps followed.

  Her approach scattered a cluster of rats from their supper—an old shoe, leather, still sheathing a prone figure's foot. Allison tripped on the figure's leg, landing with a hollow thump on its chest. She lay face-to-face with the man, her breath stirring the beard protruding from his waxy face. The man did not stir, did not groan, did not breathe.

  He was dead.

  Behind her, the footsteps drew nearer. A slow pace, punctuated by laughter.

  Hadley.

  Allison scrambled to her feet, pushing off from the corpse, and sped farther into the alley. Ahead, a wall loomed.

  Two stories tall, without windows or doors.

  Solid brick.

  She was trapped.

  It pissed her off.

  Allison turned, fingers curled into fists. She raised her hands into a boxer's stance, held her body like a knife, and waited. Behind her, the alley filled with a rolling wave of fog. Through the mists, the footsteps came. Closer now, close enough to hear the accompanying scrabble of claws on asphalt.

  The wisps parted, revealing Hadley, his face a perfect mask, lips dripping red with wine. His arms were spread akimbo, like some parody of a medieval saint. He gripped a rawhide leash in each hand. Flanking him on either side, a pair of dogs strained at their leads. Ugly things. A pit bull–garbage compactor mix. They growled, earthquake-low. Their eyes flared red, pulsing with the rhythm of her heart.

  Hadley laughed as the dogs leaned in.

  The alley flared with light. Allison lowered her hands, turning her face away from the fierce white glare. The dogs whined.

  Behind her, bricks rattled. Someone attacked the wall with a jackhammer—

  —

  Allison awoke. Warm, hair sticking to her face. Disoriented, and smelling of deli meats. Sanguine Springs, not LA.

  The pounding from her dream continued, no longer a jackhammer, but the sound of someone rapidly slapping the wall in the room beside hers.

  The house rattled.

  Outside her window, harsh glare cut through the glass, slicing past the shades and casting ragged spheres of light across her floor. Something was up. She hadn't spent many nights in Sanguine Springs, but this didn't seem normal.

  She didn't even know there were lights like this in town.

  Groggily, she sat up. Through the window, a different color flared—an orange flash, bright, somewhere south.

  The noises against the wall behind her suddenly made sense.

  Bullets.

  Someone was shooting at the house.

  As if on cue, a round—stray or aimed—punched through her bedroom window. Glass shattered into a spiderweb of fractures, casting bitter shards across the floor. Allison yelped. She rolled sideways off the mattress, falling between the bed and wall, as far from the window as possible.

  What the hell is going on?

  She'd woken from a nightmare and landed in a war zone.

  She crawled on her knees and one hand, leaning on the stump of her right elbow when needed. Awkward. Exposed.

  First things first—her prosthesis. She made her way to the hallway, head down, still on all threes. The arm sat on the counter where she'd left it to charge. The prosthesis glowed blue at the base. Full charge. From the wrist, the still-pulsing red LED blinked its mystery.

  She'd never been able to diagnose that fault. Didn't matter now.

  Allison attached the arm to her elbow with a twist and a sinking motion. When it locked, she tested her fingers. A quick stretch and waggle. Everything worked.

  Now what?

  She remembered high school. Active shooter drills. They'd begun after the mass shootings in Connecticut, Florida, and the rest. Run, Hide, Fight. Running was out of the question. The house was soaking up gunfire from the north and south. She'd be taking her life into her hands if she stepped through the front door.

  Fight? No chance.

  She'd boxed in college for a semester. It had been a rush. Until the collegiate boxing association disqualified her from competition, citing the "unfair advantage" of her dense prosthetic hand.

  Here, tonight, it wouldn't be enough. No blow of hers, no matter how heavy-handed, would do any good against what sounded like a whole army outside her doors.

  Hide it was.

  Adrenaline surged through her veins, slowing time. She scanned the room for concealment. Her fingers curled tight, fists rising into a well-honed defensive position. Nothing presented itself. Hide and seek is less forgiving when you're an adult, and death is on the line.

  A man's voice echoed outside. Close by.

  First things first. She had to secure the house.

  Allison ran to the front door, flipped the lock on the knob, and drove the deadbolt home. Turning, she saw another door in the kitchen, this one ajar. Her heart dropped.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Someone inside already?

  No. Allison remembered this door. The basement, left open since Uncle Brad showed her how to light the heater. Darkness loomed inside.

  Another wave of bullets struck the house. A window in the bedroom exploded in a spray of glass.

  Who's out there? Why are they shooting at me?

  Maybe they were after her dad. Maybe Uncle Brad.

  Uncle Brad. She wished he was here. Ideally with a shotgun or rifle of his own.

  A bullet penetrated the front door, spilling a pinhole of light into the front of the house. Outside, a voice called, and the deck rattled with heavy footsteps.

  She didn't freeze—that had never been her way. Even when she'd lost her arm, she'd been the one to pull the phone from her pocket with her still-working left hand and dial 9-1-1 right before passing out.

  Tonight, passing out was not an option.

  She ran for the basement, heart hammering in her chest.

  No windows in the basement.

  Allison made a beeline for the open door. Time slowed. Her surroundings came into sharp focus. She noticed the mingled scent of gunpowder and pine, heard the thump of approaching feet. Saw the pictures lining the wall in 4K definition. One leapt out at her.

  Jake Clarke. Alive, young and smiling, beside a teenaged, two-handed Allison. They were at her grandfather's farm, a split-rail fence just visible over Jake's shoulder. On the fence, out of focus, a couple of soup cans, the target of choice on the Clarke family farm, their skins punctured by an old Colt King Cobra.

  What happened to her father's revolver?

  No time. She was at the basement door.

  Behind her, a rattling noise. A hand at the front door, trying the knob.

  Thank God I locked it.

  A shotgun roared outside. Wood exploded inward, followed by the clank of the doorknob hitting the floor. Two more shots. Breaking wood. The door, its knob and deadbolt shattered, battered open.

  Terror struck.

  Allison's feet found the steps. She descended into the basement.

  Map of Sanguine Springs

  Sanguine Springs

  Hidden by a blackberry thicket hard up beside Sanguine Pond, Brad Clarke crouched. He pointed his cloned MK18 south, the gun's sling wrapped around shoulder and elbow for support. His cheek rested against the buttstock's upper curve as he scanned the distant brush through his scope.

  Four men to the south. The same again to the north, probably. From this vantage point, he couldn't see that contingent. No complaints. He'd been in worse scrapes overseas, without blackberries for concealment. His floods ringed the town, leaving him free to maneuver the home turf in sheltering darkness.

  Even so, it was disorienting. The leafless trees cast shadows in every direction, giving his opponents plenty of places to hide as well.

  The eight, or more, men surrounding his home were well-armed and well-trained. Rather than freezing like deer in the headlights, they continued their advance, slower now, but using the shadows to their advantage.

  Brad slid his support hand free and felt his fire selector, then checked the magazine's lock. Rifle set to semi-automatic. Magazine secure—just like they were the dozen times since leaving the house.

  Why were they focusing on Jake's house? His younger brother hadn't been on anyone's radar. It had to be Brad. He was the only logical target. The Feds must have run with old data, like the original bill of sale for the land. *I don't live there, dumbasses. No one does, not anymore.*

  Except Allison, the last two days.

  Brad closed his eyes. He breathed measured breaths, willing raw nerves to calm. His throat ached, more than thirsty. Hungry for the abandoned whiskey.

  No. Screw that. His eyes opened. Angry eyes. Angry at himself and his weakness.

  All the whiskey had ever done was kill his brother and put a target on his own back. The still, his smirking attempt to wave a middle finger at the man, had ruined everything. Even this town he'd built with his own two hands seemed like hell tonight.

  Another gout of gunfire erupted from the south. There was hardly a solid window left in Jake's house.

  *They're gonna kill her.*

  Feds? Americans? It didn't matter. These men were putting his niece in danger, and he'd already seen too many members of the family die because of his own stupidity. *I'll take care of her, Jake. Don't worry.*

  He brought his face back to the rifle, found his cheek weld, looked through the scope, and waited. There—motion, like a woodchuck peeking from its den.

  One of them. A man in ballistic armor, the NODs of his helmet flipped up against the day-bright beams. He carried a rifle. Short, stubby barrel, some sort of internal suppression. Silent. Professional. But not how the Feds operated. This whole thing was spinning out of control.

  Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

  Brad laid his crosshairs on the moving man's upper chest—the place most likely to score at close range. He led the target. Slowed his breathing. Tightened his finger.

  Brad's ears rang. His eyes dazzled by the orange tongue of flame from his rifle. An unavoidable consequence of the MK-18's shorter barrel—not enough dwell time in the barrel to burn as much powder as a traditional 20-inch M4. The fireball's negative glowed on his retinas, a blue-green ghost obscuring what remained of his night vision. He went prone, cursing under his breath.

  For a moment, the firing stopped. Brad blinked, trying ineffectively to clear his vision. But before the retinal image faded, the gunfire resumed. Slower, measured shots. He felt the angry zip of hornets chewing up the brambles around him, heard the careening ping as dirt and gravel popped around him.

  Well, they're not shooting at Allison anymore. Brad smiled grimly.

  A second rifle joined in. At first Brad couldn't tell where the shots were aimed. Then, the lights began to fail, one by one. Time to find a better position.

  Brad slung the rifle on his back and crawled backward toward the pond, not stopping till he was waist-deep in the night-chilled water. The move took him below the horizon, safe from rifle fire, for now. He crabwalked on all fours, moving along the shore, grimacing as his hands tore on thorny vines and jagged rocks. Despite the obstacles he flowed, smoother than he had in years. It was all coming back to him.

  A hundred yards south of the quickly failing lights, a figure sped through the shadows, moving from tree to tree. An angry man, flanking the invaders, and ready to even the odds.

  Karl Johansson was having a bad night. His team had tramped through half a kilometer of loose rocks and blackberry vines. They had closed on the target, slipping through an alley between two houses, when the floodlights came on.

  They dove for cover, hiding behind trees, caught in the eerie light. Then the northern pincer opened fire. Lukas must be taking hits.

  No orders. No mayday call. Just the gunfire.

  Johansson cringed. The mission was a mistake. His mistake.

  Life was simpler, before joining Horus. He had been a soldier. A warrior. Now, he felt like a corporate stoolie, going along to get along. He didn't fit in here. Unskilled, uneducated. He felt like the shortest pallbearer at a funeral, a token participant knowing full well that the real weight was borne by the most skilled and strongest—men whose service had earned them more than battle scars.

  He had to keep Lukas and his men from going down. "All right," he said, "open fire on the target house."

  They responded quickly, pouring magazine after magazine into the front face of the target house. He saw the windows shatter, saw the door and logs chew up round after round. It was satisfying. Even if the rounds weren't penetrating, he felt like he was contributing toward a goal.

  But Johansson worried that it wasn't enough. Worried that it was just show, pomp, and bluster. It wasn't tactical. It wasn't even mercenary. It was corporate-minded covering fire at best. But what would that covering fire do? Would it give Lukas time to clear? Or would it just give their target more time to keep their head down? He wished he knew.

  Suddenly, the firing stopped beside him. He felt warmth spreading across his face. A wet splash reached up, touching his cheek. He pulled back, his fingers soaking red.

  He saw the lifeless slump as a man to his right fell to the ground, head caved in. "Man down!" he shouted. "We're under attack!" He pointed his gun in the general direction from which that shot had come, the shot that had killed one of his men.

  He pulled the trigger again and again until the magazine was dry, not on training now, but pure instinct. All worries about glory and earned scars were gone. Now, a single thought raced through his head: survive, survive, survive.