We swept through the banquet hall, our carbines raised, our shoulders squared, our eyes lowered. Clearing a building like this with a two-man team wasn’t what we’d trained for. I knew we were opening ourselves up for error and to being blindsided by our opponents, but what were we supposed to do? You go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.

“Clear!” Murdoch barked after sweeping his gun over the right side.

“Clear!” I shouted back as I finished on our left. “Move!”

Together, the pair of us streaked across the room with our gunner walk, careful heel-toe with each step that kept our rifles leveled. I opened the door and Richard covered the area on the other side.

“Clear!”

The majority of them were outside on the eastern side of the compound, facing off against Jones and Wayne, both hidden in the thick foliage beyond the walls of the castle.

We moved through the hall.

Just on the other side was the entrance to the circular stairs leading up into the tower where they were keeping our mates. It was the kind of stairs that wrapped around the outside of the tower, like you’d see in an old Robin Hood film, but each floor had its own room in the center. We moved across the floor, rifles raised.

As the gunfire outside sputtered to a pause, the sound of Matthew Jones’ rifle picked up during the lull. With as much ammo and explosives as we’d draped onto the two of them, they’d be able to hold out for a while, no matter what size of the force they were fighting.

Murdoch and I headed up the stairs, our bodies off the walls and in the center of the walk. With stonework like this, ricochets were one of our biggest concerns, and we wanted to keep our silhouettes minimal as we kept our bodies out of harm’s way.

Combat and firefights are about discipline and about habit and training. The moment you doubt your movement, the man on your flank, or your aim, is the moment you begin to lose. You drill conservation of movement, speed, and ammo into your head, heart, and hands. You make your body move the way it needs to move, to the point where it’s second nature, because if you don’t, you end up going home draped in a flag.

We ran into our first sign of resistance just as we reached the second floor.

The guard’s eyes widened as he saw us in our full tactical gear, and he tried to fall back with a measured stride as he attempted to draw his sidearm.

His hand only made it to the grip on his pistol. He never had a chance of it even clearing the holster. I looked right into his soul as Richard and I opened fire with our suppressed rifles, the subsonic ammunition popping barely louder than fireworks as half a dozen bullets dropped him like a sack of potatoes on the steps of the stairwell. His radio, crackling with impotent static, tumbled from his fingers with the weird finality of hard plastic scraping on polished stone.

Unflinching, we stepped over him and continued up the rightward bend to the second floor.

On our left, the second floor of the main manor opened up. Both of us swiveled our guns that way, and I briefly considered if we should sweep it. Earlier, when I’d been peering through the thermal scope, I’d seen Vanessa on the third floor of the central building which the tower was attached to.

But what if there was something else here? Some bit of information we could use as leverage against Jaeger-Tech?

No, it wasn’t worth it. We didn’t have the time.

We moved up the stairs to the third story.

We spotted another two guards approaching, this time running toward us as they went to join the fight outside. We didn’t speak, but just reacted: two to the head, two to the chest. We swiftly moved around their bodies, proceeding up the stairs. Our hands were blurs as we reflexively popped our jungle-clipped magazines and switched them from the one that was partially empty to the full side. As we reloaded, we reached the top of the stairs.

If this hadn’t been so deadly and real life, I’d have felt like I was in a video game as we advanced up the levels. The only question was when the final boss was going to appear.

We were at the third floor—the last one of the main building that the tower was attached to. The other two floors above us were simply rooms, makeshift holding cells where they were keeping Jessica.

“Sweep?” Richard asked, his voice low and close to my ear.

This was the floor I’d seen Vanessa on with the scope—the one where they’d had her lying down on some sort of bed or table, with equipment and personnel surrounding her.

What to do? Go in and find Vanessa now, then try to move up the tower and get Jessica so we could come back through? There was no telling what condition she was in.

Or did we get Jessica first and come back through to this floor, then recover Vanessa with an unarmed civilian in tow?

Somewhere far below us, I could hear the gunfire and a raft of more explosions from Matt and Jake, and my mind drifted over to Frank, Lacy, and Gen out in the carriage house. Had he managed to get them out safely? Was he encountering any resistance?

“Frost,” Richard said, his voice more urgent than before. I could hear the edge to his voice. I could hear his own desire to reunite with his wife, his true mate. “Make a decision.”

“Sweep. First Vanessa, then Jessica.”

His face twitched slightly and I saw the hurt in his eyes.

“Once we get her,” I whispered, trying to explain, “it’s a straight shot out of here if we already have Vanessa. We already know where she is.”

He sighed, and I could nearly feel the flash of resentment but he knew that he didn’t have time to argue the point. I think he also realized that, tactically, it made more sense for us to find Vanessa first.

We moved into the halls, our eyes searching for the room where they were keeping Vanessa, the second hand on my watch ticking away like the clock on a time bomb.

Downstairs, Jake and Matt would still be able to hold out for a while longer, but not indefinitely. What was going to happen when the personnel of Jaeger-Tech realized it was just a distraction?

If we were still stuck inside the building, we’d be cut off from any escape route.

And at the back of my mind was still that same worm of doubt and concern which had been there when we’d first reached this floor of the building: when was the final boss going to show up?