Sunrise. Long tendrils of red streaked across the sky in the waking dawn, like God’s own oil painting of blood and fire. A stark reminder that they were always at war.

Diggs folded around the trunk of the tree, not feeling the rough bark digging into his arms and chest as he held himself easily suspended in the air. The ground, littered with a fresh blanket of dry multicolored leaves from the first blush of fall lay over 20 feet below. A cool breeze sifted across his skin, tempered by the head to toe camouflage covering his body.

He hadn’t used ropes or climbing gear to ascend to the site – he’d only needed his bare hands and feet – one of the few good things that had come from his association with General Rainier. A man who Diggs’ Special Forces team had once thought of as a worthy commander. A man who’d convinced them that the physical experiments with Project Mayhem would help them further serve their country. A man who would gladly shackle them once more beneath his control to continue his experiments whether it killed Diggs and his team or not.

Diggs felt the shift in the wind, the slightest rustle of leaves from fifty yards out. Juarez, a man who before their enhancements had been one of the best forward snipers in the entire forces recon and now was the best in the entire world, moved with a blurring speed nearly untraceable to the naked human eye.

“In position.” Diggs pressed the button at the center of the neck loop around his throat activating the high-tech communication system. “Radar detected movement in the southwest quadrant. Tiny, fast. Possibly unmanned personal aircraft.” A.k.a. a drone.

“Roger.”

Diggs had been in charge of watching the monitors overnight when he’d detected a tiny blip on the radar over the property just before sunrise. He’d roused the rest of his team from their required three hours of sleep to begin their self-imposed rigorous daily training schedule. Their team leader, Reaper, insisted on the grueling physical activity and exercise. Not that anyone on the team would complain, the truck load of energy from the serum constantly feeding their muscles and brains required a continuous output.

If they sat on their asses too long inside the compound they tended to get a little antsy, something the Team couldn’t afford. One mistake or slip up could alert Rainier to their secret location and their entire past six months of hiding and recuperating from their captivity would be for nothing. After demolishing Rainier’s lab, which had been hidden in the northern territories in Africa, his team had destroyed and stolen all the data and serum Rainier had used for Project Mayhem and kidnapped the only living scientist, Dr. Melissa Averton, with knowledge of how to create more. She’d been forced to work tirelessly for them ever since to stabilize the serum recipe so the men wouldn’t have to receive weekly injections or risk terrible side effects.

They’d ruined Rainier’s plan to create a vast supply of enhanced soldiers and sell them to the highest bidder. Then Diggs and his team found a 150-acre estate a few hours outside D.C., bought it under a foolproof fake I.D. and made it into an impregnable compound. It had a huge mansion surrounded by dense woods, with the closest neighbors miles from the perimeter of the property.

They’d been secure there, until three months ago when they’d been forced from cover to rescue Dr. Averton’s sister.

A tree limb rustled in the opposite direction of Juarez, and Diggs instantly brought his lightweight assault rifle to his shoulder, training his sights in the direction of the foreign movement. The rest of the team had remained at the compound, set up on the rooftop and in the lower levels guarding the perimeter in case there was a breach. Juarez and Diggs were the forward scouts. There shouldn’t be another human being within ten miles of them.

Another leaf rustled. Diggs adjusted his sights and inched to the left. There, on one of the uppermost limbs of an old ash oak sat a fat little gray squirrel, his beady black eyes fixed on Diggs. The creature’s tiny heart pulsated against his chest at an erratic rate, his fear palpable. The squirrel had probably thought himself alone out here, too.

Diggs lowered his weapon and turned away, giving the animal the permission it needed to go about eating its breakfast without fear of having its head blown off. Diggs wasn’t hunting squirrels this morning.

“Team one, check-in.” King, the biggest, burliest son of a bitch Diggs had ever laid eyes on, said through their communication system. He’d be propped up on the roof under heavy camouflage, a sniper rifle cuddled up flush against his shoulder.

Diggs answered, “No movement.”

Juarez echoed the same and the line went silent. Too much chatter increased their chances of detection if the enemy was close by. Special forces warfare was a deadly art his team had mastered long ago. They’d been trained in guerrilla and urban warfare, could deflate and act with the speed and accuracy that was incomparable. And despite the fact there weren’t any innocent civilians to worry about this time, there was something even more at stake.

His team.

Even though they’d escaped Project Mayhem, they’d kept the name, dubbing themselves Team Mayhem as the only remaining super soldiers in existence—the only remaining live subjects whose blood contained enhancements from Mayhem. Which meant once General Rainier recovered from the devastating blow of losing his entire works, he would be actively hunting them every second of every day.

If General Rainier had discovered their location, he’d be conducting recon on their compound in order to determine the best way to breach and attack. And if Rainier got his hands on any one of them, or worse, Dr. Averton, then the entire world had a reason to be afraid. Rainier would do to them what he’d done to their team leader’s fiancé—knock them out and hook them up to a permanent IV, draining their blood for more experiments. Slowly killing them to create more serum so he could sell his super soldiers to the highest bidder.

The thought turned his stomach. Diggs would kill himself before he’d let Rainier use his blood to fund terrorism.

They all would.

“Headquarters, any sign of a drone on the monitors?”

The infrared cameras set up throughout the entire property would alert them if anyone stepped foot on the ground and the aerial detection system they’d ‘borrowed’ from the Air Force and set up on the roof of the compound kept a constant watch on the skies overhead.

Hicks’ voice came through the system, low and steady. “Negative. No disturbances.”

Something was out there, Diggs knew it.

Holding radio silence for the next hour, Diggs and Juarez did not even shift to alleviate the pressure on their hands and feet where they held themselves aloft. Frustration had started to work its way around Diggs’ shoulders, pulling his muscles tense and tight. They should’ve detected something by now. Even if the drone had crashed into the woods their infrared cameras would’ve picked up its heat signature. Satellites overhead would catch it in the air. For all accounts and purposes, it appeared as though there was absolutely no threat at present but Diggs felt it. He felt the menace approaching.

Reaper’s deep gravelly voice sounded in his ears. “If there was something here it’s gone now. We’ll pull extra watch today and tonight. Let’s regroup and regather. We’ll assign shifts at the mansion. Fall back boys.”

No. He couldn’t leave, not yet. The threat wasn’t gone. Diggs could tell it by the way the animals shifted nervously in their homes. The squirrel had been the single brave one, but the fox that lived on the property was remaining oddly quiet. Even the birds were absent.

The last time Diggs had relaxed his guard, one of his teammates had lost his life. Maybe if he would’ve tried a little harder, or if he’d been stronger he could’ve fought off the migraine. If he had been faster he would’ve been there sooner. But he’d been weak and he’d given in to the pain and now Quantum was in a coma and Dawson was dead.

“Top, permission to stay behind.”

“Negative. I need you on the monitors. If it shows back up you’ll recognize the signature.”

“Top, I feel it. There’s something out there.”

They didn’t normally talk about their feelings, hell most of them didn’t have any, not that it bothered Diggs or anyone else. Feelings were a hazard in their line of duty. But the niggling sensation at the back of his neck was a feeling – it was an instinct that couldn’t be ignored.

“Turn in. Now.” Reaper’s harsh voice gave no room for argument.

Or else.

The unspoken words fell as heavy as a block of concrete between them—Reaper held the reins. He’d been the one man on their team that Diggs had confessed his darkest secret. Top knew his failure. He never held it against him, but Diggs held it against himself.

As far as Diggs knew, no one else on the team knew he’d been in the room when Quantum and Dawson had been given the last lethal injections while hooked up to electrodes and wires. Diggs had lay on the floor, incapacitated but not unconscious. He watched the blood trickle from Dawson’s mouth and nose as his body convulsed on that metal table in the Project Mayhem research lab. Rainier and Dr. Winters, the original lead researcher who’d been just as fucked up as the general, had watched in rapt fascination as Dawson drew his last breath, studying his every heartbeat until it stopped completely.

If only…

Diggs descended the tree and dropped to the ground, landing silently and then took off at a fast sprint, his feet barely making contact as he ran, frustration lending him speed. They’d moved like deadly ghosts before their enhancements, but now they could practically float over the ground. And while his speed wasn’t anything he excelled at compared to the rest of the team, it was still above average compared to ordinary standards.

Diggs met up with Juarez a minute later, both of them under the shelter of the trees. The mansion was over an acre away, an acre of flat exposed turf. That journey could be hazardous if someone was watching, so they had installed a trapdoor in the woods that led down into the small basement underneath the mansion.

“Maybe it was a bird or something?” Juarez offered as Diggs triggered the locking mechanism on the 2-inch-thick steel doors that were covered in dirt and sticks and leaves to resemble the ground above them. The doors opened to reveal a ladder leading straight down into the darkness below.

“It wasn’t,” Diggs responded in a flat tone. “I know it wasn’t.” When he’d seen the alert on the radar, he’d been eager for some action. Why couldn’t Reaper understand that?

“Do you really think Rainier could’ve found us so soon? We took out his entire guard when we destroyed his lab. He’d have had to rebuild from the ground up.” Juarez began to descend the ladder, blackness swallowing up his face until he disappeared.

Diggs climbed down right above him, closing and locking the trapdoors overhead. “I didn’t say anything about Rainier.”

“But that’s what you’re thinking.”

Of course, that’s what he was thinking. That’s what they should all be thinking. It was why he spent hours poring over the monitors, utilizing the months of training he’d undergone within forces recon in electronic warfare and cyber security, watching for any blip on the screen indicating Rainier had found them. “We have no idea what kind of ties he’s used to build wealth and connections over his career, legal or otherwise. We have to operate as though he’s fully functional and still has the manpower to run his network.”

The air grew cold, damp, and musty with raw dirt and the moisture contained within. The hallway wasn’t lit leading back to the mansion, but no one on Team Mayhem needed it to be. One of the best bonuses that had come from the serum was enhanced vision that allowed them to see in the dark without night vision goggles. It was an advantage a normal soldier wouldn’t have had, and one that Diggs had looked forward to using on terrorists. It was an opportunity he hadn’t yet had a chance to test.

“How would he know where to start looking? His lab was halfway around the world. We have no ties to this area. No family or friends,” Juarez said.

“The security cameras in the parking garage in D.C. could’ve gotten Hicks’ face.” Hicks had been sent on a mission to rescue Dr. Averton’s sister, Whitney, when they’d been attacked in the parking garage at her work.

Juarez banged the wall with his closed fist. “But wouldn’t that mean Rainier had to be monitoring the security cameras on that exact parking garage?”

“No, they were wireless cameras which means all of the footage was transmitted over a wireless network. Any computer geek with half a brain could have tapped into the feed, and the general could’ve flagged each of our photos so that any match anywhere would alert him.”

And the chance that he had, was above probable. Dr. Averton had been kidnapped right out from under Rainier’s nose, so he would’ve had every aspect of her life tagged, including tracking her sister.

“I’d say there’s about an 80 percent probability that Hicks was flagged on their system. Doesn’t mean they know where he lives, but we have to operate on the premise they’ve been using the vicinity of the garage as a starting point.” And with the general’s assets he could quickly narrow that field down to likely locations.

They’d been careful not to leave any other clues anywhere else, but a trained guy could find the things that others couldn’t. One careless mistake and they’d have to give up their fortress and go on the run. Again.

“But don’t you have the skills to know if he’s detected any of us?” Juarez asked.

“Only if he puts out a bolo war national security alert, neither of which you can use and seize while on the run from CIA, NSA, the FBI—”

“—and the local sheriff.” Juarez nodded in understanding. “But it doesn’t mean he can’t see what they see, right?”

“Exactly. If he installed a shadow program to monitor their databases, it might take some work but eventually he’d have access to all their files and intel.”

And Team Mayhem would be screwed. Not that he could blame Hicks if he had been caught by the security cameras in D.C.; the man deserved some happiness in his life. After the childhood he’d had and the royal screwing by their commander, Whitney Averton was just the fresh kick in the ass he’d needed to put a smile on his face. And although Diggs had initially flirted and teased with her, all just to torment Hicks, he wasn’t attracted to her in that way. But he did feel a little bit like the big brother watching out for the little sister he’d never had.

As the youngest of six brothers, Diggs would kill to have a younger sibling to take off some of the heat. Especially since he’d always been the smallest, the weakest and least likely to succeed out of his family. When he joined forces recon, he hadn’t been able to tell them. They still thought he was just a wanderer, working odd jobs here and there, living without aim or purpose.

It was a fact that twisted his insides into knots that even a Boy Scout couldn’t figure out, but one he had accepted with resignation.

You didn’t join the teams for guts and glory—maybe guts, but no glory. He’d done it because he wanted to protect those who needed protecting, to serve his country and fight the fight that no one else could.

And, he willingly admitted to himself, the rush of adrenaline was addicting as hell. No one joined the teams because they didn’t like the feel of that buzz in their veins as they jumped out of a C-130 at 20,000 feet or infiltrated a terrorist camp out manned 50 to 1.

But when he’d signed up for Project Mayhem along with the rest of his team he’d done it because he thought it’d give the edge he needed to save more American lives. Instead, he’d gotten a heavy dose of fucked up and ended up on the run from his commander, unable to go to his own government for fear of being inspected like a lab rat.

And all because of a power thirsty general.

They reached the end of the tunnel and Diggs slapped the reader beside the door. They had scanners at every entrance and exit from the outside into the lab. Biometric. It wasn’t completely impregnable, but nearly. Someone would have to cut off their hand to be able to disarm the lock. And after that it was backed up by a 10-digit code that Diggs changed regularly.

They entered what appeared to be a 10 x 10 concrete basement littered with boxes full of crap. On the center of the wall directly in front of them was another 2-inch-thick steel door with the same locking mechanisms. Diggs unlocked the door and both men stepped into the dim blue lighting of the lab located beneath the mansion.

It was because of Dr. Averton’s research they discovered that blue tinged light didn’t affect them as harshly as regular fluorescent or incandescent bulbs. Why though? They weren’t sure but it was something they were always researching.

As they passed through the hallway, half walls of concrete topped by bulletproof plate glass flanked their left and right, multiple research areas set up for Dr. Averton’s experiments. It was closer to the back that they found Dr. Averton, in the largest lab hunched over a computer, squinting through her glasses at a screen full of numbers that meant absolutely nothing to either of the men.

She didn’t even look up from her study when she said, “The rest of the guys are already in the war room waiting on you.”

“Have you been doing that since we turned in last night?” Juarez asked softly.

Melissa turned and glared over her shoulder, but there were obvious signs of fatigue on her delicate features. She’d adopted a constant shadow beneath her eyes from the lack of proper sleep and even though she wore that hideous white lab coat all the time everyone on the team could tell she’d dropped weight.

“Yes, I have. You have a problem with that?”

“You need to take better care of yourself,” Diggs said.

Her big sapphire colored eyes narrowed behind her glasses but Diggs didn’t regret his words one bit.

“Why, because I’m your only hope?”

Diggs replied without hesitation, “Because we care about you. You saved our lives, we don’t intend to see you lose yours—even by a self-imposed starvation schedule.”

As if on cue, Juarez reached into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate flavored protein bar and held it out to the doc. “Here, this will tide you over for a while.”

Melissa’s shoulders fell and the prideful tilt to her chin dropped with it. She took the protein bar and set it on her desk. “I’m sorry, guys, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. It just feels like the piece of the puzzle I’ve been missing to complete the serum is right there. If I could mend that one broken link your bodies could self-sustain without the weekly injections. And I think, eradicate the side effects completely.” Side effects being debilitating migraines and seizures at any moment without reason or cause from what they’d been able to discern.

Still, no matter how tempting the prospect of going back to a normal person was, Diggs could feel the doctor’s anxiety like a living and breathing monster inside of her. She worried and worked nonstop and he knew it was because she felt guilty for being a part of Project Mayhem in the first place.

“We can live with the side effects for a little bit longer. Hell, we’ve done it for over a year now.”

“If I’d come on to the research team a little sooner, maybe I’d have more answers. Maybe I’d know how Dr. Winters came up with the original ingredients in the binding process.”

Diggs shrugged. “And maybe you’d bring peace to the earth. Stop worrying about things you can’t change. There’s no one in this entire compound that blames you for any of this.”

For the first time since they’d known each other, Dr. Averton’s bottom lip trembled as if she were on the verge of tears. From the fresh wash of pain that seemed to shoot straight out of her pores, Diggs knew that she was hurting.

“Quantum is slipping further away. If I don’t figure out something soon we may lose him.”

The thought of Quantum sent an ice-cold stab of regret straight into Diggs’ chest. If anyone in this compound should feel guilty about their teammate’s comatose condition, it was him.

Diggs turned his head, his throat too closed off to force words through.

It was Juarez who spoke, his own voice hushed. “There’s nothing any of us could have done to stop them from doing that to Quantum.”

But there was something Diggs could have done, if only he’d gotten the super strength enhancements like King and Hicks he could’ve fought off Rainier that night to stop him from injecting the last lethal injection into his teammate’s arm. But just like he’d always been the weakest link in the chain of his family, he’d held that same slot in the team. No super enhancements—just an above average soldier hanging onto his team’s coattails and dragging a couple of them down with him.

“You’re right, Juarez, thank you for the reminder.” Melissa pulled off her glasses and gave them a small smile. “You should go, the team’s waiting.”

Juarez gave her a mini salute and strolled from the room but Diggs held back. “Do you really think we’re going to lose him?” Losing Quantum was something that Diggs hadn’t allowed himself to contemplate, it hurt too damn much. He’d already lost Dawson.

Melissa put her hand on his arm, her expression full of empathy. “I’m going to save him, even if I die doing it. You have my word.”

The hollowness in his chest seemed to rise up into his throat and swell, making it hard to speak. “Do you still read to him every night?” Melissa seemed to have taken on Quantum as her own intensely personal project. And while Diggs was ashamed to say he didn’t go in Quantum’s room to sit with his unconscious teammate as much as he should, he was glad Melissa did. It was just too hard for him to walk through the wall of guilt at Quantum’s door.

“Yes, and in the beginning, I could feel him, you know? Like he was trapped inside trying to get out. These past couple of weeks he seemed to stop fighting and I’m scared to death that he’s giving up.” Her eyes were pools of pain and fear and suddenly Diggs realized he’d been so focused on himself he’d missed a significant piece of information.

“You care about him.”

Melissa crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive position. “Of course, I care about him. I care about all of you.”

Diggs gave her a deadpan look. He wasn’t going to argue with her, she could be more stubborn than the entire team combined. “You’ve got my word I won’t tell anyone,” he held up a hand when she made to protest, “but first you have to promise me two things.”

“What?”

Diggs reached for the protein bar Juarez had handed to her minutes ago. He took her hand and uncurled her fingers from the tight fists and placed the protein bar in her grip, re-curling her fingers back around the food. “Number one, you will eat at regular intervals.”

She blew out a breath and gave him a jerky nod, her normally impartial eyes bright with emotion. “And number two?”

“You’ll come talk to me if you ever feel the need. I’m pretty good at listening.”

Her stubborn chin wobbled and she said quietly, “Deal.”

Diggs stepped away, giving her the space he knew she needed to gather herself. Dr. Averton never shared much with anyone but her sister, who also lived here. But Whitney was a civilian and she’d just recently come into the fold. Diggs had been with Mayhem from ground zero. He could understand things that Melissa’s sister couldn’t.

Diggs turned and walked from the room, smiling when he heard the sound of the plastic wrapper on the protein bar being torn open.

As he walked down the hallway, past the training center into the war room at the very back Diggs shrugged off the gentleness he’d used with Melissa and focused on the task at hand. The coincidence of a drone randomly flying over their mansion was unlikely. But how could General Rainier have found them so quickly? And if he had, why hadn’t he attacked?

They would have to prepare and even if it meant no sleep for the next week, Diggs wouldn’t rest until he tracked down Rainier and stopped him from ever harming his teammates again.

Diggs busted through the doors to find the rest of his team standing around the center table in the room. Reaper at the head, King to his right; Hicks and Juarez on his left, their expressions tight. Tense.

Suddenly feeling like he’d missed something big, Diggs slowed his progress to rejoin his team. “What?”

“That.” Reaper pointed at the far-right screen. There was a grainy black and white image posted of a man in a ball cap and sunglasses, walking head down in a crowded airport.

All the air left Diggs lungs in a whoosh. “Rainier.”

“It popped up while you were in the woods.” Reaper paused, the words he didn’t say blasting in the space between them.

“Where?” Diggs avoided his gaze and dropped in the chair at his computer, zooming in on the photo. The sunglasses obscured half the man’s face, but there was no doubt in his mind that it was Rainier.

“Dulles International,” Reaper said quietly.

“Shit.” That was only two hours away. They’d intentionally picked a location close enough to D.C. that they could have access to the resources they needed if worse came to worse, but far enough away they could melt into the country side without detection. They’d ended up halfway between Richmond and D.C. “When was it taken?”

“0400 this morning. We need to get there. Now.” Reaper said.

Adrenaline pumped through Diggs and he shot to his feet. Hell yes, this was the mission he’d been waiting on. He was so tired of staying cooped up in the compound, an impotent frustration always eating at his insides. He needed to be out there, doing something. “I can pull up the rest of the footage in the car. How do you want to approach?”

Reaper crossed his arms over his massive chest. Hicks and Juarez stared at a point just past Diggs’ shoulder. King looked as impassable as usual, but everything about their stances screamed something was off.

“You are staying back. I need you monitoring the agencies for alerts in case we are spotted. We are just as wanted as Rainier.”

Diggs took that soul crushing beat and stood there in silence, unable to speak for the vice like invisible grip forming around his throat.

Reaper continued. “King will drive. Juarez and I will recon the airport. Hicks will provide over watch.” Reaper circled his finger in the air and the rest of the team moved to gear up. Reaper faced him. “This has nothing to do with this morning. I need you to keep an eye on all the channels in case we get pinned.”

Diggs forced a nod, praying his expression stayed neutral, even though his insides rolled. “Roger, Top.”

He’d stay behind and do his job, while the rest of his team went out on the front lines—King and Hicks with their super strength, Juarez with his super speed, Reaper with all of it.

And Diggs with nothing.