The movement at the eastern fence turned out to be nothing worse than a small scattered pack of shamblers drawn by the smoke still hanging over the fortress, and we cleared them without losing anyone, but the false alarm cost us the rest of the afternoon, adrenaline and exhaustion leaving everyone hollowed out by the time the sun started sinking again.Ruby had gone back to her makeshift terminal the second the all clear sounded, muttering about lost momentum and cold trails, promising she'd pick the beacon frequency back up first thing in the morning if her nerves settled enough to focus. Nobody argued with her. Nobody had the energy left to argue about anything.I found Jaxen afterward in the ruined section of the eastern wall, sorting through a crate of recovered debris the drone strike had scattered across the yard, most of it warped beyond use, some of it worth salvaging if you had the patience to sort through the wreckage piece by piece. He had that patience toni

We moved the water detail to round the clock watches within the hour, but Ruby's beacon triangulation still needed another full day to finish narrowing down Red Sun's base location, and Jaxen refused to just sit still waiting for Voss to make good on his threat."We go on the offensive," he said, spreading a rough hand-drawn map across the command room table. "Hit one of their supply routes before they hit our well. Force them to react to us instead of the other way around.""That's aggressive," I said."That's the point."Ruby, still bandaged and exhausted, pulled up a satellite image on her tablet that she'd managed to salvage some use out of despite the damage. "There's a supply convoy scheduled to pass through this junction based on patrol patterns I've been tracking. If we hit it clean, we cripple their logistics and buy ourselves breathing room."We moved out before dawn, a small strike team, me and Jaxen at the front, Ward and two of the new

Jaxen's hand closed around mine at last, and the meter's climb finally broke, dropping fast enough that my knees buckled with the sudden release of pressure. He caught me before I hit the ground, lowering us both onto the dirt, one arm banded tight around my back while the other stayed pressed flat against my chest, over my heart, the way he always did when things got this bad.For a moment neither of us said anything, my breathing slowly evening out, his hand still shaking slightly against my chest even after the immediate danger passed. Ruby hovered a few feet away, wringing her hands, clearly torn between wanting to help and knowing there was nothing left for her to do but wait. Ward had gone to fetch water and came back with a full canteen he pressed into Jaxen's free hand without a word, and Jaxen tipped it against my lips without looking away from my face, watching me swallow like he needed to see proof, physical and immediate, that I was still capable of something as simple as