2025-07-11 05:51:36Ares shoved Finch forward, boots slipping on the slick dock planks. Mira stayed close, her shoulder brushing his as they cut through the maze of containers stacked three high like forgotten tombs. Behind them, the safe house they’d borrowed - and bled in - flickered with muzzle flashes and the bark of Hale’s mercenaries calling out in clipped, panicked code.
They didn’t have time to savor it. Not yet.
“Keep moving,” Ares rasped. His voice cut through the slap of waves and Finch’s ragged gasps.
Finch stumbled on a stray coil of rope. Mira grabbed the back of his hoodie, yanking him upright. Her pistol swept the shadows automatically, eyes flitting between blind corners and the pale, rising dawn beyond the shipping yard’s rusted gates.
“Tell me that drive’s clean,” she hissed.
Finch clutched the small metal shard like it was the last lungful of air he’d ever get. “Wiped the tails. Triple ghosted. It’s pure.”
Ares didn’t break stride. “You swear on that?”
Finch flinched at his tone - not because it was loud, but because it wasn’t. “I swear, man. It’s clean. Hale can’t trace this.”
Ares nodded once, almost to himself. His boot kicked open a gap between two containers. They ducked through into a narrow passage littered with rat droppings and the stench of stale brine. At the far end, through a chain‑link fence patched with wire and old plastic tarps, the city glittered like a promise they weren’t sure they wanted to keep.
He could feel Mira’s stare even before she spoke. “You trust him?”
“No.” Ares didn’t look at her. He shouldered the fence open with a groan of protesting metal. “But I trust what we do next if he’s lying.”
Finch swallowed hard behind them but kept moving. He knew what they’d do if he’d screwed this up. Mira had spelled it out in detail the night she’d first handed him a burner phone and a bag of untraceable cash - a promise wrapped in blood and duct tape.
They emerged into an abandoned service lot behind an old cannery. The sun was up now, weak and watery through the smog clinging to the docks. Ares tilted his head back, feeling it on his face for a heartbeat ... the warmth was almost cruel.
He looked at Finch. “Where’s the drop?”
Finch thumbed the drive into his palm like he was rolling dice. “Warehouse on Keaton Street. Old dry goods place. My contact’ll scrub it, crack the files wide open. Then it’s everywhere ... Hale can’t bury it once it’s out.”
Mira reloaded her sidearm, metal click echoing off rusted tin walls. “Then what?”
Ares flicked his eyes between them. “Then Hale bleeds in daylight.”
Finch opened his mouth to say something ... maybe a joke, maybe another plea for reassurance ... but the sudden roar of an engine cut him off. A battered sedan skidded to a stop at the mouth of the alley. Mira’s Glock came up before the door fully opened.
A young kid in a grease‑stained hoodie leaned out, eyes wide behind cheap sunglasses. “You the package?” he asked, voice cracking like it hadn’t decided if it was a man’s yet.
Finch raised a shaky hand. “This is my ride. Relax. He’s clean.”
Mira didn’t lower her gun. She looked at Ares. He gave a tiny nod - she stepped back, but her finger stayed close to the trigger.
Finch half‑jogged to the car, ducked inside. The kid revved the engine like he was showing off for ghosts. Before the door slammed, Finch stuck his head out, eyes darting to Ares.
“You’re not coming?” he called.
Ares stepped closer, boots crunching old glass underfoot. He leaned in, voice low enough Finch had to strain to hear it. “Get this out clean. If you even think about running ... if you think about selling it back ... I’ll find you. Understand?”
Finch didn’t blink. He just nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing once. “Yeah. I know.”
Ares patted the door twice. The kid hit the gas, tires squealing as the car fishtailed around the corner and vanished into the waking city. For a long moment, the only sound was the drip of water off rusted gutters and Mira’s slow, measured breathing beside him.
She holstered her gun. “You believe him?”
Ares stared at the empty street where the car had gone. “I believe his fear.”
She snorted, almost a laugh, but there was no warmth in it. “Next move?”
Ares flexed his hand - the knuckles still raw, skin split where he’d cracked the guard’s jaw hours earlier. The blood had dried like a promise under his fingernails.
“Hale knows we’re alive - and that’s good. Fear makes mistakes.”
They started walking, boots leaving wet prints on the cracked asphalt. Ares felt the old tension coil tighter in his gut, that familiar hum of war buzzing through marrow and muscle. He’d buried this man for too long, traded him for the quiet ghost who drifted from cheap hotel rooms to muddy back alleys. But the storm was awake now ... the city could feel it too, somewhere under the glass and steel.
“You think the kid’ll get it to your contact?” Mira asked.
Ares shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if he doesn’t. Hale’s people know someone’s loose. They’ll panic, plug leaks with more bullets - makes more leaks. More bodies. People talk when they’re scared.”
They passed an old diner with its windows boarded up. Faded spray paint across the plywood read WE REMEMBER. Mira glanced at it, then at him.
“You ever wonder,” she asked softly, “what happens if you win?”
Ares didn’t stop. “I don’t.”
They reached an intersection where the city’s heartbeat was stronger ... buses groaning past, horns echoing between towers still half asleep. Ares watched the people drifting by ... workers, street vendors, kids with backpacks too big for their shoulders. They looked right through him. Good.
He turned to Mira. “We find the next hole to dig. Finch bought us time, not mercy.”
She grinned - a wolf’s grin, teeth bright in the dirty morning light. “Back to the old game.”
Ares’s mouth twitched - the closest thing to a smile she’d seen on him in days. “Back to what we do best.”
She nudged his arm with her elbow. “Next target?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he pulled his sister’s photo from his pocket - the edges soft and frayed from too many nights spent pressing it between calloused fingers. He looked at it like it could talk back.
Then he slipped it away, eyes locked on the skyline where Hale’s empire squatted behind mirrored glass and marble lobbies.
“Next target,” Ares said, voice low, almost gentle, “is the one who thinks he’s untouchable.”
Mira cracked her knuckles. “Then let’s remind him nobody is.”
They crossed the street together, two shadows melting into the waking city ... ghosts in the smoke, carrying fire in their veins.
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WHERE DUST SETTLES
“No,” he said. “But it’s beginning.”Elijah didn’t say anything. He just looked out across the river, toward the jagged skyline of Lin City - blackened, bent, but still standing. His small hand clutched Ares’ fingers tighter, not out of fear, but to make sure his father was real.The city was quiet.Not peaceful - just... quiet. The kind of silence that came after screaming. After bullets stopped flying. After people stopped dying. The kind that wasn’t earned but left behind, like a breath held too long.Ares crouched down beside Elijah and looked him in the eye.“You’ll hear people say it’s over,” he murmured. “But truth is, son... endings are easy. What comes next, that’s the hard part.”Elijah nodded slowly, as if he understood more than a child should.Ares ruffled his hair gently, then stood. “Come on. Let’s head back before the soup gets cold.”...The walk back was slow. Not because of Elijah’s pace, but because people stopped Ares every few steps.Not to thank him.Just to loo
FIRE IN THE BLOOD
The rain returned just before dawn.Ares stood alone at the old training field behind the Eastern Barracks. Not the sleek combat simulators they used now - this was dirt and grit, sandbags and rusted goalposts, where men once learned to bleed before they learned to lead. He held a wooden training sword in one hand, the other flexing and clenching like he could still feel the weight of Wu’s final blow in his wrist.Across from him stood Hawk, stripped to the waist, scarred and silent, watching.The silence between them wasn’t hostile. It was history.“You sure about this?” Hawk finally asked, voice rough.Ares nodded once. “I need to feel it. Not just the win. The weight of it. Otherwise... I carry it like a ghost.”Hawk didn’t question that. He simply stepped forward, raising his own dull-edged blade.The first clash was clean - a simple strike-and-parry. Then another. Then Ares stepped into the second blow, letting it scrape past his ribs as he turned and drove his shoulder into Hawk
FATHERS AND FLAMES
Ares didn’t sleep that night.While Mira and Elijah rested in the med-bunker, wrapped in peace they had long been denied, he sat outside beneath the concrete awning, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the city slowly rebirthing itself. Lin City, for the first time in years, was quiet -not because it was dead, but because it had finally exhaled.His hands were still bloodstained, knuckles split. The fight with Victor Wu had been short, brutal - and necessary. But the victory hadn’t cleansed him. Not really.“You look like a man still waiting for the war to start,” said a voice behind him.Ares didn’t turn. “I’m waiting for the part where it’s actually over.”Reyes stepped into the light, carrying two cups of bitter soldier’s coffee. He handed one over. “You’ve done enough, brother.”“No,” Ares said. “Not yet.”Reyes sat beside him, grimacing as he lowered himself to the cold step. “You’re still thinking about Fallujah.”“Always,” Ares said softly. “Wu showed the footage for a reason. He th
PEACE ISN’T QUIET
“We’re going home.”Ares whispered it like a vow, pressing his lips to Elijah’s hair. The boy clung to him tighter, as if some part of him knew those words weren’t just comfort - they were a promise built on blood.Mira stood at his side, silent, her hand finding Ares’ without needing to search. The candles flickered across the plaza as families mourned, survivors whispered names onto the memorial wall, and city dust settled like ash after a storm.But beneath it all, Ares felt it.The quiet wasn’t peace.It was a warning....Back in the apartment - what was left of it - the old living room still smelled like soot and rust. Elijah was asleep on a makeshift mattress near the heater. Mira moved through the space like someone reclaiming old territory, her hands brushing across cracked walls, broken frames, and bullet-pocked memories.Ares stood near the window, staring out at the city that still looked half-drowned in smoke.“Everything feels... paused,” Mira said behind him.“It’s beca
AFTER THE FALL
Elijah's arms were thin but strong around his father’s neck, as though in the days of sleep his boy had found new purpose - not just survival, but belonging. Ares held him close, his forehead resting gently against the boy’s temple, inhaling the scent of clean linen and warmth.“I missed you,” Elijah whispered.Ares’ voice caught before it could form. He didn’t trust it - too much gravel, too much memory, too much grief packed into syllables. So he simply nodded, hand brushing through his son’s hair.Mira stood nearby, unmoving - arms folded, but not in coldness. She was holding herself together. Her eyes shimmered, not with sadness, but with the fragile tension of a woman who had waited too long to hope.The silence lingered like a sacred thing.Then Elijah spoke again, smaller this time. “Is it really over?”Ares pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes. “The war is.”“But the world...?”Ares smiled faintly, brushing a hand along Elijah’s cheek. “The world’s broken, son. But
THE TOWER OF TRUTH
Ares walked through the bleeding edge of the city, where frost kissed shattered glass and the bones of rebellion had not yet been buried. The Oracle Tower loomed ahead - not shining, not proud. Just tall. Empty of soul, but filled with power.The wind howled as if warning him away.He didn’t stop.Every memory pressed in as he neared the gates: the nights in Fallujah when he’d dragged broken brothers through fire, the betrayal that had carved a hole in his chest when Mira married another, the moment he held his son for the first time and realized what kind of man he had to become.Now it all came here - not to win a war, but to end one.Reyes’s voice came through the earpiece. “You’re approaching blind. No active jammers. He wants you seen.”“I know,” Ares muttered. “He’s baiting me.”“Careful. There’s pride... and then there’s suicide.”Ares looked up at the Tower’s blinking apex. “This isn’t pride.”A silent pause. Then Reyes replied, “I believe you. Make it count.”The main doors w
