Page 71 of Stream & Scream
Then, southwest quadrant. Thin frame. Heat pulsing with panic. Moving fast, cutting sloppy.
Tara.
I center the crosshairs. My lungs lock steady. Finger tightens on the trigger. She’s pumping her arms, sprinting like she can outrun what’s coming. She can’t. She’s already finished. All it takes is me pulling once.
I wait until the wind dies. Until the trees hold their breath. Until the moment feels like it was always meant to happen.
Three.
Two.
One.
Bang.
The recoil punches my shoulder, a clean break of silence that echoes sharp through the canopy. Her body folds before the sound fades—knees gone, spine gone, a puppet with cut strings. She drops heavy into the mud, motionless. Dead before the dirt even embraces her.
And it should feel good. It should feel like a release. But it doesn’t.
Because the second I lower the scope, the sky splits open.
A flare.
Red, bright, obscene against the black. It arcs from the cabin. My cabin. The one I left her in. The one where I told her to stay the fuck put.
“Fuck,” I snarl, the word tearing raw from my throat.
The rifle slams back across my spine. I leap from the branch without thinking, hit the ground hard enough that pain screams up my ankle. Something cracks, but it doesn’t fucking matter. I bite down and run anyway. Every step is goddamn agony, and I welcome it. Because it’s better to hurt than to stop.
Branches whip my arms tearing at my inked skin sending warm blood trickling down my forearm. My chest heaves, each breath sounding too much like a growl. The flare’s already gone, the smoke curling like a taunt in the distance, but the meaning is carved deep—someone’s there. Or she thinks someone is and she’s afraid. Panicked.
And that word fucking guts me.
Panic.
I told her to trust me. I gave her my word, my command, and my goddamn fucking promise. Did she think I’d leave her? Did she think I’d use her and vanish like the rest of these disposable meat-suits? That’s what they don’t get. That’s what she needs to understand.
She’s not disposable.
She’s mine.
And if their secondary hunter is anywhere near her, I’ll gut him slow. Split him stem to stern, peel him like fucking fruit, and feed his screams into every drone lens left creeping around in the dark so the suits choke on the reminder that I don’t fucking share.
The cabin is still miles off, but I see it in my head, dark, rotting, lantern glow leaking across her swollen lips. My mark onher throat. The thought of anyone else near her, any hand on her skin but mine, floods my vision black, and drags me backward.
Heat like hellfire, the stinking rot of sandbags soaked in piss and diesel. A night op meant to be quick—breach, sweep, extract. My squad was ahead, boots crunching glass inside a crumbling compound, walls chewed open by decades of bullets. Comms hissed static into my ear, then screams. Gunfire. One of my guys shouting my name before it cut off in a wet choke.
I was two clicks out. Running flat out. Rifle slamming my spine with every stride, lungs clawing for air, gravel tearing skin through my pants. But it didn’t matter. I was too fucking far. Too fucking late.
By the time I hit the door, it was a charnel house. Blood slick across busted tiles. My guy—Collins—sprawled on his back, throat cut so deep it looked like his head was half-severed. His eyes were still wide, shocked, like maybe he was waiting for me to get there. Like maybe if I had, he wouldn’t be staring at nothing.
The smell struck me—burnt powder. Copper. Death cooked into the walls. And the worst part wasn’t the carnage. It was knowing I should’ve been faster. That I could’ve been. That if I had pushed harder, ignored the fire in my legs, maybe Collins would’ve walked out with me instead of zipped in a bag.
I was too fucking late.
After that day, I swore I’d never be too late again.
Not with anyone.
