78. Nightwatch

Spectre's Safehouse, Warsaw - 20:04

I woke to silence. Heavy, suffocating, too still for a wolf's den.

The concrete above my head came into focus first—smooth, cold, low—and it took a second for the rest to follow. My back ached faintly. Something was digging into the small of it, the edge of a tucked-in blanket maybe. The sheets were warm. Too warm. It smelled like gun oil, cedar, and faintly of clove soap.

I blinked again. My ribs protested as I shifted, and that dull, persistent pain behind my side gave me all the reminder I needed: my bullet wound, not fresh, but not done with me either.

I wasn't in my bunk. I wasn't in the main sleeping quarters. And I wasn't in Ghost's flat in London, though for a moment—half-asleep—I had thought maybe, just maybe, I'd see his coat hanging by the door.

Then it hit me.

Spectre's room.

I was in Spectre's bed.

"Fucking hell." I croaked, burying my face in the pillow like I could suffocate the memory of last night.

Everything came back in a slow, creeping haze.

Vodka.

Mugs.

Koldun being Koldun, which meant loud, chaotic, unhinged as hell. His laugh shaking the damn air vents. Shot after shot until the world got soft around the edges and my head went warm, then numb, then sleepy. I remembered my cheeks hurting from laughing too hard. The two of us stumbling down the corridor at some unholy hour of the morning.

We'd almost tripped over someone's abandoned duffel bag—probably Soap's, judging by the explosion of zippers and a suspicious-looking rubber chicken sticking out of it.

Koldun had caught my arm, steadied me, then paused dramatically in front of a door. "No floor mattress for you," he'd declared like a priest giving last rites. "You sleep here. Real bed. Commander's privilege. Spectre would have a full cardiac event if he knew. You'll make him proud."

I'd rolled my eyes. "It's a bed, not a military promotion."

"Ninochka," he'd said gravely, pressing a hand to his chest, "you are his dream."

Then he'd saluted me, spun on his heel, and vanished down the hall humming the Soviet anthem.

I hadn't even argued. That's how far gone I'd been. I'd shoved open the door, mumbled something about Spectre's ghost being a petty bitch, and collapsed face-first onto the mattress without even pulling back the covers.

And now?

Now I was reaping the consequences of my poor life choices in the form of a throbbing headache, tight ribs, and a mental image of Spectre printing out stills from the hallway security feed just to smirk at them.

Spectre would've definitely framed the security footage if he knew I slept in his bed. Ego like his? It'd keep him warm through a Siberian winter. Probably would've sent me a framed copy. "For morale," he'd say. "Yours, obviously."

The ceiling didn't laugh.

I sat up slowly, legs dragging over the side of the mattress until my feet touched the floor—cool, smooth concrete under my skin. I braced a hand on the edge of the bed and tried to breathe through the mild nausea in my gut.

I'd definitely drunk more than I should have. But it hadn't been just the alcohol. It had been the quiet. The kind of quiet that gets under your skin, sharp around the edges.

The safehouse had felt empty the second they left.

Gaz, Soap, Price, the Wolves. Spectre. Ghost.

Gone.

Gone.

Hitting the final roots of Dragovich's network. Cutting the cancer out at its source. The final stage.

They were right to keep me out. I knew that. Logically, tactically, it made sense.

But logic had nothing to do with the bile in my throat when I thought about them being out there. When I thought about not being beside them. Not flanking Soap. Not covering Ghost's six. Not dragging Spectre out of whatever reckless shit he got himself into.

They were out there without me.

And I was here.

In his room.

I exhaled sharply and stood, rubbing a hand across my face. My joints popped. My spine cracked. The remnants of sleep clung to my shoulders like damp fog.

Underground bunkers had that timeless feel—no day, no night, just endless sterile lighting and the hum of recycled air. The silence was more noticeable now.

There was always noise, even in a bunker. Someone shuffling gear. Someone pacing. Muted radio chatter leaking from a cracked door.

But now?

Nothing.

Not even Koldun's voice echoing off the walls.

That meant either he'd passed out somewhere or finally found a reason to shut up for five minutes.

The air felt stale. Like it had stopped moving. Like the whole safehouse had taken a breath—and then held it.

I paced toward the door, half-expecting to hear something, anything, outside it. A footstep. A creak.

Nothing.

I turned back, eyes scanning the room properly now.

His boots were lined up neatly under a bench by the wall. His belt hung from the doorknob. Everything was just... Spectre.

Minimal. Functional. Dangerous.

There was a faint scuff on the wall near the headboard. My gaze caught on it, lingered.

I imagined him here.

Sitting on the edge of this bed, sharpening a blade in that methodical way of his. Muttering Russian under his breath. A chipped mug of tea cooling on the desk. Maybe thinking about Chistilishe. Maybe thinking about us.

I sat back down, slower this time, and ran my hands through my hair. The silence was starting to push in around the edges again.

That feeling—the one that crept in just before a storm—settled low in my gut.

Restlessness.

That awful, crawling awareness that you were missing something important. That your hands were supposed to be gripping a weapon, not a blanket. That your boots should be muddy, not clean. That your teammates were breathing gunpowder, and you were inhaling recycled air.

I scratched at my sternum lightly.

Just pressure. Just a reminder.

I was alive.

I was here.

I'd survived worse.

But still— My hand dropped, fingers twitching against my thigh.

No orders. No voices. No movement.

Just me.

And his scent in the sheets. Gun oil. Clove soap. Cold air.

I took a deep breath and looked around the place again.

His room wasn't large. It wasn't warm, either. Everything in it was functional, utilitarian—Spectre to a fault. The walls were concrete, painted the same dull grey as the rest of the safehouse. No decoration, no comfort, no wasted space. A bunk, a weapons rack, and a narrow desk beneath a cold flickering bulb.

But it was also cleaner than the rest of the place. More precise.

The desk held a neatly aligned stack of maps, each folded into sharp, obsessive rectangles. A tactical knife rested on top, blade oiled and polished next to an old radio. His pack leaned against the footlocker beneath the desk. The man made minimalism look like an artform.

Still, signs of him were there.

I slid out of bed barefoot again, the floor cold beneath my soles. My toes curled involuntarily as I padded toward the desk. Close up, I could make out the smaller details—how the corner of the top map was dog-eared, like someone had flipped it open and shut dozens of times. The pencil resting beside it was blunt, chewed near the end. A battered wristwatch sat on the edge of the desk, its face cracked diagonally across the center, like it had caught a bullet and lived to tell the tale.

I reached out, fingers hovering over it—but didn't touch.

Next to the watch, tucked behind a half-unzipped pouch, something peeked out from beneath the maps. A crease. A corner. Paper.

Carefully, I drew it free.

A photograph.

It was old. Curled at the edges. The gloss was worn off, dulled by time and fingerprints and maybe sweat. One of the corners was torn. But it was unmistakable.

I knew that photo.

We looked like ghosts.

Me, Spectre, and Ember. Nineteen? Twenty, maybe. All of us in field gear, flak jackets too big on our frames, faces hollowed by hunger, sleep deprivation, blood loss. I had stitches over my brow in that shot. Ember's hands were bandaged. Mikhail's eye was blackened, though he tried to hide it behind his usual unreadable glare.

We stood in front of some wreckage in St. Petersburg. The remains of an op Dragovich had ordered—something about eliminating an oligarch and wiping his ledger. The building had collapsed during extraction. I remembered being buried under debris for six minutes.

Still, we smiled. Barely. Ember had insisted. Said if they were going to make monsters out of us, we'd at least bare our teeth and grin for the camera.

We looked like survivors trying to play normal.

I ran a thumb over Ember's face.

God, she looked young.

We all did.

But there was already something fractured behind our eyes. Something sharpened by pain and starvation and the sick rhythm of forced loyalty. We didn't stand close together, but we leaned inward. Just slightly. A triangle of shared gravity. Like we'd fall apart without the others to hold the line.

I swallowed thickly. Dragged the photo closer.

And stared.

Too long.

I didn't mean to. But something about that image—the us that was—unlocked the hollow at the center of my chest. A well that hadn't been filled since London. Since warmth and tea and that stupid squeaky grocery cart.

The room flickered.

I breathed in. Slow. Shaky. Then exhaled, sharp and quiet.

My shoulders had started to rise without me noticing. My chest felt tight. My sternum buzzed like someone had struck a tuning fork against the bone.

I touched it gently. Right over my ribs. Where the ache sat.

Not now.

Not now.

I set the photo down. Carefully. Facedown. As if hiding it could delay the unraveling.

Like the photo had knocked something loose in my spine. Or maybe I just didn't want to hold myself up anymore. The mattress dipped slightly beneath me—still warm from where I'd slept. Still scented with—

I froze.

The pillow. That familiar blend: clove soap, gun oil, something wintry and clean and deeply male. Spectre always had a distinct scent. Not cologne—he'd never wear that—but raw and elemental. Steel and cold pine. The ghost of cigarettes and antiseptic.

It made my chest hurt. I curled up again. Tugged the blanket over my shoulders and pressed my face into the pillow. Just briefly. Just for a second. My fingers curled in the fabric like it might tether me to something real. Something solid.

I missed Ghost. Viscerally. Deeply. Not just his voice or the way he moved. But his presence. The way the world settled around him. The way I settled around him. Safe without needing to be fragile. Strong without needing to perform. His North London flat. The kettle. His sharp sarcasm. The way he'd tilt his head at me like I was something curious and important. The sound of his boots. The quiet weight of his body beside mine.

God, I missed him.

My eyes stung.

I squeezed them shut.

And then the silence returned.

Louder now. Pressing in at the edges.

I focused on the pillow. The scent. Focused on the slight creak of concrete cooling. On the distant hum of the generator. On the mattress shifting beneath my weight.

I tried to breathe through it.

But it was already slipping.

My hands clenched around the blanket.

My back started to tremble.

The ache in my sternum bloomed outward.

And I knew—I knew—what was coming next.

Not now.

Not now.

Please, not now.

I curled onto my side more, dragging the blanket higher over my shoulder.

Spectre's bed was wider than mine back in the SAS barracks—probably built with his hulking size in mind—but I still made myself small. I folded into myself like I used to in cell blocks. Knees tucked to my chest. Hands pressed to sternum. Eyes locked on the far corner of the room, but not seeing it. Not really.

I was starting to shake.

It wasn't dramatic. Not yet. Just the terrifying edge of something. That familiar beginning—the quiet creep of pressure behind the ribs. Breath not deep enough. Limbs too heavy. That cold prickle along the spine, the kind that whispered not again, not again.

I tried to breathe through it. Counted backward from ten.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight—

The softest sound—barely a breath—broke the silence.

The door creaked open.

My head didn't move, but my eyes flicked toward the sound. I hadn't even heard the footsteps approaching. Not a single bootfall. But I knew who it was the moment he entered. Koldun never barged. He glided.

It was the quietest I'd ever seen him. And somehow, that hit harder than anything he could've said.

For a moment, he stood there. Just stood, like he wasn't sure what to do next. Then he crossed the room and sat—carefully—on the far side of the bed. His back rested against the headboard. He didn't take off his boots. Didn't speak.

The mattress dipped faintly under his weight.

I didn't look at him. My breath caught somewhere in the middle of my chest.

He didn't force it. Didn't prod. Just waited.

Then, finally, a quiet murmur broke the silence.

"...Ninochka?"

It was softer than usual. No teasing. No sassy grin behind it. Just warmth. Gentle concern. The kind of softness Koldun rarely showed on purpose.

I didn't answer.

Couldn't.

My jaw was clenched too tightly. My throat felt like glass. And worst of all, the air felt heavier now. Like my lungs were on a timer.

I must've made a sound—some unconscious hiccup of breath—because Koldun shifted slightly. I felt, rather than saw, the turn of his head.

He didn't speak again. Didn't try to make me talk.

Instead, he glanced around the room.

His gaze found the little radio on Spectre's desk. The one I hadn't touched.

Without a word, he stood and moved across the room with the same quiet grace that always surprised me for a man of his build. There wasn't a single clank or scrape. He might as well have floated.

He turned the dial slowly.

There was a low hum of static—then a soft click as the tuner found something. Music bled into the quiet. Gentle. Melancholic. Like a memory you weren't ready to remember.

A voice drifted through, low and echoing. I didn't recognize the language. Might've been Polish. Russian. Old.

But the sound of it—

It hit like a ghost.

I flinched. It didn't take much after that.

My fingers clenched tighter in the blanket. The tremble in my spine turned into a quake. Not violent. Not yet. But enough. Enough to break the surface tension.

I curled tighter.

I tried to breathe slow—in through the nose, out through the mouth—but it didn't help. The air was thin. My chest locked up. And my eyes, stupidly, started to burn.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard.

Still didn't stop it.

I pressed my face into the pillow.

Spectre's pillow.

It still smelled like him. Smoke and cold wind. The faintest trace of that goddamn clove soap. That made it worse.

The ache that cracked open in my chest wasn't just fear—it was longing.

For safety. For Ghost.

For that quiet flat in London where I could hear the wind on the windows, not the buzz of halogen lights.

I missed his voice.

I missed his silence.

I missed the way he never needed to say much to make me feel like the world wasn't ending.

But he wasn't here.

No one was.

Not Spectre. Not Ember. Not the 141.

Just me.

And Koldun.

I shook harder. My hands twitched, useless against the spiral now.

My thoughts blurred—ghosts of voices bleeding together. Ghost, Spectre, Ember. I could hear them and not hear them at the same time. Like echoes through a tunnel. Nothing real. Nothing solid.

Until—

A hand.

Warm.

Heavy enough to feel real. Light enough not to startle.

It landed on my shoulder, right where the muscle met the bone.

Just one hand.

He didn't move it.

Didn't squeeze. Didn't rub.

Just... anchored me.

Like a stone dropped into churning water.

I couldn't stop crying. Silent, salt-soaked tears streamed into the pillowcase. But I wasn't choking anymore. My chest still hurt, but it wasn't collapsing. Not fully.

His touch didn't fix anything. It just held me through it.

And that— That was enough.

Minute by minute, the worst of the wave passed.

My breathing stayed shaky. My eyes ached. My head was throbbing.

But the spiral lost its pull.

The song played on.

Something with a violin now. Soft and sad. But not devastating.

Eventually, Koldun spoke again. Quiet. Just loud enough for me to hear through the blanket.

"Only thirty-six more hours to go."

I let out a laugh—a broken, breathless thing that cracked mid-chest.

But it was something.

He didn't say anything else. Didn't leave. Didn't fill the quiet.

He just stayed.

Until the next song ended.

Then a little longer.