80. All present

Spectre's Safehouse, Warsaw – 18:00

The hallway buzzed with too much silence.

Not the calm kind. Not peace. No, this was the heavy, unyielding quiet of waiting. The sort that clung to the skin like damp cloth. That made every echo sound louder than it should—footsteps, breath, heartbeat. It was all I could hear.

I paced, slow and measured, like a caged thing trying to wear a trench in the floor. Back and forth along the concrete stretch outside the entrance hatch, where the red digits of the timer panel glowed like blood under glass. The outer lock still sealed. No movement yet. Not even a sound from the upper levels.

I told myself I was just stretching my legs. That I was restless.

Truth was, I couldn't sit still.

The stitches at my side tugged with every pivot. A reminder. You're not ready. You're not healed yet. But I kept walking anyway.

They were due back. Had to be.

I glanced at the digital watch on my wrist. 17:59:46.

Sixteen seconds.

My mouth was dry.

You're not going to cry. You already did that once when they left.

This time, you're stronger.

But my fingers twitched, brushing down my sides like I was trying to count myself into calm. They were supposed to return now—Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Price. Spectre. His Wolves. All of them.

All of them.

The weight of that thought kept pressing on my lungs.

I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling. Concrete, same as ever. Cracked and stained from time. A light flickered in the far corner like it always did—nothing unusual. The bunker was unchanged.

But I wasn't.

Not after 36 hours of silence and waiting and pretending I was fine. I'd dreamed of gunshots. Of radios crackling but no one answering. Of blood and bodies and voices cutting out mid-breath. I told myself they were just dreams. Just leftover nerves. But I hadn't slept much.

I stood still now, in the center of the hallway. Waiting.

Five seconds.

Four.

Three.

I breathed in deep.

Two.

One.

The lock hissed.

There was a slow, mechanical groan as the outer hatch disengaged. A vibration through the floor that made my knees lock tight. I didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't even swallow.

The door opened.

And they came.

Mud-streaked boots first. Then shadows in the dim light. One by one, they entered—the Wolves and the 141, moving in practiced rhythm, eyes scanning, shoulders squared. But none of them were shouting. No panic. No stretcher teams. Just movement.

My throat cinched up.

They were here. They were back. Still breathing.

Soap stepped through first, his vest half unzipped, shirt torn at one elbow. He had dried blood on his cheek—already crusted. But it wasn't his. I knew that instantly. He moved with his usual swagger, brow furrowed, muttering something to Gaz just behind him.

Gaz, covered in grime but upright, alert, alive. A scratch on his jaw. A cut on his hand. Nothing major.

Then came Captain Price. Slower. He had a limp—minor, probably just soreness—but otherwise whole. His expression unreadable as always. Sharp eyes. Steel posture. The captain was fine.

Then—

Ghost.

He stepped through the haze of dust and recycled air like something out of a war-torn photograph. That balaclava—the skull one, the one—was pulled over his face, streaked with grime and blood and god-knew-what else. The eye sockets were hollowed black, but I knew what waited behind them.

His gaze cut through the room like it always did—sweeping, assessing, never lingering too long. Until it landed on me. And held.

We didn't move. Neither of us. Not for a heartbeat. Not for two.

Then he gave the slightest nod. Just that. One little gesture like a dropped pin in silence, and yet it cracked open something in my chest I hadn't realized was locked.

He was limping. Barely. The kind of limp someone trained to endure wouldn't even acknowledge. But I noticed. I noticed the dirt smeared up his left arm. The loose strap on his vest. The way he carried himself—not in pain, but in fatigue. That kind of exhaustion you couldn't wash off with water or sleep. But he was alive. He was back. My Ghost.

I didn't move. Didn't let myself reach out or breathe his name or do something impulsive like cross the hall and grab him by the front of his vest and say don't you ever leave me again. I just stood there and let the relief crush me from the inside out, quiet and invisible.

He didn't say a word. Didn't have to. And then he moved on, deeper into the safehouse with the others, his silhouette fading into steel and shadow.

Spectre came next.

He looked like war itself.

Dark smudges streaked down the side of his neck. Armor scraped raw. Knuckles bloody. But upright. Whole. He was even scowling, which was a good sign.

And no one else.

No one was missing.

I counted them. Once. Twice. A third time.

I scanned their faces. Checked every shadow. Every silhouette.

No body bags.

No one left behind.

My knees nearly gave out.

But I didn't move.

I didn't run to any of them. Didn't throw myself into their arms like a dramatic third-act heroine. That wasn't me. Not anymore. Maybe never had been.

I just stood there. Frozen in place. Breathing. In. Out. In again.

No one's missing, not even one. Still breathing.

I didn't know how long I stood like that. Watching. Letting my heart beat itself into bruises.

They moved past me in twos and threes, heading deeper into the safehouse—toward the debriefing room, toward showers, bunks, food, whatever routine their bodies craved. The mission was over, and I was just—still there.

A quiet ghost in the hall.

I kept counting them in my head.

They were back.

And none of them knew how close I'd come to losing my mind waiting for them.

Spectre's Safehouse, Warsaw – 18:30

The briefing room was colder than I remembered.

Not by temperature—just atmosphere. The low buzz of fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and one of the ceiling vents clicked softly every so often. Someone had cracked open one of the supply lockers to rest their boot on. I recognized Gaz's mud-crusted footprint on the steel casing.

Soap was slouched in one of the chairs, still half armored, leg bouncing with leftover adrenaline. Gaz leaned against the wall by the projector terminal, arms crossed, chin lowered like he was conserving what little energy remained. Koldun hovered off to the side, face impassive for once.

Captain Price stood at the head of the room.

Spectre was next to him—slightly behind, to the left. The way shadows always stand beside fire.

And Ghost?

Ghost sat across from me, diagonal at the table. Still masked. Still unreadable.

But I could feel him there.

The debrief had already begun by the time I got myself seated. I hadn't even registered the walk from the hallway to the room. Everything blurred at the edges, the way it does when your body moves out of habit and your thoughts lag behind.

I took the last open seat without a word, my spine stiff and posture tight. The hard edge of the chair pressed into the stitches along my side. I didn't flinch.

"Operation was successful," Price began, his voice even. Graveled by fatigue but grounded as ever. "Six bio weapon caches located, five neutralized. The sixth was already empty when we arrived—cleaned out."

Gaz muttered something about rats and ghosts. I wasn't sure which ones he meant.

Price continued. "Intel held. Everything Vesper and Spectre gave us lined up with what we found on site. Names, coordinates, chemical markers. Your memory work saved us weeks of work."

I gave the smallest nod, not trusting my voice to say thank you or I'm just glad you made it back. The words were lodged somewhere behind my ribs, brittle and unwelcome.

"Dragovich's legacy is officially dismantled." Price said, and it hit me like a dropped stone.

Legacy. As if evil could ever be passed on like inheritance.

He paused, lips pressing into a line. His eyes swept the room, checking faces, reading expressions. It was subtle, but I saw the moment his posture shifted slightly. Like he was delivering news he didn't want to speak aloud.

"But the trail didn't end there," he said quietly.

Silence fell like frost over the room.

"We found signs of involvement we weren't expecting. Patterns in the comm logs, redundant kill protocols, fallback staging too clean. There were backup locations Dragovich didn't have access to. Ghost code language that wasn't his style."

He looked at Spectre for a beat. Then Ghost.

Then me.

"Vladimir Makarov." he said flatly.

The name cracked the air.

Soap's boot tapped the floor once, hard. Gaz's fingers clenched where they rested on his elbow. Spectre didn't move—only exhaled once, long and low.

I sat straighter before I realized I was doing it. My shoulders stiffened. My spine locked. My fingers curled against the edge of the table like I could hold myself in place.

Ghost's gaze was on me now. I felt it, even through the mask.

"He wasn't there," Price went on, "but his fingerprints were. On the logistics. On the fallback protocols. Like Dragovich was just..."

"A pawn." Ghost said quietly.

Price nodded.

"Son of a bitch," Soap muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face. "I knew it was too smooth. Bastard's always two steps ahead."

Koldun shifted beside the terminal, expression unreadable. But he was listening. Closely.

Spectre's jaw flexed once. "He covered his tracks."

"Too well." said Price.

My throat was tight. My mouth even tighter.

Someone—Gaz, I think—finally asked, "Vesper. Did you ever meet him? When you were with Dragovich?"

All eyes turned to me.

I could've said no. I could've lied.

But I didn't.

"Yes," I said quietly. "A few times."

I didn't blink. I didn't look down. I spoke like I was reciting numbers on a medical chart—detached, stripped clean.

"Dragovich had him over when he wanted to flaunt his influence. Show off his empire. The kids were starving in the courtyard. Thin as sticks. Could barely stand."

My voice stayed even. I kept it that way.

"But in the office," I continued, "they had me serve them tea."

Soap shifted in his seat. Gaz stilled.

"Da Hong Pao," I said. "Loose-leaf. The good kind, imported. I had to get the steep time just right or Dragovich would make me try again."

I swallowed. My fingers curled tighter around the chair edge.

"And biscuits. The crumbly kind. Melted chocolate. Real butter."

My tongue tasted metal.

"They'd drink and talk about oil fields. Bio-agents. Nuclear blackmail. Then laugh. Just—laugh. Like it was a chess match between friends."

I stopped, just for a second. The silence in the room was a vacuum.

"Meanwhile," I said, "the children drank brown water. Melted ice from the runoff pipes. It gave them fevers. Stomach rot."

Soap's jaw clenched. His eyes were glassier now. He looked away.

"He watched them starve," I said. "And smiled." There was a pause in the air—too sharp, too still. "He's not like Dragovich," I finished. "He's worse."

I met Ghost's eyes across the table. My voice dropped low.

"Dragovich wanted to own the world. Makarov? He wants to burn it."

The words landed like knives.

No one spoke for a long moment.

Then Soap whispered, "Fucking hell." so softly it was barely audible.

Price's face was like stone. He looked to the side. Toward Ghost.

Spectre hadn't moved. But his fists were clenched on the table, blood crusted along his knuckles from the mission.

And Ghost?

He hadn't shifted once. But I could feel something change behind his eyes. Something that flared like distant fire—small but focused. Like he was locking something into place. Cataloguing it. Weaponizing it.

The room stayed quiet after that. The kind of quiet that came before a storm. Or after a decision had been made.

Price cleared his throat. "That's it for now. We are oficcially done with Warsaw and with Dragovich. Debrief continues at 0600. Dismissed."

Chairs scraped back. Boots hit floor. Everyone stood, slow and bone-weary.

I didn't move right away.

I stayed in my seat, hands clasped in front of me, eyes on the dent in the table's metal surface. The one someone—Spectre, probably—during a post-op dispute. The ridge was cool under my fingers.

No one asked me to repeat anything. No one questioned the truth.

Because they all knew.

Makarov wasn't just a name anymore.

He was a target.

And he was coming.

Spectre's Safehouse, Warsaw – 19:08

The safehouse shifted as the storm settled.

The debrief was over, but the weight hadn't lifted. Not entirely. It just scattered—dissolved into the walls and shadows and in-between spaces like fine dust settling after an explosion. Everyone moved slower now, muscle memory guiding limbs dulled by fatigue. Packs were dropped in corners, armor peeled off with grimacing effort, boots kicked loose beside lockers or bunks. The place smelled like sweat, iron, and the wet earth they'd dragged in.

I moved without thinking.

Not to the medical supplies. Not to my own matress in the room given to the 141. Not even to Spectre's room, though a part of me still buzzed with the thought of finding him, seeing him properly. No, my boots carried me into the common corridor first, where the Wolves had already started filtering out, but the 141 remained close-knit. Clustered. Like gravity still hadn't let them loosen.

Soap and Gaz were in the far corner of the room, crouched beside a supply crate they'd converted into a makeshift table. Between them sat two steaming plastic meal packets—rehydrated chicken curry, from the smell—and several bottles of electrolyte fluid in army-issue green.

It was foul. It was post-op tradition.

Soap noticed me first.

"Well," he drawled, mouth already crooked into that lazy half-grin, "look who's still breathin', bonnie."

Gaz didn't even glance up right away. Just nudged Soap with a knuckle and added dryly, "She's probably here to scold us for not wiping our boots."

"I'm here," I said, stepping forward, "because for once I wanted to make sure you idiots didn't come back in a box."

They looked up then.

And I didn't wait.

I walked straight over to them, boots echoing softly on the concrete, and dropped to one knee between their crouches. My arms looped around both of their shoulders in one movement—awkward, tight, ungraceful. I felt Gaz grunt in surprise, Soap huff a short breath of amusement. But they leaned into it without hesitation.

My arms trembled.

I held them both tighter. They were warm. They were solid. Still alive.

No words. Just a breath that cracked somewhere in my chest as I buried my face between them.

It lasted maybe five seconds. Maybe less.

Then I let go and stood up too fast, straightening like a snapped wire and immediately turning my head away, face locked in some neutral mask that wasn't fooling anyone.

"Glad you're okay," I muttered, eyes on the far wall. "Idiots."

Soap's laugh was low and full of something gentler than mockery. "Ach, don't get soft on us now."

Gaz gave me a knowing glance and leaned back against the crate, arms folding loosely across his chest. "We missed you too, you know. Place was way too quiet without someone yelling at Soap to stop humming while he cleans his rifle."

"I don't hum." Soap protested.

"You do hum." I said, flat.

He smirked. "Only the sexy songs."

I turned away before they could see the smile start to crack at the edges of my mouth.

The hallway beyond was quieter. I walked slower now. The tension had dropped from my shoulders just a little—enough to notice that my side still ached when I turned too sharply. I ignored it.

Captain Price was easy to find.

He was seated alone in the mission planning alcove—one of the old steel tables beneath a flickering light, maps spread before him, though he wasn't reading them. His mug steamed faintly, one hand curled around it while the other rubbed slow circles over the bridge of his nose. He looked more tired than usual. Not weak—never that—but older, somehow. Like a mountain that had taken too many storms and was still holding.

I didn't speak as I approached. Just stepped beside him in silence and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder.

His body tensed for a half-second, then relaxed.

"Glad you're okay, sir." I murmured, like it mattered more than I could say.

He didn't look up. Didn't need to.

Just patted my hand twice with two fingers. "You too, Vesper."

That was all.

And it was enough.

I stood still for a few moments longer, eyes scanning the maps on the table. Most of them were irrelevant now—burned caches, lost territory. The bones of a legacy we'd finally buried. But others had new marks. Fresh circles. Tracks that led nowhere yet.

I didn't ask. Price didn't offer. We were soldiers again. That quiet understanding was all we needed.

When I finally stepped away, I let my eyes wander the length of the safehouse one more time.

I'd seen Soap. Gaz. Price. Koldun had hovered earlier, now vanished—probably retreating to the Wolves' corridor to check on his own.

But there was a name still missing in my gut.

Ghost.

I hadn't seen him since the debrief. He hadn't spoken once, not even when Makarov was mentioned. He'd sat still, breathing slow, eyes unreadable behind that skull-painted balaclava. And when the briefing ended, he was simply gone.

My gaze drifted.

He was always the hardest to find.

But part of me... part of me already knew where to look.

Spectre's Safehouse, Warsaw – 19:15

I found him in the west corridor.

Of course I did. It was the quietest stretch of the whole safehouse—low-lit, with an exposed concrete wall on one side and a row of closed storage doors on the other. No cameras. No foot traffic. Just long shadows and the soft hum of the generator far below.

Ghost stood with his back half-turned, shoulder leaned into the wall like he was part of it. Still in full gear, though his vest was unclipped and hanging loose, and one gloved hand idled near the base of his neck, fingers tapping the fabric there. He looked like a statue someone had left behind. Waiting for the right moment to move.

And he wore the skull.

Not the fabric one. The real one. The balaclava from the field—modern weave, matte-black, with the bleached bone smirk stitched clean across his jaw. The same one I saw in the haze of gas and fire when he pulled me out of that chapel. It made my chest tighten just looking at it.

He didn't move until I was five steps away.

Then his head turned. Slow. Controlled. No sudden motions, no sound. Just that quiet angle of his body shifting so I could see him fully. See the hollow black eyes behind the pattern of bone. His gaze found mine—and held.

I stopped walking.

I didn't speak. Neither did he. The silence between us wasn't cold, not exactly. It was heavy. Ours. Weighted like rainclouds, but clean. Honest. We didn't need noise to fill it.

For a second, I thought I'd imagine the warmth of the safehouse would disappear—like he brought the chill of the mission back with him, dragged it down the corridors and into the marrow of the building.

But I was still warm. I just hadn't realized how cold I'd been inside without him.

I didn't say his name. He didn't ask why I was there. We just stood, maybe two meters apart, in the middle of nowhere and everywhere, and looked.

You're alive. You're back. I was scared.

The words weren't needed. They never were with him. I let my eyes do the talking.

And Ghost, to his credit, didn't look away.

There was something different in the way he watched me. Not intense. Not unreadable. It was quiet, a kind of acknowledgment, like he'd come back carrying more than dirt and bruises. Like he'd carried me in his head too.

And suddenly, I didn't care who might round the corner. Who might see us. The others could think what they wanted. They didn't know the sound of his voice through the comms at 3 a.m., telling me to breathe. They didn't see the way his hand bled steady and quiet when he pulled me from that chapel floor. They didn't know him like I did. They didn't know how low his voice can truly get at night, when we were half asleep on his couch, next to each other.

But I did.

And I couldn't bring myself to cross the full distance to him. Not all the way.

So I did the next thing I could. My hand reached out and I didn't even think about it. It just moved. Fingers brushing forward, barely a step more, until I found the edge of his glove.

Not laced. Not held. Just—touched. A grounding. A point of contact between two weapons too tired to sheath.

His hand closed around mine, slow and deliberate. The squeeze was brief. Controlled. No tremor. Just pressure.

I'm here. I know.

No one saw.

"Still in one piece." he said quietly.

The accent was rough, but familiar. That Manchester edge coiled tight under clipped vowels. Flat, understated. Dry like smoke curling off the end of a match. It wrapped around the syllables like armor.

I breathed out.

"Good." I said, just as soft.

I wanted to say more. That I'd counted every minute. That the silence of the safehouse clawed at my bones. That I'd tuned into the comms and heard his voice, held onto it like a lifeline. That I'd traced the seams of my stitches and thought of the way he looked at me when he left. But I didn't. I didn't need to.

He didn't let go right away. Just held my hand there between us, gloved warmth against skin, until the sounds of boots echoed somewhere behind me. A door creaked open two corridors down. Someone coughed.

Ghost's grip eased.

I stepped back.

No words. No nod. Just space.

He shifted his shoulder slightly against the wall, turning his head away again like he hadn't been waiting at all. Like the whole moment had never happened.

But my pulse still hadn't slowed.

I walked away before I could reach for him again.

Spectre's Safehouse, Warsaw – 19:45

The door to his room wasn't locked.

I wasn't sure if that was because he expected someone, or because he didn't care anymore. Maybe both. Either way, I didn't knock. Just slipped inside like the silence might unmake me if I hesitated.

The light was warm—yellow-orange from the battered lamp on the desk. It washed the walls in a kind of softness that didn't belong in bunkers like these. It almost made the space feel lived-in, even if most of it was clean lines and quiet tension. I'd slept here just a day ago, and somehow the air already felt different.

He was seated near the back corner, hunched slightly forward on the edge of the bed, elbow braced against his knee. His movements were slow, methodical—cleaning one of his knives with a stained cloth. There was a small pile of steel beside him, each one stripped down and laid out like a surgeon preparing for something intimate.

Spectre wasn't wearing a shirt. Just a thin black undershirt that clung to his ribs, soaked in sweat and spotted with grime. The kind of shirt that stretched slightly across the chest and made the bruises look worse. I could see the edges of deeper ones blooming under the hem of his collarbone, and another creeping purple under his right arm.

His head lifted when he heard me. Eyes already cutting in my direction.

For a second, he didn't say anything. Just looked.

Then—

"So. You got cozy in here."

I blinked. "What?"

He gave me one of his classic smirks. Barely-there. The kind that made you want to slap it off his face and hug him at the same time. "My room. My bed. You and Koldun had a whole slumber party while I was out risking my ass."

I crossed my arms. "Koldun told you."

"Of course he did. Little rat thinks he's hilarious." He leaned back a little, tossing the cloth onto the desk. "He said you made a little Vesper nest. Slept like a princess. Should I get you a tiara?"

"Only if it comes with matching trauma."

"He said you said my name."

I narrowed my eyes. "If I did, it was followed by 'idiot.' Or 'traitorous bastard.'"

He gave a low laugh. "Net. On skazal eto tak, budto ty skuchala po mne." No. He said it like you missed me.

My jaw clicked shut.

Spectre watched me for a second, then tipped his chin toward the bed. "Did you leave me a love note under the pillow?"

"Only my resentment."

His smile widened slightly. "Touching."

I took a slow step forward, then another. The ache in my side twinged from the stitches, but I didn't stop. He watched me come closer, but didn't move. Just let me approach, quiet and deliberate.

When I stopped in front of him, I realized how close we were.

His knees were almost brushing mine. He had a smudge of dried blood at his temple and a faint cut on his lower lip. His hands—still curled loosely around the hilt of a cleaned blade—were nicked and raw.

I stared at them. At him. At all of him, sitting there in front of me like nothing happened.

Something shifted in my chest. Opened. Cracked. Before I could stop myself, I leaned forward—and wrapped my arms around his neck. Tight. I felt him tense instantly.

Spectre wasn't used to being touched. Not like this. Not in silence, not with sincerity. And especially not by me since leaving me and Ember after Chistilishe. His whole body went still, like his mind had to catch up with what was happening.

But then—slowly, carefully—his arms lifted and came around me. One at my waist. One at my back. Strong and heavy and familiar.

He hugged me back.

Just like that, I felt my lungs working again.

"I'm glad you're okay," I murmured against his neck. My voice cracked at the edges. "Are you hurt? Did you get stabbed? Shot? Does it hurt to breathe?"

He gave a low grunt. "Only when you choke me like this."

I didn't loosen my grip.

"Mikhail."

"Just bruises. I'm fine."

I still didn't pull away.

"You sure?"

"Da." Yes.

Beat.

"Your back?"

"Still attached."

"Your ribs?"

"Cracked, not broken."

"Your head?"

"Thick as ever."

That earned a faint exhale from me. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sob either.

He shifted slightly under my arms, but didn't let go. Just leaned his head slightly against mine, the side of his jaw rough against my temple.

"You get like this every time I come back?" he asked, voice lower now. Closer.

"You almost didn't come back last time."

"That was different."

"It was still you."

We stayed like that for another moment. Maybe longer.

His chest rose and fell against mine, steady and grounding. I could feel the heat of his skin through the thin layers of fabric, and I hated how much of my worry was still there—clinging to the edges of my breath, coiling behind my eyes.

Eventually, I pressed my forehead into his shoulder. Closed my eyes. Let the weight of it all sink in.

"I'm glad my brother got home safe." I whispered.

His arms tightened just slightly.

I didn't say anything else, didn't need to.

The room stayed quiet—just the soft sound of breath, the faint hum of the safehouse beyond the walls. Distant voices. Boots against concrete. The war was outside now.

But here, in this room—

Mikhail Sergeyevich and I were still breathing.

Together.

Spectre's Safehouse, Warsaw – 23:48

The ceiling in the room given to the 141 was smoother than the one in Spectre's.

I noticed that first. No water stains. No cracks. No flickering bulb in the far corner. Just a plain stretch of concrete painted over in cheap matte white, pretending it was something gentler. The kind of lie buildings told to look less like cages.

I lay on my back on the plain matress, blanket tangled at my ankles, arms folded across my stomach like I'd forgotten how to sleep. The lights were off, but the hallway buzzed faintly beyond the door—a hum through metal and concrete and memory.

It was quiet now. For the first time in what felt like months, truly quiet.

And I didn't know what to do with that.

I closed my eyes. Then opened them again.

Too still.

The air was warm from the underground pipes running along the far wall. Someone had left a mug near the door—a half-drunk cup of coffee that was no longer steaming. I didn't remember if it was mine. Might've been Soap's. He'd visited earlier just to call me "bonnie" and ask if I'd finally cried when they came through the door.

I hadn't answered him.

Now, though, I let the stillness wrap itself around me like a sheet.

I thought about Ghost.

About how he didn't say much. Didn't need to. That quiet moment in the corridor played again in my head—his gloved hand squeezing mine, the low rasp of his voice, the certainty in his eyes that didn't need words. He was still in one piece. So was I.

Then Spectre. Sitting there like he hadn't almost died again. Smirking like the world didn't weigh twice as much on his shoulders. Letting me hug him without flinching. His bruises were already darkening. I'd have nightmares about those later. But he was alive. And for the first time since Chistilishe, I believed he might stay that way.

Koldun too. The chaos gremlin in black gloves who somehow anchored me more than I expected. His laughter still echoed in the corners of the safehouse and it made something small in my chest unclench. I'd come to trust him. Genuinely.

I thought about Captain Price, steady as always. His quiet acknowledgment. That firm pat on the hand, like he knew exactly what I was feeling and had no intention of calling it out.

Soap and Gaz. Two idiots, brilliant and loyal, somehow still breathing despite every suicidal op they volunteered for. They made the worst food taste bearable. They made hell survivable.

And Ember. Still in Prague. With the children. With the future.

That image alone made something sting behind my eyes.

They were safe. My family. My impossible, battered, weapon-trained, soft-hearted family.

I turned my head toward the wall and listened.

Somewhere above, a voice murmured—too faint to catch, just enough to remind me I wasn't alone. I didn't move. Just listened. Just breathed.

A part of me still expected to wake up in that concrete dormitory, toes cold against the floor, guards yelling down the hall. A part of me would always be crouched in the shadows of Chistilishe, waiting for Dragovich's voice to summon me. The shakes never really stopped. They just quieted.

But that part wasn't in charge anymore.

Because Dragovich was gone.

The thought hit like the echo of an explosion that had already passed. The smoke had cleared. The wreckage stood still. But the pressure was still behind my ribs, like a fist unclenching too slowly.

He was gone.

Dragovich's caches had been found. His labs and Chistilishe were burned to the ground. His weapons neutralized. The 141 and the Wolves had stormed through every last site he left behind like a fury I couldn't name.

And they won.

We won.

He was finished. His empire of starving children and whispered threats, his cold tea and sharper punishments, the darkness in the dormitories, the fear in Ember's voice—all of it ended.

It was over.

The stone that had lived under my breastbone for years—the weight of his shadow, his hand on my shoulder, his voice in my ear—slid free. Not easily. Not quietly. But I felt it go.

There would always be scars. That I knew. Some don't fade. Some are written into the marrow of you. The shakes would come back. The dreams too. But now I had hands to hold onto. Voices to wake me. Arms to anchor me.

I exhaled. Long and slow and full.

Warsaw was behind us now. So was Dragovich. No child would suffer under him again. And maybe, just maybe, I could begin again. With broken pieces, yes. But at least they were mine.

I turned my face toward the ceiling and let the silence hold me. It was no longer suffocating. Just still. Just peace.

And when I closed my eyes, I thought I heard footsteps down the hall again.

Familiar ones.

But I didn't get up.