Smoke choked the air as they crept through the halls, rifles ready. Alarms wailed overhead, punctuated by bursts of gunfire and distant screams. Every shadow felt alive, twitching with hidden danger. The Circle soldiers were desperate now, broken into small squads, hunting for any way out.
Iris moved ahead of Ava, silent as a ghost, eyes blazing with bloodlust. They rounded a corner and stumbled into three enforcers. For a moment, no one moved.
Then all hell broke loose.
Iris fired first, bullets ripping through one man's skull. Ava dropped to one knee, aiming carefully, squeezing off three shots that sent another enemy sprawling into the wall. The last man lunged at mher, knife flashing. Ava caught his wrist, twisting hard, feeling bones snap beneath her fingers before burying her blade into his throat.
Blood sprayed her face. She shoved him away, breathing hard, ears ringing with adrenaline.
Iris spat on the floor. "They're getting sloppy."
Ava wiped my blade clean. "Good. Makes this easier."
They kicked down doors, clearing rooms one by one. The halls became a maze of corpses and bullet holes. Every time we paused, Ava could feel Iris's anger vibrating off her like a storm.
Finally, they reached the central control room. Ava slammed her rifle butt into the security panel, cracking it open. Inside, she saw what she wanted: the main power relay. The last defense the Circle had left.
Iris grinned. "End them."
She flipped the switch. The lights flickered out, plunging the building into darkness.
They could hear the Circle soldiers screaming in the dark. Ava's voice echoed through the intercom, cold as death.
"Now you're alone," she whispered. "Now you get to feel what we felt."
Iris and Ava vanished into the shadows, hunting the survivors as they stumbled blindly through the dark. The Circle had once controlled everything.
Now they had nothing but fear.
The darkness was thick and absolute. The emergency lights flickered every few seconds, casting everything into blood-red shadows. Ava moved through the halls with Iris at my side, our footsteps silent on the tile. The Circle soldiers were blind now, but they were predators in this dark.
They heard them whispering, crying, arguing in the dark, some begging for backup that would never come. Others cursing them, their voices shaking with terror.
They slipped into one room and found a squad huddled around a portable light. They raised their rifles, but they were already on them. Iris fired first, two rounds dropping the man with the lamp. Ava dove forward, blade flashing, cutting through the neck of another before he could scream. Gunfire exploded in the tiny room, deafening, blinding. Something punched into Ava shoulder, but she didn't feel the pain, just heat and fury. She kept moving, cutting, firing, breathing the copper tang of blood and gunpowder.
When it was over, the light flickered and died, leaving only the sound of our ragged breathing. Ava grabbed her shoulder, feeling blood pour through her fingers.
Iris tore a strip from a dead man's shirt and tied it around the wound, her hands gentle despite the fire in her eyes.
"Stay alive," she whispered. "We're not done."
They kept moving. Room by room, they hunted them, clearing every corner, every barricade. They stumbled into another hallway where three soldiers tried to rush them. Ava dropped one with a shot to the face. Iris slit the throat of the second. The third ran, screaming, until Iris tackled him and carved a jagged line across his chest.
He gurgled, eyes wide, as Ava crouched beside him. "Where's your commander?" she hissed. He choked on blood, pointing weakly toward the lower levels.
They left him there, bleeding out.
They found the stairwell and descended into the lower labs. Down here, the walls were lined with cages and shattered glass tanks. Old experiments, half-decayed bodies, empty syringes. The stink was unbearable, like rot and burned plastic.
Ava heard voices ahead low, tense, urgent. They crouched behind a stack of crates, watching a group of Circle officers arguing in front of a large steel vault door. Their leader, a tall man in a gray uniform, slammed his fist into the wall. "Find her!" he barked. "She cannot escape!"
Ava recognized him: Commander Voss, the bastard who had ordered the hit on my family sixteen years ago.
Rage nearly blinded her. She gripped her rifle so hard her knuckles ached.
Iris touched her arm. "Wait," she whispered. "We need a plan."
Ava shook my head. "I'm done waiting."
She stepped into the open and fired. The first shot took Voss's second-in-command in the eye. The second hit another officer in the chest. Chaos erupted as Iris joined her, bullets tearing through the Circle ranks. Voss ducked behind a crate, barking orders as his men returned fire.
Rounds slammed into the crates around them. Shards of metal sliced into Ava's cheek, hot and sharp. She didn't care. She kept firing, kept moving, kept pushing forward. She wanted Voss's blood. She wanted him to feel every ounce of the pain he'd given her.
Iris tossed a smoke grenade, filling the hall with thick white clouds. They charged through the haze, blades ready. Ava heard screams, felt bodies slam into her, felt blood spray across her arms. Her knife found flesh, again and again, until she tripped over a corpse and rolled behind a column, gasping for breath.
Iris knelt beside her, panting, blood dripping from her hair. "They're falling back," she said.
Ava peered through the smoke. Voss was retreating toward the vault door, punching in a code with bloody fingers.
"NO!" she screamed, sprinting forward. Bullets tore past her, slamming into the walls. She didn't care. She tackled Voss just as the vault began to slide open, her knife sinking into his shoulder.
He roared, smashing the butt of his pistol into her temple. Stars exploded across her vision. They fell to the ground, grappling, his fingers clawing at her eyes. She jammed her thumbs into the wound in his shoulder and he howled.
Iris appeared, dragging him off her and slamming him into the wall. Ava scrambled to my feet, grabbed her rifle, and pointed it at his face.
"Remember me?" she hissed.
He spit blood, eyes wide. "You… you were supposed to be dead…"
She smiled. "Surprise."
She pulled the trigger.