They came in with the smell of the winter wind still on their clothes.
Lachlan was already coiling the rope back up before putting it in the hall closet. Boots were already stacked by the wall to dry on the mat by the door. The guy's rifles had been cleared and laid with the muzzles to the corner… ready to be grabbed at a moments' notice.
The massive glass windows went dull behind them, the outside world pressing flat as if the day had only been a thought.
"We need to do an inventory," Zubair grunted when everyone had met back in the living room. It wasn't a bark, so much as just a line drawn. He set his palms to the windowsill behind him; frost thinning under the heat that bled from him when he wasn't watching. "Actual numbers, not hope."
Elias already had their go-bag haul in a neat line on the floor: MREs counted by touch, ammo in rows of five, med kit splayed and repacked like a heart surgeon's tray.
