(LANCE )
The cliff ledge had become a slaughterhouse altar bathed in the first cruel rays of sunrise.
Blood ran in thick, glistening rivulets across the jagged stone — my blood from the graze on my arm and the deeper wound in my side, my brothers’ blood from the ridge above, and the dark crimson of the men I had already cut down. Elena’s sacrifice still echoed in every gunshot, every scream ripped away by the wind. I stood in front of Eliona like a broken shield, gun empty, knife slick with fresh blood, my chest wound burning like liquid fire as I faced the final wave.
Ghost stepped forward through the swirling smoke and dust, his silhouette jagged against the rising sun. Elena’s blood was a dark, drying map across his knuckles and the front of his cut. Behind him, Rico clutched his wou
