Chapter 19 - THE NIGHT THE STARS FELL
The attack didn't come with the roar of engines or the flash of explosions.
It came with the silence of a whisper,
a subtle distortion in the air that only a man who had spent his life in the dark would notice.
The first sensor went off at 3:14 AM,
a soft pulse on my tablet that indicated a breach at the southern gate.
I didn't wake Emma.
I didn't make a sound.
I simply rolled to the gun safe,
my movements fluid and practiced,
and armed myself for the end of the world.
Luke was already in the crawlspace,
his thermal goggles scanning the trees,
his finger on the trigger of his silenced rifle.
"There are six of them,"
he whispered into the comms.
"Professional.
No chatter.
They’re using EMP shields."
"Let them come,"
I said,
my voice a cold,
dead thing.
"I want them to see me before they die."
I moved to the center of the great room,
turning off all the lights until the only illumination came from the moonlight spilling through the massive windows.
I sat there,
a shadow in a chair,
watching the thermal heat signatures move closer to the house.
They were fast,
moving with the precision of ghosts,
avoiding the obvious traps I had set.
But they didn't know about the 'Glass Trap'.
As the first man stepped onto the porch,
I hit the remote,
and the reinforced floorboards gave way,
dropping him into a pit of sharpened steel stakes.
The scream was short,
cut off by the sound of a silenced shot from Luke,
but it was enough to alert the others.
The remaining five didn't hesitate.
They shattered the windows with tactical charges,
the glass raining down like diamonds in the moonlight,
and stormed the room.
I didn't hide.
I fired.
The muzzle flashes illuminated the room in sharp,
staccato bursts,
revealing the faces of the men who had come to kill me.
They were young,
strong,
their bodies honed for violence,
but they were fighting a man who had nothing left to lose.
I took the first one in the throat,
the second in the chest,
my hand steady despite the adrenaline screaming in my veins.
One of them managed to get close,
his combat knife gleaming in the dark,
and he lunged for my neck.
I tilted my chair,
using the weight of the frame to knock him off balance,
and drove my own blade into his side.
We fell to the floor together,
a tangle of limbs and blood,
and for a moment,
I felt the primal urge to just keep stabbing until there was nothing left.
But then I heard Emma.
She had come out of the bedroom,
a shotgun in her hands,
her face a mask of absolute,
terrifying fury.
She didn't miss.
The blast caught the last assassin as he was aiming for my head,
throwing him back through the shattered window and into the night.
The room went silent,
the only sound the rasping breath of the dying and the smell of sulfur and ozone.
I looked at Emma,
standing there with the shotgun still smoking,
and I realized that she had become the very thing I had tried to protect her from.
"Are you hurt?"
she asked,
her voice flat and hollow.
"No,"
I said,
pulling myself back into my chair with a grunt of pain.
"Luke?"
"I'm clear,"
Luke said,
emerging from the shadows,
his face covered in soot.
"But there’s more coming.
This was just the vanguard."
I looked at the bodies on the floor,
at the blood staining the beautiful wooden floors,
and I knew that the Glass House was no longer a sanctuary.
It was a tomb.
"We have to go,"
I said,
looking at the stars through the broken ceiling.
"Now."
"Where?"
Emma asked,
her eyes reflecting the cold light of the moon.
"To the only place they won't expect,"
May you like
I said.
"Back to the beginning."
