The forest to the Old Estate was wrong.
Too still.
Too cold.
Too... expectant.
Roxanne sat in the backseat, eyes half-open, half-calculating, fingers absently tapping the stolen blueprint between her thumb and forefinger.
Cain drove.
Loman scanned the tree line.
No one spoke.
They didn't need to.
The silence spoke for them.
When the road narrowed into a single dirt path, the comms went out at the same instant.
Not static.
Not distortion.
Just—
gone.
Cain muttered,
"That wasn't natural."
"No," Roxanne said softly.
"It was timed."
Loman tightened his grip.
"On us?"
"On me."
They got six meters farther before—
BOOM—!
Something slammed the hood down like a titan's fist.
Metal howled.
Their car skidded sideways, thrown into a violent spin before crashing nose-first into a tree.
Smoke.
Shattered glass.
Silence.
Roxanne was already out the door.
"MOVE!"
Cain and Loman barely dove aside before the car was lifted — tilted — and hurled into the brush.
It exploded in a shower of sparks.
Cain coughed.
"What the hell is—"
Roxanne snapped, "Don't talk. Listen."
The forest answered.
A soft shift.
A breath of weight on leaves.
Four steps to the left.
Three above.
One—
Right behind them.
They scattered.
Good timing.
A blade cut the air where Roxanne's spine had been half a second earlier.
She pivoted, ring flicking open, her blade slicing a clean arc across the attacker's forearm.
No scream.
Just a grunt.
They were trained.
Professionally trained.
But more importantly—
They knew her timing.
She ducked a blow she felt coming before she saw it.
Loman tumbled under a strike, rolling to Roxanne's flank.
Cain blocked a blade with his baton, twisted, slammed the attacker's elbow until it cracked.
Roxanne moved like an echo of herself.
Like someone else already knew her choreography.
Each strike she threw—
They countered.
Each dodge—
They anticipated.
And yet—
She was faster.
Sharper.
Colder.
Another attacker lunged.
She caught his wrist mid-air, redirected his momentum, slammed him into a tree trunk with enough force to knock him unconscious instantly.
Three down.
Five to go.
"Roxy—" Cain called out, "they're mirroring your stance!"
"No," she snapped, slicing upward and disabling another—
"They're mirroring the version of me they studied."
Loman froze a second too long.
"Studied? When? How—?"
"Focus!"
She took down the next one with a brutal knee strike and a precise throat jab, dropping him cleanly.
Cain dispatched another with a sweep and a crack of bone.
Loman, despite his dramatics, was vicious when cornered.
The sound of his baton discharging sent another body falling limp.
Five more bodies collapsed into the ferns.
And then—
Silence.
Real silence.
Not the manufactured one from before.
The triplets stopped moving.
Breathing hard.
Listening again.
Roxanne's pupils sharpened.
Cain finally asked,
"...That all of them?"
"No."
Roxanne didn't know how she knew.
She just felt it.
A shift.
A presence.
Not in front.
Not behind.
Above.
She looked up—
Just as a shadow leapt from the treetop straight toward her.
She didn't flinch.
She timed it.
Calculated.
Stepped back—
And grabbed the figure mid-air by the collar, using their momentum to flip them over and slam them into the ground.
The mask came loose for half a second.
A face.
Not familiar.
Not distinctive.
Unremarkable—
Except for the eyes.
Not blank.
Not crazed.
Focused.
Like they were waiting for her.
Studying her.
The way someone watches something they've memorized.
Before she could question—
The ground trembled.
Roxanne looked up sharply.
The last attacker—
the most skilled of the group—
didn't attack.
They just stood there.
Motionless.
Watching her.
A silent evaluation.
Then, without warning—
They threw something onto the ground.
A metallic sphere.
Roxanne shouted—
"DOWN!"
It detonated—
Not an explosion.
A flash.
Pure white.
A sensory overload device designed to blind and disorient.
Roxanne staggered but recovered faster than Cain or Loman.
By the time her vision cleared—
The attacker was gone.
No footsteps.
No sound.
No trace.
Just the faint smell of scorched metal where the sphere had landed.
Loman groaned.
"I'm going to need so much therapy."
Cain steadied himself.
"Did you see their technique? That wasn't military. That wasn't mercenary. That was—"
Roxanne finished quietly,
"—homegrown."
The boys froze.
"Roxy..." Loman whispered.
"That means—"
"It doesn't mean anything yet."
Her voice was sharp.
Not angry.
Just refusing to let her own fear speak.
Cain touched her shoulder.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine."
Which meant she wasn't.
She knelt beside one of the fallen attackers.
Checked the gloves.
Custom-made.
High-grade.
Not sold publicly.
Not traceable.
Professional.
But one detail stopped her cold—
The stitching.
Silver thread.
Not expensive.
Not unique.
But old.
Outdated.
Something no modern organization would use.
Something traditional.
Something someone kept from long ago.
Her breath stuttered.
She didn't recognize the stitching.
But she recognized the technique.
"I've seen this seamwork before," she murmured.
"Where?" Cain asked.
She shook her head.
"I can't place it. It's like... something from my childhood."
Loman frowned deeply.
"Are you sure?"
"No."
It was the truth.
And also a lie.
She knew the pattern.
She just didn't know why she knew it.
Cain exhaled shakily.
"We need to move. Whoever trained them could send more."
"No," Roxanne corrected.
"We were meant to survive this."
The boys looked at her sharply.
"Roxy—what are you saying?"
She stood, wiping blood off her blade.
"Look where they attacked."
"...the forest?" Loman guessed.
"No."
She pointed to the broken trees behind them.
"The exact midpoint between the lake house and the vault"
Cain's breath caught.
"They were herding us."
Roxanne nodded.
"Into the open."
"Why?" Loman asked.
She looked at the dark canopy overhead.
At the last place she'd seen the shadow vanish.
Her voice was icy still.
"Because someone wanted to see how well we fight."
Cain swallowed hard.
"Why?"
Roxanne met his eyes.
And for the first time since the attack—
A flicker of fear passed through her expression.
"Because they're preparing for something."
"What something?"
Roxanne looked into the darkness.
Her voice barely above a whisper.
"...Me."
The forest shifted.
As if agreeing.
And somewhere, hidden far beyond their sight—
Someone watched her.
Quiet.
Patient.
Satisfied.