The plan was never meant to be clean.
Cassian knew that before the first team moved, before the routes were mapped and contingencies stacked like thin shields against the inevitable.
But he had believed—foolishly—that it could be contained.
That belief died the moment the first shot rang out.
---
The location Hale chose was deliberate.
An abandoned industrial transit hub on the city's edge—concrete corridors layered over rusting rail lines, wide enough to allow movement, narrow enough to funnel it. Cameras lined the ceilings, some obvious, some hidden. Every shadow was intentional.
Jonah was positioned at the center.
Not tied to a chair.
Standing.
Hale wanted him visible. Alive. Human.
Cassian watched through a delayed feed, jaw clenched, as Jonah lifted his head slightly—just enough to meet the camera's eye.
It was an invitation.
And a warning.
"He wants us to come in fast," Rafael said quietly. "Aggressively."
Cassian nodded. "Which means the real trap isn't at the perimeter."
Anabeth stood behind them, wrapped in a protective vest that felt too heavy for her body. Her face was pale, but her eyes were steady.
"This is my fault," she said.
Cassian turned sharply. "No."
She didn't argue.
But the thought stayed between them.
---
The teams moved in silence.
Four entry points. Two extraction routes. A fallback that assumed minimal resistance.
That assumption was the lie Hale had planted.
The first breach was textbook—locks overridden, corridor cleared, no immediate resistance.
Too easy.
Cassian felt the unease crawl up his spine.
"Hold," he said into the comm. "Something's—"
The explosion cut him off.
Not large.
Not dramatic.
Just enough to collapse the far corridor and sever Team Three from the network.
"Team Three down!" someone shouted. "We've lost—"
Static.
Then gunfire.
Not controlled.
Not tactical.
Panicked.
Rafael swore. "He split us."
Cassian's hands flew across the console. "He waited for us."
---
Hale watched from above, expression unreadable.
"They came faster than expected," Mara said beside him.
"Yes," Hale replied. "Because Cassian still believes in saving people."
Mara's jaw tightened. "This won't end well."
Hale smiled thinly. "For someone."
He raised a hand.
"Release the inner ring."
---
The inner doors slammed shut.
Teams found themselves trapped in intersecting corridors, each movement triggering automated defenses—turrets activating, lights cutting out, sonic disorientation pulses shattering coordination.
This wasn't a firefight.
It was a slaughterhouse.
Cassian shouted commands, trying to reassert control. "Fallback! Fallback to Route B—"
Route B collapsed in a thunder of concrete and dust.
Screams echoed through the comms.
Not screams of pain.
Screams of realization.
They were being fed into the kill zone.
Anabeth pressed her hands over her mouth, tears streaking silently down her face as she listened.
"This wasn't about Jonah," she whispered.
"No," Cassian said hoarsely. "This was about teaching me a lesson."
---
Jonah saw it happening.
He heard the shots.
He felt the tremor of explosions through the floor.
And he understood.
Hale wasn't rescuing control.
He was erasing doubt.
Jonah laughed—a broken sound.
"Coward," he muttered.
Hale stepped into view.
"You always misjudged me," Hale said calmly. "I'm not afraid of death."
Jonah looked up. "No. You're afraid of being irrelevant."
Hale regarded him for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
"True."
He turned away.
"Proceed."
---
The massacre escalated.
Teams cut down in corridors they couldn't retreat from. Smoke choking vision. Orders overlapping. Friendly signals lost in the noise.
Rafael slammed his fist against the wall. "We're losing them!"
Cassian's face had gone white. "I know."
He rerouted feeds, desperately searching for survivors.
Then he saw it.
A secondary chamber opening.
A false exit.
"Hale's letting some of us through," Cassian realized. "He wants witnesses."
Anabeth's voice trembled. "To what?"
Cassian didn't answer.
---
One of the teams broke through.
Bloodied. Shaken. Half their number gone.
They staggered into the extraction zone—and found it empty.
No transport.
No escape.
The lights came up.
Hale's voice echoed calmly through the chamber.
"Consider this mercy," he said. "You lived long enough to understand why you should never have come."
Gunfire erupted.
Cassian tore his headset off.
Anabeth screamed.
---
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Absolute.
The feeds went dark one by one.
Cassian stared at the final still image—blood streaking the concrete, weapons abandoned, no movement.
The rescue attempt was over.
Not failed.
Annihilated.
Rafael sank into a chair, breathing hard. "He murdered them."
Cassian's voice was barely audible. "He made me watch."
Anabeth stood frozen.
"This is because of me," she said again.
Cassian turned to her, eyes burning. "No. This is because Hale couldn't stand losing control."
"But he used me."
"Yes," Cassian said. "And now he's crossed a line he can't uncross."
---
Hale stood alone after it was done.
The bodies would be cleaned. The site erased. The narrative rewritten.
But something gnawed at him.
Not guilt.
Expectation.
Cassian hadn't broken.
He hadn't rushed in blindly.
He had stopped.
That wasn't surrender.
That was recalibration.
Mara approached quietly. "You killed a lot of people tonight."
"Yes," Hale said. "And?"
"You didn't kill the right one," she replied.
Hale turned slowly. "Explain."
"You wanted Cassian to lose hope," Mara said. "Instead, you gave him certainty."
Hale's expression darkened.
---
Back at the compound, the weight of the loss settled like ash.
Names were read.
Faces remembered.
Anabeth listened, numb.
"I don't know how you still stand," she whispered to Cassian.
Cassian didn't look away from the dark screens. "Because if I fall now, they died for nothing."
Rafael stood, eyes hard. "Hale thinks this was a victory."
Cassian nodded. "That's his last mistake."
Anabeth swallowed. "What happens now?"
Cassian finally turned to her.
"Now," he said, "we stop playing defense."
---
Somewhere in the city, Hale reviewed the aftermath reports.
Publicly, nothing had happened.
Officially, it was an industrial accident.
Unofficially, fear surged.
That pleased him.
But deep down, beneath calculation and control, something uneasy stirred.
Because Cassian hadn't begged.
Hadn't retaliated.
Hadn't spoken.
And silence, Hale knew too well, could be far more dangerous than noise.
The massacre had ended the rescue.
But it had begun something else entirely.
A war without restraint.