I had thirty seconds. Maybe less.
The Iron Legion didn't knock. They didn't announce themselves. They didn't give warnings or ask questions. They showed up, they killed everything in the room, and they left. That was it. That was the whole playbook.
I'd seen what they could do in Sector 4. Lines of soldiers in black armor, moving like one animal with a hundred legs. Rifles that could punch through concrete walls. Shields that locked together like puzzle pieces. And behind them — the walkers. Tall, two-legged machines with mounted guns that swept streets clean the way a broom sweeps dust.
Three vehicles. Glitch said three. That meant at least thirty soldiers. Maybe a walker. Maybe two.
We had Maya on a rooftop. Jax on the third floor. Tiny at the front door. And me — standing in a dead man's office with eighteen percent energy, three dead fingers, and the taste of Malachi still rotting on my tongue.
