Chapter Text
The helicopter had barely disappeared over the tree line when the silence settled in.
Not real silence. The forest was alive. Wind dragging through skeletal branches. Crows shifting somewhere unseen. The distant creak of wood from a village you could not yet see. But it felt like silence because there was no longer a way back.
Leon adjusted the strap of his shoulder holster and finally looked at you properly for the first time since landing.
“This is your last chance to tell me you made a mistake.”
You pushed your damp hair out of your face and gave him a tight smile. “I don’t make those.”
“That confidence is going to get you killed.”
“Your optimism is inspiring.”
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Not quite irritation. Something in between. He turned and started walking down the narrow dirt path without checking if you followed.
You did.
Of course you did.
The ground was uneven and slick, mud clinging to your boots in heavy clumps. You weren’t built like him. Not trained like him. But you were not fragile either, no matter how many times he looked at you like you were something breakable.
“You’re stepping too hard,” he said after a few minutes.
You exhaled slowly. “I’m walking.”
“You’re announcing it.”
“I didn’t realize I was auditioning for stealth god of the year.”
He stopped.
Actually stopped walking. You nearly bumped into his back from how abruptly he did so.
“This isn’t a classroom,” he said, turning to face you. His voice was calm but firm. “If something hears you before I do, I can’t fix that.”
The words were not cruel. Just blunt.
You held his gaze longer than necessary. “Then maybe you shouldn’t walk so far ahead.”
A pause.
The wind shifted. Something metallic clanged faintly in the distance.
Leon studied you like you were another variable in a mission that had too many already. “I’m not used to escort duty.”
“And I’m not used to being treated like luggage.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
You softened, just a little. “Look. I know I’m not field trained like you. But I’m the one who translated the transmissions. I know how they talk. The phrasing. The patterns. That matters.”
“It matters,” he agreed. “From a safe location.”
“You don’t have one.”
That hung between you. He resumed walking, slower this time. Not beside you, but not as far ahead. You took that as a win.
The trees began thinning, the air carrying a faint smell of smoke and something older. Rotting wood. Livestock. Damp stone. You wrapped your arms around yourself briefly, not from fear, just to steady your thoughts. You had listened to hours of recordings from this place. Whispered prayers twisted into something ugly. Words layered with devotion and violence. You could still hear them if you tried.
Leon noticed when you went quiet.
“You cold?” he asked without looking at you.
“No.”
A beat.
“Yes. But that’s not why.”
He glanced at you then, just briefly. Enough to show he was paying attention even when he pretended not to. The path curved, and through the trees you finally saw it.
The village.
Weathered houses clustered together like they were trying to hide from the forest. Smoke rose lazily from chimneys. It would have looked peaceful in another life.
Your stomach tightened automatically.
Leon slowed again, instinctively positioning himself slightly in front of you. Not dramatically. Just enough.
“I go first,” he said.
“I figured.”
“You stay behind me.”
“I figured that too.”
He gave you a look. Not annoyed. Measuring.
“You argue a lot for someone who insisted on coming.”
“I argue when I’m nervous.”
“You nervous?”
You hesitated. Just enough for him to notice.
“I’d be stupid not to be.”
That earned you something softer in his expression. Respect, maybe. Or recognition. A distant bell rang once from somewhere inside the village. Low. Hollow.
Leon’s hand hovered near his weapon.
“From this point on,” he said quietly, “you do exactly what I say. No improvising.”
You lifted your chin slightly. “I don’t improvise. I analyze.”
“In real time?”
“I’ll try not to slow you down, Agent Kennedy.”
He almost smiled at that. Almost.
“Leon,” he corrected automatically.
You blinked. “What?”
“Out here, it’s Leon.”
The smallest crack in the armor.
You nodded once. “Fine. Then don’t call me luggage, Leon.”
He exhaled through his nose, something close to amusement.
“Stay close,” he repeated.
This time it sounded less like an order and more like a request he didn’t want to phrase that way. As you stepped past the final line of trees and into the muddy outskirts of the village, you became sharply aware of two things at once.
One, you had chosen to be here.
Two, he was very aware of you being here.
Not as a burden.
Not yet as an equal.
But as something he would have to account for. And that, somehow, felt more dangerous than the villagers watching from behind their curtains.
Mud sucked softly at your boots as you and Leon stepped fully into the clearing. The houses were closer than they had seemed from the treeline, their wooden walls warped and damp, windows dark despite the faint smoke rising from chimneys. A cart sat abandoned near a well, one wheel half sunk into the ground as if it had given up trying to move.
No voices. No livestock. No children.
You wrapped your fingers tighter around the strap of your bag.
Leon scanned the open space slowly, eyes moving from rooflines to doorways to second story windows. He didn’t look afraid. He looked calculating.
“This doesn’t match the audio,” you murmured.
He glanced at you briefly. “How so?”
“There were always background sounds in the recordings. People talking. Movement. Tools. Even when they whispered, there was life behind it.” You swallowed. “This is too still.”
“You expecting a welcome party?”
“No. I’m expecting something pretending not to be one.”
His gaze sharpened slightly at that.
You moved a few steps closer to him without thinking. The air felt heavier here. Like stepping inside a room where an argument had just ended.
Leon nodded toward the nearest house. “We start there.”
It was small. Single story. The wooden door hung slightly uneven in its frame. As you approached, you noticed something scratched into the wood near the handle. A symbol. Crude. Circular.
You stepped closer to examine it but Leon’s arm lifted slightly in front of you without touching, blocking your path by instinct alone. “Don’t.”
“I just need a second.”
“It could be marked.”
“It is marked.”
He exhaled, patience thinning. “That’s not what I meant.”
You tilted your head at him. “You don’t think I know what contamination looks like?”
“I think I don’t know what this is yet.”
There it was again. That underlying tension. Not anger. Control. He needed it. You could see it in the tightness of his posture.
You softened your voice a fraction. “Then let me help you figure it out.”
A beat passed.
Slowly, he lowered his arm.
“Thirty seconds,” he said.
You stepped forward carefully. The wood was damp beneath your fingers but solid. The symbol was carved shallowly, not recent. The edges had darkened with age.
“It’s not random,” you murmured, mostly to yourself. “It’s ritualistic. Repeated shape. Probably tied to leadership or belief structure.”
“You get all that from a circle?”
“It’s not just a circle.”
You traced the faint outer lines with your eyes, mapping them in your mind. “It’s intentional. And if it’s on the door, it means this house matters.”
“To who?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out.”
You straightened and stepped back. Leon studied the door for another second before gently trying the handle.
It creaked open.
The sound was too loud in the quiet air.
Both of you froze.
Nothing rushed out.
No footsteps. No shouting. Just darkness inside.
Leon moved first, gun raised, stepping across the threshold with practiced ease. You followed a half step behind, pulse tapping lightly at your throat.
The interior smelled of old smoke and damp earth. A table stood near the center of the room with a single chair pushed back slightly, as if someone had risen from it in a hurry. A pot sat cold over a fireplace. Dust floated lazily in the thin beam of light from the doorway.
Leon swept the room methodically before lowering his weapon slightly.
“Clear.”
“For now,” you added.
He shot you a look.
“What?” you said quietly. “It’s true.”
You drifted toward the table, eyes scanning the surfaces. There were papers here too. Not as many as you had hoped. Most were handwritten, tight script in Spanish. You leaned closer, reading under your breath. Leon remained near the door, posture still alert, but his attention shifted toward you more often than the walls.
“You always narrate your thoughts?” he asked.
“Only when someone’s hovering.”
“I’m not hovering.”
“You’re three feet behind me.”
“That’s called security.”
You resisted the urge to smile.
“These references are the same,” you murmured, tapping lightly at the page. “The wording about purification. Submission. Renewal through suffering.” You inhaled slowly. “They believe this is salvation.”
Leon’s jaw tightened slightly. “That explains the recordings.”
“Yeah.”
Your fingers brushed another page, this one partially torn.
“They’re organized,” you continued. “Structured hierarchy. Whoever’s leading them isn’t improvising.”
He stepped closer, looking over your shoulder now. Close enough that you could feel the warmth of him despite the chill in the room.
“And you’re sure this is connected to the girl?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.”
The certainty in your voice surprised even you. Before he could respond, something shifted outside.
A faint crunch of gravel.
You both went completely still.
Leon’s hand rose instantly, signaling silence. His other hand tightened on his weapon.
The crunch came again.
Slow.
Measured.
Not wandering. Approaching.
Your heart began beating harder, but your mind sharpened instead of fogging. You glanced toward the single window near the sink. The curtain was thin, yellowed with age. Leon moved soundlessly toward the wall beside the door, positioning himself just out of sight.
He mouthed, Stay.
You rolled your eyes slightly but obeyed, stepping back into the deeper shadow near the table.
The footsteps stopped directly outside. For a moment, there was nothing…then the doorknob turned.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
You held your breath as the door began to open inward, and you realized this would be the first time you saw one of them in person.
Not through audio.
Not through transcripts.
But real.
Leon’s focus sharpened into something lethal. That’s when you understood, very clearly, that whatever stepped through that door would change the tone of this mission forever.
The door opened slowly. Not forced. Not rushed. It drifted inward with a tired groan, revealing a man standing on the threshold.
He looked like he belonged there. Work boots caked with mud. Sleeves rolled up. Calloused hands. One of them loosely holding a hatchet as if he had simply stepped out to tend to something. If you had passed him on a normal street, you wouldn’t have looked twice.
But his eyes were wrong.
They fixed on Leon first, then slid to you, and stayed there.
Leon stepped into view beside the doorframe, gun raised but not firing. His voice was steady, controlled. “We’re looking for someone.”
The man did not respond. He just stared.
You felt your throat tighten under that gaze. It wasn’t confusion. Not fear. Not even anger. It was assessment, like he was deciding something.
“Did a girl come through here?” Leon tried again, firmer this time.
The man’s head tilted slowly. His grip on the hatchet shifted.
You leaned slightly closer to Leon without meaning to. “He’s not going to answer you,” you whispered.
“I noticed.”
The man stepped fully into the house. The door swung shut behind him with a hollow thud. That sound felt final. The air thickened.
He took one more step. Then another.
Leon’s arm tensed. “Sir.”
The man’s lips parted as if he might speak.
Instead, he lunged.
Leon fired his gun right away.
The gunshot exploded inside the small room, deafening. The villager dropped instantly, collapsing onto the wooden floor, the hatchet clattering near Leon’s boot. Your ears rang as the smell of gunpowder filled the air.
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Then shouting erupted outside.
Not confused shouting. Angry. Close. Boots in the mud. Doors opening. Voices calling to each other.
“They heard that,” you breathed.
“Yeah.” Leon grabbed your wrist. “We need to move.”
Something slammed against the front door. Once. Twice. Wood splintered.
Leon pulled you toward the back of the house, all sharp movements now. The slow careful pacing from minutes ago was gone. This was urgency. He shoved open the back exit and cold air rushed in as you stumbled out into a cramped yard cluttered with logs and rusted tools.
The front door gave way behind you with a crash.
“They’re inside,” you said.
“Don’t look.”
You looked anyway. Figures were flooding into the house you had just been standing in.
Leon guided you along the side of the building, his hand still firm around yours. Not dragging. Just steadying. Making sure you were there.
A shout rang out to your right.
A woman stepped into view between two houses, eyes locked on you with unsettling focus. She raised a pitchfork and yelled something sharp. More heads turned.
Leon lifted his gun and fired. The crack echoed across the village. She fell, but it only made the others move faster.
The bell began ringing somewhere in the square. Loud. Repetitive. Insistent.
You flinched. “This is spiraling.”
“Stay with me.”
A man rushed from your left, too close. Leon shifted to aim, but another figure moved behind him at the same time.
You reacted without thinking. You grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled hard. The first attacker’s swing cut through empty space where Leon had been a second earlier.
He adjusted instantly, firing at the second villager before striking the first down in one clean motion.
For a split second, he looked at you.
Not annoyed. Not surprised. Just aware.
“You alright?” he asked quickly.
“Yes,” you said, though your pulse was racing.
He didn’t let go of your hand when he turned to run, and you didn’t pull away either.
You moved together between houses, boots slipping in the mud, the sound of pursuit growing behind you. The village that had felt empty minutes ago now felt alive and closing in.
Another shout, closer.
You tightened your grip on him without realizing it. “I am so not built for cardio.”
Despite everything, you heard the faintest breath of a laugh from him. “You picked a bad weekend.”
“I’m aware.”
He slowed just enough to let you keep pace instead of dragging you. That small adjustment did something strange to your chest.
More villagers spilled into the path ahead. Leon swore under his breath. The bell kept ringing.
The quiet beginning was gone.
The village was awake now.
And you were very, very visible.
They barely made it around the corner before Leon spotted it.
A narrow gap beneath a sagging wooden shed, half collapsed against a stone wall. The space underneath was barely high enough to crawl through.
“In there,” he said quickly.
“You’re kidding—“
“Now.”
The bell was still ringing. Footsteps pounded somewhere behind you, voices overlapping in sharp bursts. You didn’t argue again. You dropped to your knees in the mud and ducked down, the damp earth soaking through your jeans as you crawled into the darkness beneath the structure.
Leon followed immediately, boots scraping wood as he squeezed in after you.
It was tight. Too tight.
You couldn’t sit upright. The air smelled like wet soil and old rot. Splinters pressed against your shoulder when you shifted. Leon’s knee bumped against your thigh in the confined space.
Outside, villagers rushed past. Their footsteps were heavy, frantic. One of them shouted something close enough that you felt it vibrate through the ground.
You forced yourself to breathe quietly.
Leon leaned forward just enough to peer through a crack in the warped boards above. His arm brushed yours in the process. Neither of you commented on it.
“Are you hit?” he whispered.
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
You reached for your gun.
Your fingers weren’t steady whatsoever
You swallowed and focused on the motion instead of the noise outside. Eject the magazine. Check. Reload. Click.
Your hands trembled again.
Leon noticed.
“You need to lock that down,” he murmured, not unkindly.
“I am,” you shot back softly. “I almost got trampled by a cult of murder villagers. Give me a second.”
“Not the time for a second.”
“Not the time to critique my performance either.”
His jaw tightened slightly. Even in the dim light, you could see the shift in his expression.
“I’m not critiquing,” he whispered. “I’m making sure you don’t hesitate.”
“I didn’t hesitate.”
“You froze in the house.”
“I recalculated.”
“This isn’t a spreadsheet.”
You shot him a look in the darkness. “And I’m not dead weight.”
His voice dropped lower. “I didn’t say you were.”
“You don’t have to.”
For a brief moment, the only sound between you was your breathing and the distant bell. He leaned back slightly, giving you a fraction more space. It was not much. In a space this small, every inch mattered.
“You pulled me back,” he said quietly.
You blinked. “What?”
“Back there. If you hadn’t grabbed me, that swing would’ve connected.”
You hesitated. “You would’ve dodged.”
“Maybe.”
That was not the answer you expected. The footsteps outside slowed. One pair specifically stopped directly beside the shed.
You both went still.
A shadow shifted through the slats above you.The wood creaked as someone stepped closer and your heart slammed against your ribs so hard you were certain it was audible.
Leon slowly raised his gun, angling it toward the gap of light near the base of the wall. The shadow bent down and a face lowered into view through the crack.
Clouded eyes.
Searching.
Leon adjusted his aim, but the angle was wrong. The villager was too low, too close to the boards. If he fired now, the wood might deflect it.
The villager’s gaze shifted and landed directly on you. Your breath caught immediately once he saw you
His mouth opened and Leon began to move. Luckily this time, you didn’t freeze.
Your grip steadied, almost eerily calm in the sudden clarity of it. You angled your gun toward the gap just as the villager started to shout.
And you fired.
The recoil jolted through your arms, louder in the enclosed space than you expected. The shout cut off instantly. The body slumped sideways out of view.
Silence followed, the waiting kind. For half a second, you just stared at the space where the face had been.
Your ears rang.
Your pulse pounded.
Then you slowly lowered the gun. Leon was looking at you.
Not surprised.
Not doubtful.
Focused.
“You good?” he asked again, softer this time.
You swallowed nodding slowly. It wasn’t entirely true, but it was enough.
More shouting erupted in the distance, but farther away now. The bell was still ringing, though less frantic. Leon shifted closer without thinking, his shoulder pressing more firmly against yours in the cramped dark.
“Nice shot,” he said quietly.
You let out a shaky breath that almost turned into a laugh. “Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not.”
You met his eyes in the dim light. For a moment, the chaos outside felt distant. Contained by wood and mud and shared breath.
“You still think I shouldn’t be here?” you asked.
He held your gaze for a long second.
“I think,” he said carefully, “if you’re going to stay, you stay close to me.”
Something warm and complicated settled in your chest at that.
Outside, the footsteps began moving away, redirected by the noise elsewhere in the village.
Leon glanced toward the opening. “We move when it’s clear.”
You nodded.
Your hands were still shaking slightly, but they were steady enough. Your first shot. Not calculated from behind a screen, not filtered through audio files.
Real.
And you were still here.
The village wasn’t quiet anymore and neither were you.