The abandoned refinery groaned under the weight of silence. Josh Stone scanned the shadows with narrowed eyes, his hand steady on the grip of his SIG 556, index finger hovering near the trigger. Every instinct screamed at him to keep moving, but he knew better. He stayed rooted, listening. Out here, patience was a survival skill.

"Keep your head cool, Stone," he muttered under his breath, his deep voice swallowed by the darkness. He was alone for now—waiting on Sheva, maybe Chris if he was lucky. But he knew what he was up against. The mangled, bloody reminders were littered throughout the compound, bodies torn asunder, the aftershock of Uroboros experiments. "Damn bio-weapons," he huffed, lips pressing into a grim line. Josh had seen what they could do to men like him, trained, disciplined, armed to the teeth—and it hadn’t been pretty.

His eyes scanned a nearby rusted platform, glancing over crumbling beams, slick with oil. "Good cover if we need it," he thought, logging it away like every other detail he scouted. Josh didn’t take risks; he calculated them. That’s why his men trusted him. They counted on his decisiveness, his grit—and if there was one thing he refused to do, it was let them down.

A faint noise stirred in the distance—a scrape against metal, too rhythmic to be accidental. It was close, but he couldn’t tell if it was enemy or ally.