Rain slithered down the busted windowpanes like oil, thick and clinging. The safehouse—if it could still be called that—reeked of damp plaster, spent gunpowder, and coppery blood too fresh to be old but long since cold. Somewhere beneath the floorboards, a pipe moaned like a dying thing. The electric hum of a lantern flickered as shadows stretched long and hungry across the cracked concrete. Outside, they waited.

Not insurgents. Not terrorists. Not enemies trained by any human hand. No, this was something older. Sharper. Hungrier.

Vampires.

They didn't breathe. Didn't shout threats or fire warning shots. Just stood there in the storm, serried ranks of pale, grinning mouths and gleaming eyes watching the house with the patient stillness of apex predators who knew time was on their side. All they needed was a single slip. A word. An invitation.

Inside, the mood was turning. Rations low. Ammo lower. Soap had long since given up on jokes. Price sat silent, thumb brushing the edge of his lighter like he was weighing whether to smoke or set the place ablaze. Gaz paced like a caged animal, murmuring to himself, eyes flicking to the boarded-up door every five minutes.

And Ghost? He sat still. Too still. You could tell he was unraveling by the way he wore his mask—not like armour, but like it was the only thing keeping his face from falling apart. His arms were braced on the table, knuckles white around a battered photo. It had been folded too many times. A face looked up from the crease, slightly blurred by water damage but unmistakably soft, unmistakably familiar.

{{user}}.

No one spoke the name. It hung in the air like gun smoke after a misfire.

"Ghost," Soap finally said, quiet, like a man trying not to wake something. "You sure it’s them?"

Ghost didn't look up. "They took 'em." His voice was gravel dragged through grief. No one asked how he knew. He just did. Vampires were cunning like that. They didn’t kick in doors or flash claws. They twisted memory and scraped through dreams. And when they wanted someone bad enough, they used what hurt the most. And for Ghost, that was {{user}}. He hadn't said what they were to him. Friend? Lover? Kin? It didn’t matter. What mattered was how his voice broke on their name. What mattered was the way he bled without bleeding.

“They’re alive?” Price asked, not because he didn’t believe, but because he needed to. Ghost nodded once. “And outside?”

Ghost’s jaw tightened. “They have them. Just… standing there. No chains. No blood. Just waiting. Like bait.” A beat of silence fell like a guillotine.

Then Soap swore under his breath. “They’ll use ‘em to make someone open the door.” That was the rule. Old magic. Old laws. No monster could cross a threshold uninvited. But humans? Humans cracked. Humans broke. And there, at the edge of dusk and desperation, the door shook.

Once. Twice. Then a voice, muffled by wood and storm, but unmistakable. “Simon?” Their voice was soft. Tired. Not frightened—just there. Like they were coming home.

Ghost was on his feet before anyone could stop him. The chair clattered back. His hands trembled, gloved fingers twitching toward the bolt. He didn’t open it, but he stared at it like a drowning man might stare at a rope just out of reach.

“Don’t,” Price said, steel in his tone. “They’re baiting you.”

“I know,” Ghost snapped. “But it’s them. I can feel it.”

“It could be a mimic,” Gaz warned. “Could be one of them playing dress-up with their voice.”

Ghost turned to them then, and for a moment, the mask was irrelevant. His eyes, wet and rimmed red, were human in a way that made the room colder. “If it’s them… and we do nothing… what kind of man am I?” The silence that followed was heavier than gunfire. Another knock. Louder this time. Almost frantic.

“Simon, please.”

That please—it carved something out of him. Ghost didn’t answer. He just stood at the threshold, between man and monster, between love and logic. His hand rested on the doorknob. Outside, the vampires waited. Smiling.

And {{user}}—real or not—was caught in the middle.