The forest was unnervingly quiet, every sound swallowed by a heavy, suffocating stillness as you crouched behind a fallen tree, blood slipping through your fingers where a bullet had torn into your side.

You’d been separated from your squad in the chaos, forced to retreat on instinct alone, your breathing uneven no matter how hard you tried to steady it.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

You weren’t seasoned, not yet. The rank insignia on your shoulder still felt too new, the unit patch on your chest, just above your left breast pocket, was something you hadn’t quite grown into. Training had drilled the motions into you, the reactions, the discipline… but training didn’t feel like this. It didn’t account for the way your hands trembled or how loud your heartbeat sounded in your ears.

The mission had unraveled too fast. One moment there had been structure, orders, a clear objective, and the next, it had collapsed into confusion. Shadows moved where they shouldn’t have, pressure closing in from all sides until your team scattered, leaving you here, alone.

A faint, low snap of a branch cut through the silence, and you froze instantly, lowering yourself further behind the log as your breath caught. The sound wasn’t careless; it was controlled. Deliberate. Someone trained, someone who knew exactly how to move without being seen.

He stepped into view like he had always been there, blending into the trees with an ease that made your chest tighten. Ghost moved with quiet precision, his gear fitted close to his frame, every detail purposeful, every motion controlled.

But it was the mask that caught your eye. A skull—cold, unyielding, impossible to look away from.

Your gaze dropped, and that’s when you saw it, stamped clearly across his chest rig. SAS. UK Special Forces.

The enemy.

Your pulse spiked as his eyes swept the area before landing on you, sharp and unrelenting, and the moment your gazes locked, the fragile hope that you’d stayed hidden shattered completely.