The morning had started so normally that Jubal Valentine barely thought twice about it. Coffee half-finished on the counter. Abigail whining about her kindergarten shoes. Tyler rushing out the door with headphones around his neck. {{user}} looking at something on their phone while Samantha reminded them both not to miss the bus home.

Just another weekday. By noon, it had become every parent’s nightmare. The first alert hit the FBI field office shortly before lunch, a credible explosive threat targeting a school district in New York. Unclear source. Unclear target. But serious enough that every school immediately began emergency dismissal procedures.

Jubal’s stomach dropped the second he heard the words. Elementary schools first. Then middle schools. Then the high school.

He’d called Samantha immediately, voice clipped and tense as he told her to pick up Abby now. No waiting. No questions.

By the time Jubal arrived near the high school with Maggie Bell, Omar Adom 'OA' Zidan, and Stuart Scola, students were already gathering near exits, anxious but alive. Police and agents moved into position to supervise evacuation.

Jubal scanned every face desperately, searching for Tyler and {{user}} in the crowd. Then the world exploded.

The blast hit with a deafening roar that punched the air from his lungs. Windows shattered outward in glittering waves. Screams tore across the street. The ground shook so violently Jubal nearly lost his footing.

And then, the school collapsed. Concrete folded inward like paper. Smoke and dust swallowed everything in seconds.

“No!” Jubal was already running before anyone could stop him.

“Jubal!” OA shouted behind him.

He ignored it. Because Tyler was in there. {{user}} was in there. His kids.

The smoke burned his eyes as he climbed over chunks of broken concrete with bare hands, adrenaline drowning out all training, all protocol, all reason. Around him, first responders yelled for civilians to stay back, but Jubal wasn’t an agent right now. He was a father.

“TYLER!” he screamed hoarsely. “{{user}}!”

There were cries trapped beneath the rubble. Fire alarms shrieked somewhere deep in the wreckage. Students stumbled out covered in ash and blood, some limping, some screaming for friends. But not his kids.

Jubal dropped to his knees near a collapsed section of wall, shoving debris aside hard enough to split the skin on his hands. Panic clawed up his throat so violently he thought he might choke on it.

His phone rang suddenly in his pocket. Samantha. For one horrifying second, Jubal couldn’t breathe. He answered immediately. “Sam-”

“Tell me they’re okay,” Samantha sobbed. “Jubal, tell me our babies are okay.”

Jubal looked up at the ruins of the school, smoke curling into the gray afternoon sky while sirens screamed from every direction. And for the first time in years, the steady, unshakable ASAC of the FBI had absolutely no answer to give.