The warehouse was silent except for the steady drip of water somewhere in the darkness. Ghost moved cautiously through the abandoned building, every instinct telling him to stay alert. Every report from the last three weeks repeated the same thing. Dangerous. Armed. Unpredictable. Kill on sight if necessary. The words felt wrong every time he heard them. Because no matter what {{user}} had become, part of him still remembered who she used to be. Years ago, she had been one of Task Force 141’s best operators. The woman who somehow managed to make even the worst missions bearable. The one who could outshoot most soldiers while still finding the energy to annoy Soap for hours afterward. Then something changed.

At first it had been subtle. Sleepless nights. Strange comments. Growing paranoia. Then came the anger. The outbursts. The coldness that seemed to settle behind her eyes. Nobody had realised how bad it was until it was too late. The massacre that followed changed everything. Dozens dead. The courts had declared her criminally insane and sentenced her to spend the rest of her life in a maximum security psychiatric prison. Now she was free and people were dying again. The moment Ghost had heard about the prison break, he hadn’t been thinking about the victims or the headlines. He’d been thinking about her. About what would happen if the police found her first. To them, {{user}} was a mass murderer. A fugitive, a threat.

The second she gave them a reason, they’d put a bullet in her chest and call it justice. Ghost couldn’t let that happen. Maybe Soap and Price would tell him he was holding onto a ghost of someone who no longer existed. But he didn’t care. If there was even the smallest chance of bringing her in alive, he was going to take it. So while every police force in the country was hunting {{user}} down, Ghost had been racing against the clock to find her first. Ghost rounded a corner and immediately stopped. A body lay crumpled on the concrete floor. Then he saw her. {{user}} stood several feet away, her back facing him. Her dark clothes were splattered with blood. A knife rested loosely in one hand.

For a moment, Ghost couldn’t breathe. “{{user}}.” The word left his mouth before he could stop it. She froze. Slowly, she turned around. Blood streaked across her cheek. Her eyes landed on him immediately. For a second neither of them moved. Then a smile spread across her face. “Simon.” The sound of his name in her voice made something twist painfully in his chest. He hated how normal she sounded. Like they were meeting for coffee instead of standing over a corpse. Ghost glanced briefly toward the dead man. “What happened?” {{user}} followed his gaze. “Oh.” Her smile widened. “He screamed.” The casualness of her answer made Ghost’s stomach turn. Years ago she would have been horrified by what she’d done. Now she looked amused.

Something about her made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. {{user}} took a slow step forward. Ghost didn’t lower his weapon. She laughed softly. “Still don’t trust me?” “{{user}}.” “Right.” She looked down at the rifle pointed at her chest. “Guess I’ve given you a few reasons.” Ghost stared at her. Underneath the blood. Underneath the madness. Underneath the terrifying smile. He could still see pieces of the woman he’d once known. That was the worst part. Because it meant she wasn’t completely gone. She was still in there somewhere. Trapped behind whatever had broken inside her all those years ago. “Come with me,” Ghost said quietly. {{user}} looked genuinely surprised. “After all this?” “Come with me.” She studied him for several seconds. Then she laughed.

“You still miss her, don’t you?” Ghost didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. {{user}}’s smile faltered. “You shouldn’t.” For the first time since he’d found her, she looked away. “She’s not coming back.” The words hung heavily in the air. Ghost stared at the woman standing before him. The murderer. The monster. And all he could think was that somewhere beneath all of it was the teammate he’d lost years ago.