The first name on Boone's list was Callum Raze.
And he was trouble.
They found him two days later, tucked away in the backroom of a rundown pool hall called The Needle, buried deep in the underbelly of Sector Nine.
The place stank of cheap whiskey, broken dreams, and desperation.
Perfect camouflage.
Maya and Evan walked in like they belonged, shoulders loose, eyes sharp.
Nobody spared them a glance.
Everyone here had something to hide.
At the far end, under a flickering neon sign, a brawl was breaking out over a crooked game of eight-ball.
Voices snarled.
Chairs scraped.
A glass shattered against the wall.
Evan kept close to Maya, following her lead as she wove through the chaos with the grace of someone who knew exactly when to look tough and when to look invisible.
She stopped in front of a battered green door, knocked once, paused, then twice fast.
The door creaked open a sliver.
A bloodshot eye peered through the gap.
Recognition flared — and suspicion.
"What the hell are you doing here, Maya?" a voice rasped from within.
"We need to talk, Callum."
Maya's tone was hard as nails.
"And you're going to want to hear this."
The door opened wider.
Callum Raze was a monster of a man — six-foot-four, built like a slab of old brick, with tattoos crawling up his arms and neck like living vines.
His nose had been broken more times than Evan could count.
His eyes, however, were sharp.
Calculating.
He stepped aside.
Maya and Evan entered.
The room was little more than a glorified supply closet — cracked floor tiles, a stained mattress in the corner, and a battered safe bolted to the wall.
Callum shut the door and leaned against it, arms crossed.
"This better be good," he growled.
Maya didn't waste time.
She pulled out the tablet — the one Boone had rigged with the evidence files.
A flick of her fingers brought up images that should've been buried six miles deep.
Secret prisons.
Unmarked graves.
Names and dates that could topple giants.
Callum's eyes narrowed as he scrolled.
The more he saw, the more the air in the room tightened.
When he finally looked up, something had shifted behind his battered exterior.
A crack in the armor.
A glimpse of rage barely contained.
"Where the hell did you get this?" he demanded.
"Does it matter?" Maya said coolly.
"What matters is what you do next."
Callum ran a hand through his short-cropped hair.
"Jesus. If this is real —"
"It is," Evan said quietly.
Callum studied him then — really studied him — for the first time.
Noticing the tension coiled beneath his skin.
The fury hidden in those too-young eyes.
"You're serious about this?" Callum asked.
"As a bullet," Maya said.
For a long moment, silence stretched between them.
The rain drummed against the boarded-up windows.
The bar fight outside flared again, someone screaming in rage, a chair smashing.
Finally, Callum cracked his knuckles.
"Alright. I'm in."
He pointed a thick finger at them.
"But you screw me over? You leave me hanging even once? I will bury you both so deep not even your ghosts will find peace."
Maya smiled — a thin, dangerous curve of her lips.
"Fair enough."
They shook on it.
Not trust.
Not friendship.
An agreement.
A weapon forged in desperation.
---
That night, they struck their first blow.
Callum arranged it — fast, brutal, surgical.
A convoy, supposedly transporting "special materials" for the Initiative, was scheduled to move through an isolated freight yard at midnight.
Maya, Evan, and Callum would intercept it.
No deaths — not tonight.
Just a message.
A warning shot across the bow.
They crouched in the shadows of a crumbling loading dock, rain dripping from the corrugated roof above them.
Callum adjusted his earpiece.
"Truck's two minutes out."
Maya checked her gear — stun grenades, EMP rounds, smoke canisters.
Evan's heart hammered, but his hands were steady.
No room for fear now.
Not anymore.
The truck rumbled into view, headlights cutting through the mist.
A pair of black SUVs flanked it, guards scanning the dark with night-vision goggles.
Professional.
Deadly.
"On my mark," Maya whispered.
Evan tensed.
This was it.
No turning back.
"Now."
Everything exploded into motion.
Maya tossed a smoke grenade, thick plumes billowing out across the yard.
Callum moved like a battering ram, slamming into the first SUV with a crowbar, disabling the driver in three brutal seconds.
Evan sprinted toward the truck, jamming the EMP device against its side.
The engine coughed once — then died.
The guards stumbled out, coughing, blind.
Maya was already there, stunning two of them with a modified taser.
Callum dragged the third into the shadows, knocking him out cold with the handle of his crowbar.
The entire ambush lasted less than forty seconds.
Textbook.
Flawless.
Evan ripped open the truck's cargo bay.
Inside — exactly what they'd hoped for.
Crates of surveillance gear.
Black-bag tech.
Evidence.
He grabbed the spray can Maya tossed him and tagged the inside of the truck with a single, defiant symbol:
An open eye, bleeding tears.
A message.
A declaration.
We see you.
They rigged the cargo with low-grade charges — enough to destroy the equipment without hurting anyone — and melted into the night as sirens began to wail in the distance.
As they slipped away, Evan glanced back once.
The truck was already burning, flames licking at the sky.
A bonfire of secrets.
He smiled — grim, fierce.
Their war had begun.
And there would be no mercy.
---
By dawn, news of the attack had spread like wildfire across the underground networks.
Anonymous forums.
Pirate radio.
Whispered in alleyways and scrawled on crumbling walls.
The Initiative tried to spin it.
A rogue operation.
A terrorist act.
Nothing to worry about.
But the people weren't stupid.
They knew better.
Something was waking up in the dark corners of the city.
A storm gathering strength.
A movement taking root, fueled by rage and hope in equal measure.
And at the heart of it, two ghosts and a renegade giant, carrying a spark that could burn an empire to the ground.
There was no going back now.
Only forward.
Into fire.
Into war.
Into the unknown.
And they would not stop until the sky itself bled for what had been done.
---