Callie stared at the pink stuffed animal in the middle of the street. She’d hidden in an apartment directly in front of it. She was on the fifth floor, peering down at the ambush site.

She wanted the vantage point of seeing exactly when the Remdian soldiers stepped into their trap. She also knew Brady would be livid that she was speaking in a time of silence, but they needed this attack to be coordinated and efficient. Knowing the numbers were her twenty to their one hundred, Callie wanted every advantage she could get.

Slowly but surely, the red uniforms descended upon the stuffed animal.

Callie’s countdown began.

“Five,” she whispered. “Four.”

“Three,” she spoke as she positioned her gun and took aim.

“Two,” her voice low, and her trigger finger ready.

“One.” She took a deep breath, aiming for the poor sap leading the march.

“Now,” she exhaled, finally pulling the trigger.

A cacophony of gunshots rang through the street. Her entire team of twenty took to spraying bullets on the Remdian army.

Body after body hit the ground before they could even react. Callie watched as one soldier lifted his gun to shoot back. She shifted her aim and shot him between the eyes.

She felt no remorse watching their body fall to the pavement. She was doing her job and protecting her home. At least that’s what she told herself as she watched the soldiers fall one by one.

A few had started to run for cover, Callie hoped they were running directly into one of her comrades. If not, she took a mental map of where everyone had split off to. Three into the building opposite of her, seven into an adjacent one and more scattered back from where they’d come from.

There were approximately seventy bodies piled in the street when the gunfire slowly ceased. That left roughly thirty Remdians to find and kill.

Seconds had passed, but the street was already stained red.

Callie watched through her scope, trying to pick up on any movement in the area. Unfortunately, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“Check in,” Brady whispered into her earpiece.

One by one, Callie listened as all her peers sounded off. She waited until the entire alpha team had spoken before she started the beta team's call out. As head of the beta team this was procedure.

“Merth,” she said, still scouring the streets for any red uniforms to pop into her view.

She held her breath as she waited for the rest of the team to sound off.

All but one soldier checked in.

“Freeman, you there?” Brady called out to the missing team member.

There was no response.

Callie sucked in a deep breath. She had known Freeman since they were in high school. They had joined the military together in an attempt to get out of their hellish lives. Both had overbearing parents in the socialite class. Neither had ever wanted to be a part of that world, so they joined the infantry and left their pasts far behind them.

“What building was he in?” Brady asked the group, though everyone knew he was asking Callie.

“One opposite the elephant, six floors, gray, he was on the second floor,” she said.

“Enemies?”

“Saw three enter through the front door, potentially more from another entrance,” she rattled off as much information as she could remember. She hadn’t seen anyone else enter, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t.

“Copy. Anyone on that side of the road?”

“Aye, sir,” a gruff voice spoke.

Callahan. Callie sighed a breath of relief. If there was anyone, other than herself that she trusted to save Freeman it was Callahan.

“In the same building, on the fifth floor. I’ll make my way down now,” Callahan spoke softer, knowing that enemy soldiers were in the building.

Callie focused in on the second floor, she scanned all the windows hoping to see something, anything.

Then, a slight glimpse of movement dashed across a window.

“Movement in the west corner,” she updated the team.

“Aye, almost there now,” Callahan responded quietly.

“Anyone else safe enough to move around, head that way. I’m following a group of ten who fled further down the street,” Brady commented.

No one spoke, but Callie knew everyone had already started moving.

Her current vantage point of the building would be the most helpful for the men inside, so she stayed put.

She kept her eyes peeled and listened for anything in the streets.

Suddenly, she heard gunfire further down the road. She steadied her breathing, hoping her team were all safe.

Then, she saw blasts on the second floor of the building she’d been watching.

All too soon, it was over once more. The silence was deafening as she waited for her comrades to check in again.

“Ten cleared,” Brady said.

“Three here,” Callahan said before sighing. “Freeman is dead.”

An unwelcome tear accumulated in Callie’s eye. She knew the fight was far from over, but the news of her friend permeated her heart. She wanted to sprint across the street. She wanted to check Freeman’s pulse and make sure he was in fact dead. She trusted Callahan, but she prayed he was wrong.

“Fuck,” Brady spoke with obvious rage lining his words.

“By my count we’ve got sixteen left. Let’s get these bastards. For Freeman,” Brady spoke louder, a newfound motivation pushing him.

Callie remained silent, still horrified at the news and formulating a plan to check Freeman for herself.

A sudden crash of the apartment door ripped her from her thoughts. She spun around and pointed her firearm at the person who had intruded upon her.

A red uniform blinded her thoughts and she pulled the trigger.

It wasn’t until the soldier was falling that she took note of their raised hands and pose of surrender. She watched the body collapse to the floor.

“One down,” she said to her team. “For Freeman.”

The wrath within her was evident.

She stood up, an unquenchable thirst for blood pulsing through her veins. She grabbed her extra magazines, packed up her bag and made way to the exit.

On her way she passed by a blood stained letter next to the warm corpse.

Her eyes skimmed over the letters, “Sorry about your apartment, Brier Jones.” She whispered as she left the crime scene behind her, ready to paint the walls of other homes red.