Shadows Don’t Walk Alone

The morning streets of Buenos Aires were slick with rain, neon lights bleeding across the pavement in long, wavering reflections. Jessica moved like a ghost between them — hood low, steps quick but deliberate. She wasn’t running.

She was hunting.

Her target was an unassuming mid-rise office building, tucked between glass giants, easy to miss. Vanguard had many faces. This one, according to the files she had yanked from Patagonia, was a shell company, a front that funneled resources and personnel to places much harder to find.

Jessica paused outside a small café across the street, the scent of burnt coffee curling from the doorway. She pulled out a burner phone and typed a single message to an encrypted drop.

Made it. Going dark.

She deleted the message, snapped the phone clean in half, and scattered the pieces into a nearby storm drain. No loose ends.

Under her hood, the small earpiece pressed against her skin. She wore it out of habit — maybe superstition. A dead channel was easier to carry than silence.

*****************************

Meanwhile, in the shadowed room of a low-rent hotel a block away, Leanna adjusted her own earpiece and whispered, "She’s here."

From the window, Olivia peered through binoculars. "She’s going straight for the building."

Kevin clenched his jaw. "She really thinks she can ghost this solo."

Leanna didn’t answer. She already knew the answer.

Olivia’s fingers flew across her keyboard. "I can disrupt the building’s systems, lock the doors behind her, trigger an evacuation, buy her some space. But if she realizes we’re here..."

Leanna’s voice was flat. "She’ll be furious. But at least she’ll be alive."

*****************************

Jessica crossed the street, moving through the lobby like a shadow. The night guard barely looked up from his magazine. The ID card she had lifted hours ago worked like a charm.

Inside, it was too clean, too perfect, like a front. She entered the elevator, the records and storage were on floor 12. As she pressed the call button, the line in her earpiece, dead until now, crackled to life.

"Jess," Leanna’s voice breathed, low and close, "don’t freak out."

Jessica’s heart stuttered hard in her chest. For a second, she froze. Then: "What the hell—"

"No time. You’re about to walk into a trap. Sensors just went active on three floors. This wasn’t in the schematic. You need to turn back."

Jessica’s eyes tracked the lobby, there were cameras everywhere. She should have known, of course they were here.

"How did you—"

"We’ve been tracking you since Patagonia," Leanna said quietly.

Anger flared bright behind her ribs. "You’re following me?"

"You left us a map, Jess," Kevin’s voice cut in, tight. "Did you really think we wouldn’t follow it?" A pause. Then, dry as ever: "Not exactly making this easy, by the way."

Jessica exhaled sharply through her nose. Stupid. Infuriating. And somehow, exactly what she should have expected.

Before she could respond, Olivia’s voice cut through, sharper now. "Jess, bad news. Motion trip just activated below you. They’re locking this place down. You need to move."

Jessica spun toward the stairwell, muscles already coiled.

"How many?" she asked.

"Four guards on twelve. More coming up from lower levels. You’ve got maybe thirty seconds."

Then static. Jessica hissed a curse under her breath. It was too late. The first guard rounded the corner, rifle raised, already calling out a warning. Jessica moved without hesitation, slamming him against the wall, twisting the weapon from his grip like muscle memory she didn’t remember earning. One strike, quick, precise, and he crumpled.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Jessica didn’t wait. She ran, not away, but toward the records. For the first time in a long time, she realized that she wasn’t alone. But with Vanguard closing in, and her past unraveling by the minute, she couldn’t decide if that was comfort or a liability.