Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 29 – The Birchwood Estate

The mansion sat beyond the tree line, pale stone and slate half-hidden by overgrowth. The sign at the gate read Birchwood Estate, letters worn to bone. Ten-foot concrete walls boxed the property in, topped with iron spires. From the road it looked intact—like a photograph paused mid-life.

I idled the convoy on the shoulder. The air still carried the tang of ash from Clear Water.

Neal glassed the yard. “Looks untouched,” she said, lowering the scope. “But watch the garages.”

Burks, Lin, and I moved to the wall while the rest fanned out and formed a perimeter.

Burks planted his feet and knelt, steady as a stump. I stepped onto his thighs, rose to his shoulders, and scanned over the wall. The coast looked clear, though the open garages were a question mark. He swung a leg over and dropped hard, landing in a tactical knee and sweeping the scene.

Lin vaulted after him, rolling into position beside me.

“Motor housing,” I said, pointing west along the wall without breaking focus.

Lin crouched at the metal box and went to work. He popped the access panel, rewired the dead circuit to the auxiliary lead, and bridged the relay with a spark from his jumper. The motor coughed once, and the gate groaned—dust puffing from the hinges as it rolled open a foot at a time.

Neal, Stacks, Burks, and Wolf moved in from the MCU, rifles up. Rourke followed last, his good arm steady, eyes cutting through every shadow.

Then movement—just left of the front steps. A small figure crawled from behind the hedge. Thin. Gray-skinned. Puppet-like. A boy, maybe twelve.

I froze. For a second he thought of my stepson—the same build, the same haunted look. Dread climbed my spine.

Rourke stepped up behind him, one hand on my shoulder. No words. Just a nod—the kind that said, I understand, brother. I got you.

He moved forward slow, handgun drawn. One clean shot. The boy dropped without a sound.

I exhaled, breath tearing out of me. The yard went silent except for the slow grind of the gate motor.
“Let’s move,” Neal said. “We clear it room by room.”

Teams split, sectors assigned.

They advanced across the drive, boots crunching gravel. The mansion loomed—massive, silent, intact.

Neal led the entry. Wolf and Stacks took angles. Burks and Cruz swept the kitchen. She moved like a medic on instinct, checking corners, never hesitating. Burks covered her, steady. A quiet ease between them—new, unspoken, real.

Wolf found the first adult Zerker near the pantry, throat gone.

Neal stepped in, fired twice, center mass. Echoes died between marble walls.

“One down. Kill confirmed,” she said into the mic.

She kept clearing rooms, scanning each picture and detail for clues. In the main hallway she paused at a family photo—two men and one child, the boy about the same age as the one they’d put down outside.

She keyed the mic again. “One potential target still inside the house. Repeat—one potential target still inside.”

Every voice came back with a single word: “Copy.”

From the hall, Rourke caught a sound from below—a high tone followed by a low guttural answer. The Zerkers weren’t moaning; they were speaking, using short screeches and tones, a kind of feral language.

“Rourke, clearing basement,” he said into the mic.

The basement smelled of damp and metal. Light from the stairwell stretched his shadow long. A small kitchen sat quiet. A figure shifted behind the basement kitchen counter and made that same pshar sound, followed by a rising screech—as if alerting others that it had found prey.

Rourke moved slow, pistol up. The figure turned. He fired, center mass. It staggered once and fell still.
He exhaled. “Final kill confirmed. Basement clear.”

Upstairs, Neal turned toward the stairwell, then paused at a photo on the wall—a teenager in a cap and gown, Class of 2023, West Bellevue High School. Odd. Every other picture showed only three people.
College? she thought, then realized: June. Too soon for college.

She keyed the mic. “Potential fourth Zerker. Possible hostile still inside.”

Before Rourke could respond, something slammed into him with the force of a semi—faster than the kitchen figure, almost tactical in its precision. He spun, fired one-handed, but it was already on him. Teeth tore through his face and neck. Blood swallowed his breath. He hit the floor, staring at a ceiling that had seen better days.

The house went still except for a wet rasp that wasn’t his.

Burks heard it first and ran. Boots thundered down the stairs. He hit the basement door and blasted through, firing twice before the echoes caught up. The second Zerker dropped. The first lay still—Rourke’s shot had held.

Cruz was behind him, breath sharp, hands already gloved. She dropped to her knees beside Rourke, pressing a hand to his neck. “Hold on,” she said.

Burks holstered and knelt beside her. “Tell me what to do.”

“Pressure. A lot of it.”

I hit the bottom of the stairs, one look telling him everything. “We need to get him outside,” I said.
“Now.”

They hauled Rourke through the basement doors onto the patio where sunlight spilled across cracked tile. Cruz worked fast—gauze, tourniquet, pressure. Burks knelt opposite, hands red, jaw locked.

“Stay calm,” Burks said. “Keep him breathing.”

She blinked, nodded, pressed harder. Their eyes met—something raw and wordless there.

Rourke’s breathing went thin. He reached up with his good hand, brushed Burks’s arm, tried to grin. “You boys...... keep...... the line,” he rasped.

Burks swallowed hard. “We hear you. We got this.”

Rourke’s eyes slipped closed. The mansion held its breath.

Burks’s fist hit the tile once, hard. Cruz’s hand found his shoulder. He didn’t shake her off.

Outside, Neal scanned the perimeter. “CWP team, Birchwood secured. We’re holding here. Keep drivers on standby and watch the walls.”

Inside, they wrapped Rourke in a blanket and laid him near the foyer windows where light touched his face.

Alex gathered the civilians and hushed the children. I stood over him, jaw set. My gaze drifted to the family portraits—the smiling faces frozen before the end—and back to Rourke.

That night, Burks sat across from Cruz at the kitchen table. They spoke in low pieces—about Rourke, about what came next. He watched her hands; she watched how he stayed composed even when breaking. Between them, something quiet took root. Not romance, not yet—just two people holding what was left.

They had taken Birchwood Estate, but not without cost. They had walls, food, light—and the reminder that none of it was free.

Rourke’s name would be carved later, maybe in wood, maybe in stone. For now, he rested where the light could find him.

Burks watched the morning sun touch Rourke’s face until the edges blurred. Then he stood, slung his rifle, and nodded once toward Cruz. She met his eyes, steady. He moved out without a word.

The mansion was silent again, the air heavy with ghosts.

Inside, for the first time since Clear Water, they had shelter—and the price it demanded.