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The rooftop was all copper light and broken glass.
Heat shimmered off the city below, turning the skyline into something warped and unreal. Helicopters moved like insects between the towers. Somewhere far beneath them, sirens braided with the distant pop of gunfire, but up here there was only wind, dust, and the slow rasp of Price’s breathing.
He was on one knee when Ghost found him.
Not down.
Never down.
One hand braced against the slick glass panels beneath him, the other curled around the hilt of a knife. His shoulder rose and fell with each hard breath. Blood darkened the sleeve of his jacket, running in thin lines over his glove and dripping onto the roof.
Ghost stepped out from the service access.
He didn’t raise his weapon.
He didn’t need to.
Price knew he was there before the shadow hit him.
“Bit late, aren’t you?” Price rasped.
Ghost stopped several paces away.
The skull mask caught the sunset first. Bone-white teeth. Black cloth. The old shape of him. Old gear. Old ghost. Like the past had crawled out of a shallow grave and decided it wasn’t finished with either of them.
Price turned his head just enough to look at him.
Ghost’s voice came low.
“You broke a lot of rules, Price.”
Price stared at him for a second.
Then he smiled.
It was not kind.
It was not sane.
It was tired in a way Ghost hated immediately.
“No more rules.”
The words moved across the rooftop like a match over petrol.
Ghost’s gloved hand tightened at his side.
Below them, the city burned orange in the evening haze. Above them, a drone hummed somewhere unseen, circling, searching. Price shifted, forcing himself upright with a grimace he tried to hide and failed.
Ghost saw it.
Of course he saw it.
“Leg?” Ghost asked.
“Had worse.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
Price straightened fully.
For one moment, he looked like the captain again. Broad stance. Chin lifted. Eyes sharp beneath the brim of his cap. The same man who had dragged them through hell more times than Ghost cared to count. The same man who had looked Simon Riley in the eye before the mask became permanent and said his name like it was not a liability.
Good to see you again, Simon.
Ghost remembered it too clearly.
That was the problem.
Price adjusted his grip on the knife.
Ghost looked at the blade, then back at him.
“Don’t.”
Price huffed. “You always this optimistic?”
“I’m not here to fight you.”
“Then you’re in the wrong place.”
Ghost took one step forward.
Price’s blade lifted.
The motion was small. Controlled. Warning only.
Ghost stopped.
The air between them tightened.
“You’re hurt,” Ghost said.
“I’m alive.”
“For now.”
Price’s eyes narrowed. “You come alone?”
Ghost did not answer.
Price gave a low laugh. “That a yes, or have you got Gaz tucked behind the lift shaft waiting for the signal?”
“Gaz doesn’t know I’m here.”
Something flickered across Price’s face.
It vanished quickly.
Not quickly enough.
“Laswell?” Price asked.
“No.”
“Command?”
“No.”
Price watched him.
Ghost let the silence sit.
Then he said, “Me.”
The wind pulled at Price’s jacket.
For a second, the city noise seemed to fall away. There was only the rooftop, the blood, the knife, and the skull watching him from across the glass.
Price’s mouth hardened.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“Probably.”
“Simon.”
Ghost went very still.
The name landed between them heavier than any rank.
Price used it like a key. Like a hand on the back of the neck. Like proof that no matter how much blood soaked into the uniform, no matter how much of Ghost was myth and mask and weapon, John Price still knew there was a man underneath.
Ghost hated him for it.
Just then.
Only then.
Because Price looked at him like he was asking for forgiveness he would never say out loud.
“You need to stand down,” Ghost said.
Price’s expression closed.
“There it is.”
“No.”
“Orders?”
“Fuck orders.”
Price blinked.
Ghost’s voice roughened behind the mask.
“You think I care about their rules? You think I crawled up here because some desk rat wants you brought in neat and breathing?”
Price said nothing.
Ghost stepped closer.
This time, Price did not warn him off.
“I know what he took from us,” Ghost said.
The rooftop seemed to tilt around the name he didn’t say.
Soap.
Price looked away first.
It was almost worse than if he’d shouted.
Ghost continued, quieter now. “I know what Makarov did.”
“You don’t know what I found.”
“I know you’ve been off-grid for six days. I know three safehouses burned after you left them. I know every agency from London to Seoul has your face in a kill-or-capture packet. I know you’re bleeding through your sleeve and pretending you aren’t.”
Price’s jaw flexed.
“And I know,” Ghost said, “that if Johnny could see you right now, he’d call you a stubborn old bastard and tell you to stop being dramatic.”
That did it.
Price moved.
Fast.
Ghost barely had time to draw before Price was on him, knife flashing up in a brutal arc meant to drive him back rather than open him. Ghost caught the strike on his own blade. Steel rang out sharp over the city.
They locked there.
Close enough for Ghost to see the red in Price’s eyes.
Close enough for Price to hear the breath behind Ghost’s mask.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Price shoved hard.
Ghost gave ground, boots sliding over dust and glass. Price came again. Not wild. Never wild. That was what made it worse. He fought with the same cold economy Ghost had learned from him. Every step cut distance. Every strike forced a choice. Every movement said: I trained you well enough to know how to kill you.
Ghost blocked high, turned low, caught Price’s wrist and twisted.
Price drove an elbow into his vest.
Ghost grunted.
The impact sent them staggering against a ventilation unit hard enough to dent metal.
Price tried to wrench free.
Ghost held on.
“Enough,” Ghost snapped.
Price slammed his forehead forward.
Not into Ghost’s face.
Into the edge of the mask.
Pain cracked bright behind Ghost’s eyes.
He released Price on instinct, and Price used the space to bring the knife up again.
Ghost’s blade met his.
Again.
Harder this time.
The sound went through both of them.
Price’s teeth were bared.
Ghost’s voice dropped to a growl.
“You done?”
Price shoved into him. “Not even close.”
“Good.”
Ghost hooked his boot behind Price’s ankle and drove him sideways.
They hit the glass roof hard.
A spiderweb crack bloomed under Price’s shoulder.
For half a second, the city opened beneath them through the fractured panel.
Price froze.
Ghost froze too.
Both of them breathing hard.
One wrong move and the glass would give.
Ghost had one hand locked around Price’s wrist. Price still had the knife. The blade hovered inches from Ghost’s ribs, close enough that Ghost could feel the promise of it through his vest.
Price stared up at him.
Blood had smeared along his cheek. His cap was gone. His hair was damp with sweat. He looked less like a captain then and more like a man who had been running so long he had forgotten where the road ended.
Ghost pressed down harder on his wrist.
“Drop it.”
Price’s eyes were black in the sunset.
“No.”
“John.”
The name was quiet.
It hit like a shot.
Price’s grip faltered.
Only for a breath.
Ghost saw it and leaned closer.
“You don’t get to leave too.”
Price’s face changed.
There.
There it was.
The grief under the rage.
The wound under the mission.
The thing no amount of tactical discipline could bury.
Ghost’s voice was rougher now. Lower. Less lieutenant, less soldier, more Simon than he ever liked being outside the dark.
“Johnny’s dead. Shepherd’s dead. Makarov’s still breathing. I know.” His grip tightened. “But you don’t get to decide we’re finished just because you are.”
Price swallowed.
The crack beneath them spread another inch.
Neither moved.
Ghost said, “You go alone, you die alone.”
Price’s voice came raw. “That supposed to scare me?”
“No.”
Ghost lowered his head until the skull mask filled Price’s vision.
“It’s supposed to piss you off.”
For a moment, Price only stared at him.
Then, against all reason, against the blood and the cracked glass and the knife still caught between them, he gave a short, broken laugh.
It sounded awful.
It sounded alive.
Ghost loosened his grip by a fraction.
Price noticed.
Of course he noticed.
“You always this sentimental under the mask?” Price asked.
“Only when old men make me climb skyscrapers.”
“Cheeky bastard.”
“Learned from the best.”
The words sat there.
Not forgiveness.
Not peace.
But something close enough to breathe around.
Price exhaled slowly.
Then he opened his hand.
The knife fell onto the glass between them with a dull, final sound.
Ghost did not move off him immediately.
Price looked at the blade, then back at Ghost.
“You going to cuff me?”
“Thought about it.”
“And?”
“Wouldn’t hold.”
Price’s mouth twitched.
Ghost pushed himself up first, then offered a hand.
Price stared at it.
Too long.
Then he took it.
Ghost hauled him upright, careful not to put too much strain on the injured side. Price pretended not to notice. Ghost pretended not to notice him pretending.
The roof groaned beneath them.
“Move,” Ghost said.
Price retrieved his knife.
Ghost’s hand went automatically toward his sidearm.
Price glanced at him.
“Relax.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“You already do.”
“Daily.”
They moved off the cracked panel and toward the far edge of the roof, where the service stairs waited in shadow.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Price said, “I have a lead.”
Ghost looked at him.
“Makarov?” he asked.
Price nodded.
“Proof?”
“Enough.”
Ghost stopped walking.
Price sighed. “You’re a pain in my arse, Simon.”
“You’re concussed and wanted by twelve governments. Show me the proof.”
Price stared at him, then reached inside his jacket and pulled out a battered drive. He held it out.
Ghost took it.
Their gloves brushed.
Neither acknowledged it.
“Names. Transfers. Dead drops. A handler embedded in the coalition chain,” Price said. “Makarov’s not running. He’s building something.”
Ghost turned the drive over in his fingers.
“You were going after him alone.”
Price looked out over the burning city.
“I was going after him.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
“No.”
Ghost stepped beside him.
The sunset threw both their shadows long across the rooftop. One in a skull mask. One bare-faced and bleeding. Both carved out of the same ruined thing.
Ghost said, “Gaz will want in.”
Price was quiet.
“Laswell too,” Ghost added.
“Too dangerous.”
Ghost looked at him. “That your new excuse for abandonment?”
Price’s eyes cut to him.
Ghost did not look away.
After a moment, Price turned back toward the skyline.
“No more rules,” he said again.
This time, it sounded less like a threat.
More like a confession.
Ghost slid the drive into his vest.
“Fine.”
Price frowned.
“Fine?”
“No more rules,” Ghost said. “But we do this together.”
Price studied him.
“You sure about that?”
“No.”
Ghost adjusted the strap on his vest and started toward the stairs.
“But Johnny would’ve been.”
Price did not follow immediately.
Behind Ghost, the wind moved across the roof, carrying smoke and dust and the memory of a laugh that would never come over comms again.
Then Price picked up his cap from where it had fallen.
He put it back on.
And followed Simon Riley into the dark.