I aimed center mass, finger tightening on the trigger. “What did you do to him?”
“Override code,” Langston explained, stepping back as Gage crashed to his knees.
“Drop the gun. Now.”
Langston turned to face me fully, his expression almost pitying. “Mr. Dalton, you’re out of your depth. You have no idea what you’re involved in.”
“I know enough,” I replied. “I know you’ve been experimenting on innocent people. I know why you’re obsessed with getting Evelyn and Sophia back. And I know you’re not walking out of here.”
Something changed in Langston’s eyes at the mention of Evelyn and Sophia. A coldness, a calculation that made my skin crawl.
“Ah, yes, my wife and daughter. Where are they, I wonder?” His lips curved in what might have been a smile on anyone else. On him, it looked like a predator baring its teeth. “Still at the lodge near Lone Quill Reservoir? Such a remote location. So vulnerable.”
My blood turned to ice. How could he know that? Unless?—
“Parker’s team was just the first wave,” Langston continued, reading my expression. “I have other resources at my disposal.”
No.
Evelyn.
Sophia.
All those civilians we’d evacuated, thinking they were safe.
Langston used my moment of shock to move toward a door on the far side of the lab. “You have a choice, Mr. Dalton. Pursue me, or try to save them. You can’t do both.”
Gage lay on the floor, his breathing shallow, the biohacking suppressant doing its work. The researcher was dead. And Langston was about to escape through what had to be the emergency tunnel Gage had mentioned.
“You won’t get far,” I told him, already backing toward the main door, already calculating how quickly I could get to the rally point. “We’ll find you.”
“Perhaps,” Langston conceded. “But by then, I’ll have what I came for.” His eyes gleamed with cold triumph. “And so will my associates.”
CHAPTER 22
ALISTAIR
Dutch was stable.The bullet had torn through muscle and nicked bone, but the bleeding was under control now, his vitals holding steady. I checked the monitor one more time, then allowed myself to step back from the makeshift surgical area in the old resort’s kitchen.
My shoulders burned. My hands ached from the tension of maintaining pressure, from the precise movements required to clean and pack the wound. But Dutch would live, and that was what mattered.
Around me, the lodge buzzed with low activity. Most of the team was still at the mining facility. Only Nolan and I remained here with the twenty-three unaffected townspeople we’d extracted, but he was outside coordinating the evacuation to a secondary safe location.
I stripped off my blood-stained gloves and dropped them in the medical waste bag. The sharp smell of antiseptic mixed with sweat and fear. Twenty-three people we’d pulled out before Innovixus could turn them into puppets.
Not enough. Never enough.
The water bottle someone had left for me was warm, but I drank it anyway. My throat was dry from barking orders during the surgery. Dutch had taken the bullet without complaint, but I’d seen the pain in his eyes, the way his jaw had clenched when I’d probed the wound.
Good man. Stubborn as hell, but good.
“Dr. Shaw?” Mrs. Longfield appeared in the doorway, her soft features creased with concern. Sophia stood tucked against her side, the little girl’s hand clutching the fabric of the older woman’s cardigan. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I glanced at the child. Her eyes were wide but dry now, though red-rimmed from earlier tears. She’d been so brave through everything. Too brave for a five-year-old.
“Just keep an eye on Sophia,” I said. “Her mother should be back soon.”
Mrs. Longfield nodded, her gentle smile directed at the child. “Of course. We’re doing just fine, aren’t we, sweetheart?”
