Dutch had made it to his feet somehow, stumbling toward us with his good arm pressed against his bandaged shoulder. “Which way did they go?”
“Back exit.” Nolan pressed down hard on my side. I gasped at the pressure. “But she’s got at least a thirty-second head start. Could be in a vehicle already.”
“Then go!” I forced out, grabbing Nolan’s wrist. “Get the girl back.”
“You’re bleeding?—“
“I’ll survive.” Blood was making my words slur together. “Sophia won’t if they get her out of here. Go!”
Nolan hesitated one more second, then nodded sharply. He grabbed a pressure bandage from the nearby kit and shoved it into Dutch’s hand. “Keep pressure on it. Don’t let him pass out.”
Then he was gone, weapon ready, moving fast toward the back exit.
Dutch knelt beside me with a grunt of pain, his face pale but his hands steady as he pressed the bandage against my side. “Stay with me, son.”
“Longfield.” The word came out as a gasp. “Compromised. How long?”
“Don’t know.” Dutch’s jaw was tight. “Looked normal this whole time. No signs.”
That was the problem. No signs. We’d been looking for the wrong things. The rigid posture, the flat affect, the repeated phrases, the damn blue shirt and khaki pants uniform.
Had all of that been a distraction from the start?
“Tell...” I had to stop, breathe through the pain. “Tell Ethan. The signs... not reliable anymore. Anyone could be...”
The edges of my vision went black.
“Alistair!” Dutch’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “Don’t you dare?—“
But the darkness was already pulling me under, and my last thought before it took me was of a five-year-old girl with her mother’s eyes, screaming as she was dragged away by someone we’d all trusted.
We’d been so sure we knew who was safe.
We’d been wrong.
CHAPTER 23
EVELYN
I followedEthan through the old mining facility’s tunnel, our footsteps echoing against damp concrete walls. He moved ahead of me, weapon ready, his muscles coiled. He’d been especially tense since we entered the tunnel and lost contact with the rally point, but his breathing was steady.
The emergency lights cast everything in a sickly red glow that turned the moisture on the walls into something that looked too much like blood. Each step deeper into the facility took me closer to answers I wasn’t sure I wanted.
“Stay close,” Ethan murmured, barely loud enough for me to hear. “Lab should be just ahead, through the junction.”
My borrowed tactical vest felt heavy on my shoulders, the weight a constant reminder that I wasn’t trained for this. That I was a former teacher and current general store clerk who’d spent years running instead of fighting.
But running hadn’t kept Sophia safe.
Ethan slowed suddenly, raising his fist in what I recognized as a military signal to stop. I froze, listening. Footsteps echoedfrom somewhere ahead. Fast, purposeful. Someone was coming our way.
“Multiple contacts,” Ethan whispered, angling his body to shield me. “Get behind me.”
Before I could move, a figure burst from a side tunnel at our backs, nearly colliding with me. The overhead emergency lights illuminated his face in harsh red pulses.
Langston.
My lungs seized. Five years of nightmares, of looking over my shoulder, of teaching Sophia to use different names, different stories. Five years of running from this man, and here he stood, barely ten feet away.
