REAGAN
Khalid's drawings are intricate. Detailed. Maps of places that don't exist anymore, paths through Syria that closed before he could take them. He explains each line with careful precision, his English still carrying the weight of a language learned under fire.
I listen because it matters. Because this fifteen-year-old kid survived horrors I can only imagine and still finds ways to create beauty in the margins of old books. Because right now, his sketches feel more real than casualty projections and blackout protocols.
Dylan appears in the hallway. Stops in the doorway. His expression carries something I can't quite read before he continues down the corridor without speaking.
Khalid notices. The kid reads tension like other people read headlines. "You should rest," he says quietly. "Tomorrow will be difficult."
"Tomorrow's always difficult."
"Yes. But you need sleep to face it." He closes his book, stands with the fluid grace of someone who learned to move silently. "Good night, Reagan."
"Good night."
The room they gave me is three doors down. Not a bedroom exactly—more like a nicely furnished holding cell with an attached bath. The kind of space designed for protective custody rather than comfort. Dark enough once I close the door. Quiet enough. The bed feels like a step above military issue. Every condition for rest exists except the ability to actually achieve it.
Instead, I stare at the ceiling and count the people who trusted me. Charlie. Ellen. The barista whose name I never learned. Too many names for one investigation. Too many lives ended because I asked the wrong questions.
The blackout protocols make sense. Tommy's security measures are logical. Kane's tactical assessment is sound. Even Dylan's comparison to interrogation rooms carries a brutal honesty I can respect.
But logic doesn't make the constraints feel any less suffocating.
Midnight passes. Then twelve-thirty. The safe house settling sounds like breathing—ventilation systems, electrical hum, the occasional creak of cooling metal. Somewhere down the hall, Khalid probably isn't sleeping either. The kid keeps hours that suggest sleep is what happens when exhaustion forces it rather than when darkness falls.
At twelve forty-five, I give up on rest.
The training room occupies the basement level. Motion sensors trigger overhead lights that flicker to full brightness, revealing a space designed for close quarters combat practice. Heavy bag in one corner. Speed bag mounted on the wall. Mats covering most of the floor. A weapons rack holds training versions of various firearms. Everything cleaned and organized with military precision.
I haven't thrown a proper punch in my life. My self-defense training consists of a single weekend seminar from three yearsago that taught me how to palm-strike someone's nose and run like hell. Not exactly tactical combat readiness.
But the heavy bag doesn't judge. Doesn't ask questions. Doesn't tell me I'm confined for my own good.
The first punch lands wrong. Pain shoots through my wrist up to my elbow. The bag barely moves.
Second punch. Third. Fourth. Each one landing with terrible form and worse technique. My knuckles ache. My breathing comes harsh and uneven. The bag swings slightly but otherwise absorbs the impact without giving me the satisfaction of actual damage.
"You're going to break your hand."
Dylan's voice comes from the doorway. He wears workout gear—tank top and training pants that show the scars on his arms and shoulders. Old wounds from a life spent in violence. He moves into the room like he owns the space, crosses to where I'm standing with my fists clenched and my wrist throbbing.
"Couldn't sleep," I say.
"Neither could I." He stops beside the heavy bag, studies my stance with the same attention he gives intelligence reports. "You're telegraphing every punch. Dropping your shoulder. Not rotating through your hips. Against an actual opponent, you'd be on the ground before you landed anything."
"Good thing I'm fighting a bag."
"Bad thing is you're teaching yourself habits that'll get you hurt." Dylan moves behind the bag, steadies it. "Try again. This time, think about where the power comes from. Not your arm. Your whole body."
The next punch lands slightly better. Still wrong, but less obviously terrible.
"Better. Again."
We fall into a rhythm. Dylan coaching from behind the bag, adjusting my form with short instructions. "Rotate your hip.""Keep your wrist straight." "Exhale on impact." Each correction makes the next punch marginally less awful than the one before.
After twenty minutes, my arms burn. Sweat soaks through my shirt. The knuckles on both hands are red and tender.
"Enough." Dylan catches the bag mid-swing. "You're losing form. That's when injuries happen."
