"They won't."
"You don't know that."
"No." The word scrapes out, rough against my throat. "But I know Kane. I know this team. And I know that flash drive in your pocket is the most valuable thing the Committee has ever failed to destroy."
The SUV bounces over rough terrain, heading toward a secondary location that the Committee doesn't know about. Behind us, smoke will soon rise from what used to be our safe house. Committee operators will sift through the ashes looking for bodies, for evidence, for any sign of where we've gone.
They won't find anything useful. Kane's too careful for that.
"Echo Base?" I ask.
"Secure." Kane meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. "Tommy confirmed no indication they know the real location."
"Mercer and Stryker?"
"Extracted clean. Five minutes behind us." Kane's voice carries a thread of relief beneath the professional calm. "Everyone's accounted for."
Echo Base remains hidden. The team remains operational. We've lost a position, not the war.
The hunting lodge appears through the trees, a structure that looks abandoned but isn't. Willa's already at the door, medical kit in hand, her expression shifting from worried to focused as she sees Reagan's hands covered in my blood.
The SUV stops. Doors open. Hands reach for me, pulling me toward safety and surgery and whatever comes next.
The Committee will figure it out soon enough—if they haven't already. The assault destroyed the safe house but failed to kill us. They'll know we escaped with the evidence. And knowing Webb, he's already calculating his next move, deploying assets, tightening the net.
We just have to live long enough to use what we have.
Reagan's face hovers above mine as they lift me from the vehicle. She's saying something, her lips moving, but the words scatter before I can catch them. Khalid appears at her shoulder, jaw set the way it gets when he's trying not to show fear. Kane is barking orders somewhere nearby, his voice cutting through the chaos the way it always does.
Willa's hands replace Reagan's on my wound, professional and efficient. Someone is cutting away my tactical vest. Someone else is starting an IV line.
"Shrapnel," Willa announces. "Missed the major organs. He'll be fine once I get him cleaned up."
Reagan's fingers close around my wrist. Squeeze hard.
"The drive," I mumble. "Don't let anyone?—"
"I've got it." Her voice is close to my ear. "I've got it, Dylan. Rest."
I try to say something else. Something about Webb; about what comes next, about how we need to find secure communications and try again. The words won't form. Reagan grabs my hand, holds tight, and the gray at the edges of my vision floods inward.
The last thing I hear is Willa giving orders and Reagan refusing to leave the room. For a moment, the voices blur into something older—Lisa telling Maya to stay close, to hold on, that everything would be fine.
The gray swallows it all.
11
REAGAN
The hunting lodge smells like dust and old wood, but one of the bedrooms has been transformed into something that could pass for a field hospital. Medical supplies cover every flat surface. An IV stand stands sentinel beside the bed where Dylan lies unconscious, his breathing shallow but steady.
I haven't moved from this chair in hours.
Willa finishes checking his vitals and makes a notation on a small pad she's been using to track his progress. The shrapnel wound is cleaned and stitched, the bleeding stopped, but he still hasn't woken up since she put him under to remove the metal fragments from his side.
"He's stable," she says, catching my expression. "The sedation should wear off within the hour. His body needed the rest."
"And the wound?"
