6
RACHEL
The panic room is smaller than I expected.
Steel walls on all sides, reinforced door sealed behind us, single overhead light casting harsh shadows across the cramped space. Minutes in here already feel like hours. Lucas sits pressed against my side on the narrow bench, his stuffed wolf clutched tight against his chest. I can feel him trembling despite my arm around his shoulders.
"Mom, what's happening?" Fear makes his voice thin. "Why did we have to hide?"
"Mr. Stryker's being extra careful, baby." I keep my tone light, steady, even as my heart hammers against my ribs. "Remember how I said some bad people might be looking for us? He wants to make sure we're safe while he checks things out."
"Are the bad people here now?"
The first gunshot cracks through the air outside before I can answer.
Lucas flinches violently against me. I pull him closer, one hand covering his ear while I press his other ear against my chest. The wolf falls to the floor between our feet.
"It's okay," I whisper against his hair, even though nothing about this is okay. "It's going to be okay."
More gunfire erupts. Not single shots anymore but sustained bursts that make the steel door vibrate. Automatic weapons. Multiple shooters. The sounds are muffled by the reinforced walls but still loud enough to make Lucas whimper.
I close my eyes and force myself to breathe. Four counts in. Hold. Four counts out. The breathing technique grounds me even when nothing else does.
Mateo's compound taught me how to survive when terror wants to freeze you in place. How to function when your child's life depends on staying calm. How to be the strong one when everything inside you is screaming.
The compound was hell, but it was a hell I understood. I knew the layout. Knew where the guards were positioned. Knew which doors locked and which windows offered escape routes. Knew every inch of that hacienda because survival meant memorizing details.
Here, I know nothing except that Colton Stryker is somewhere outside this steel box. Outnumbered and outgunned. Standing between us and the Committee operatives who want my son dead.
The firefight intensifies. Shouting now, muffled and indistinct through the reinforced walls. Heavy impacts shake the floor beneath us. More gunfire, the sounds blurring together into continuous noise.
Lucas is crying against my chest, his small body shaking. I rock him gently, the same motion I used when he was a baby screaming through nightmares about things he couldn't remember but somehow knew.
"Shhh, baby. I've got you. You're safe. I promise you're safe."
The lie sticks in my throat, but I say it anyway because that's what mothers do. We lie to our children about monsters and safety and tomorrow always coming, because the truth would break them.
An explosion rocks the building somewhere beyond our steel walls. Lucas screams and I'm suddenly back in the hacienda nursery bathroom, crouched in the bathtub with an infant pressed against my chest, one hand covering his mouth to muffle his cries while Micah Hawthorne's team eliminated every living soul in that compound.
I survived that night. Lucas survived that night.
We'll survive this one too.
"Tell me about your wolf," I say into Lucas's hair, desperate to distract him. "What's his name again?"
"Ghost." His voice shakes. "Because Micah said wolves are like ghosts in the forest."
"That's right. And Ghost is very brave, isn't he?"
"Yeah." Lucas loosens his grip slightly, looking down at where the wolf fell to the floor. "He's the bravest."
"Just like you." I reach down and retrieve the worn stuffed animal, pressing it back into his arms. "You're being so brave right now, Lucas. I'm so proud of you."
Silence falls outside. No more gunfire. No more shouting. Just quiet that's somehow worse than the noise.
I strain to hear anything. Footsteps. Voices. Any indication of what's happening beyond this steel door.
Nothing.
