I turn to her, and for a second I let myself just look.
She’s brave. Bright. Terrified and trying not to be.
And someone out there is playing a game with all of us.
“I’ll tell you when we’re out of here,” I say, keeping my tone steady. “Right now, we’re going back to the safe house.”
Her throat bobs. “Crewe…”
I step in, close enough that she can feel the promise in my body language even before my words land. “I’ve got you,” I say. “And I don’t care who’s behind this—nobody gets to take you.”
Her eyes soften, and she nods once. Then she whispers, barely audible, “Okay.”
And in that single word, I feel the weight of everything.
The mission. The woman. The threat.
And the growing suspicion that whatever is coming next is going to hit harder than any storm I’ve ever jumped into.
EIGHT
RILEY
The safe house feels different at night.
Not scary exactly—Crewe has swept every corner and checked every lock like the cabin itself might sprout teeth—but quieter in a way that makes my thoughts sound louder. The wind scrapes at the windows. Snow ticks against the glass like impatient fingers.
Crewe builds a fire and pretends it’s just another task. Like the steady flicker of warmth in the hearth isn’t doing something to my nerves I didn’t realize I needed.
I can’t stop seeing my lab in pieces.
My desk overturned. My monitors smashed. My notes scattered like confetti at a party I didn’t want to attend.
Someone went through my work with intention. Not rage. Not random vandalism.
Hunger.
And now I’m sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the couch, surrounded by old notebooks and folders I grabbed in a blind panic before we left base. My “go bag” looks less like an overnight bag and more like the panic suitcase of a woman who might be having a breakdown but is trying to make it productive.
Crewe hovers nearby. He’s pretending he isn’t hovering. But he totally is. He leans against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, coffee mug in hand, watching me like I’m a mission he refuses to lose.
“You’re going to get a paper cut,” he says.
I don’t look up. “If I bleed out from a paper cut, I want you to know it’s Brenda’s fault.”
His mouth twitches, just barely. “Still blaming Finance.”
“Always.”
I flip through another notebook, handwriting slanting across the page. It’s messy in the way only my handwriting can be—like my thoughts were sprinting and my pen was trying to keep up.
I pause on a page titled:FAILSAFES + HUMAN ERROR = ALWAYS ASSUME THE HUMAN WILL RUIN IT.
My throat tightens.
I swallow and keep going.
Because this is what I do when I’m scared. I dig. I analyze. I find patterns. I make lists. I build logic ladders out of panic until I can climb out.
