Heavy boots could be heard pounding up metal stairs. Fast but controlled. Multiple sets moving in coordination. Professional.
They were coming. They weren’t stopping to negotiate.
And from how frantic Carter was becoming, it was clear he hadn’t been expecting an entire rescue team.
Hope, sharp and terrifying and painful, speared through me.
Carter's arm tightened, choking off my air completely. He shuffled backward, dragging me with him. Putting me directly in the line of fire.
The boots stopped. Right outside.
Silence. Tense. Loaded.
Then, the door burst inward.
It slammed open with violence that made me flinch, made the gun dig harder into my temple.
The room was suddenly filled with black-clad figures. Armored. Helmeted. Masked. Anonymous. They flooded in, weapons raised, moving with choreographed precision.
Their rifles were raised. A constellation of red laser dots danced across Carter's shoulders, around my head. Everywhere.
One dot wavered across my vision, a red shimmer swimming in my peripheral view.
A commanding voice, terse and firm, filled the space. "DROP THE WEAPON! LET HER GO!"
Carter's arm tightened. He shuffled backward another step.
"Stay back!" Carter's voice was a shriek, raw and uncontrolled. "You shoot, she dies first! You understand me? She dies, and then I put one in the kid!"
The red dots didn't waver.
Then a figure moved into thedoorway.
Not in tactical gear. Just a suit and a badge.
I immediately recognized him.
James Westbrook.
Our eyes met, and something within me broke. He came for me, they all did. Jack had sent them.
We might actually survive this.
James held up his detective's shield. His voice was human. Reasonable. "Carter. It's over. The building is surrounded. There's a helicopter overhead. Sharpshooters on the rooftops. There is literally nowhere to go. Let them go, and you walk out alive. That's the deal."
"It's not over until I say it is!" Carter spat. "I hope Jack Spencer can see all of this! Tell him this is on him! Tell him he killed her!"
"Lower your weapons!" James commanded his team. He was playing for time. I could see it in his eyes. The calculation, the desperate search for an opening. "Just lower the gun. We can talk about how you walk out of here."
"No more talking!" Carter screamed. The gun pressed harder. "You're going to clear a path to the south exit! You're going to give me a car! You have sixty seconds or I swear to God I'll paint this wall with her brains!"
Sixty seconds.
My bound hands were trapped behind my back. Numb. Useless. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore.
But I had to try. Couldn't just wait to die while Daisy watched.
Iflexed what I hoped were my fingers. Felt nothing. Tried again.
