We reach the end of the corridor, each heavy step echoing against the sterile concrete like a countdown. The lights above buzz faintly, casting a dull glow that makes the polished floorshimmer like a quiet threat. The air feels different here—too still, too clean. It always does right before something shatters.
The door to her office is cracked open just enough to see the shadow of movement behind the frosted glass. I don’t bother knocking. I never do when I feel the heat in my chest rising like this—like pressure behind my eyes, like grief dressed up in rage.
I push in.
Larkin looks up from her desk slowly, hands still poised over a tablet. The monitors behind her throw a pale glow across her face, washing out the usual color in her cheeks. Her expression is too composed, too flat, and I know her well enough to know what that means. She only gets like this when she’s about to lay down a truth so sharp it could gut you from the inside out.
“Jon. King,” she greets, calm and precise. Always with the even tone. Always with the goddamn control.
“Skip the pleasantries,” I snap, voice cutting sharper than I intended. It slices through the room, bouncing off metal and glass. “What the hell’s going on?”
King doesn’t move, just leans back against the far wall with his arms folded across his chest like he’s waiting for a storm he already saw brewing hours ago. He’s seen me like this before. He knows better than to interrupt now.
Larkin folds her hands, a practiced gesture meant to ground the situation, but it only pisses me off more. Her fingers lace together on the desk, knuckles white. “We’ve got a hostage situation,” she says evenly. “It’s bad.”
I narrow my eyes. “I know. I briefed you on it two days ago. That’s why I needed Delilah here.”
Her gaze dips—subtle, but not subtle enough. A single beat of hesitation. The tiniest crack in that perfect composure.
“This isn’tthatone,” she says so slowly it makes my blood run cold.
I go completely still, every instinct in my body turning toward that razor edge of focus that only comes when something is catastrophically wrong. The hum of the ventilation, the tick of the wall clock, the faint chatter from the comms down the hall—all of it fades to a low, distant buzz.
“What do you mean?”
“There was a separate intel leak. Unauthorized contact. The extraction team was ambushed. The perimeter was compromised.”
She’s dodging. Circling the real answer like it’s going to sting if she says it out loud. And I already know—on some guttural, bone-deep level—that I’m not going to like what’s next. My skin feels too tight, my pulse pounding against the cigar between my teeth.
“Larkin,” I say, warning plain in my voice.
She flinches almost imperceptibly, then straightens her shoulders like that’ll shield her from the fallout. Her jaw tenses, and for the first time since I walked in, she looks… tired.
“Jon, I need you to stay calm.”
“Don’t,” I bark, stepping forward. The word lands like a shot. “Don’t patronize me. Who is it?”
King shifts slightly beside me. I don’t even have to look to feel the change in him—alert, ready, unsure how to steady either of us. His boots scrape once against the floor and then fall still. I’m barely holding my own goddamn spine up.
She breathes out slowly. “We don’t know where she is.”
The room goes quiet.
No, not quiet. Muffled. Like I’m underwater. Like my heartbeat is the only thing I can hear—and even that starts to go faint, like it’s happening in someone else’s chest.
“Who,” I say again, this time through clenched teeth, because I already know. I just need her to say it. I need the lie to die in theair between us. I need the world to pick a side—either this is my worst fear or it isn’t.
She holds my gaze, and for the briefest second she looks like she did the first time I met her—back when we were young, green, trying to save the world and failing. She looks like she doesn’t want to say it. Like she’s searching for some minor miracle that’ll make this easier.
“Say it,” I demand.
Her voice barely makes it across the desk. “Delilah.”
And just like that, the earth drops out from under me.
There’s no breath. No pulse. Just a searing, hollow white noise where my body used to be. It’s like someone took a sledgehammer to my ribcage and everything inside turned to dust.
“No,” I choke, the word falling from my lips like a reflex, like my body is trying to reject the information before my brain fully processes it. “No—she wasn’t even supposed to be out. She told me—she said she was with her parents—”
