They haul me out of the SUV, dragging me across the icy ground toward a plain white van parked just beyond the lights. My boots slip, and I go down hard, knees slamming into ice.
Pain bursts, but I fight anyway.
Hands grip my arms, yank me up, shove me forward. The van doors open. A dark mouth waiting to swallow me.
I scream again, throat ripping, hoping—praying—someone hears. Then a cloth presses to my face.
Chemical, sharp, dizzying.
My head swims. My limbs go heavy.
No—no—no?—
The last thing I see is Ford’s eyes, calm and certain, as if this was inevitable.
As if I was never going to win.
And then the van doors slam shut, and the world becomes darkness and shaking motion, and my thoughts fracture like glass.
FOURTEEN
GAVIN
The warehouse is a hollow lie.
That’s what hits me first—the emptiness disguised as purpose. The smell of dust and cold metal. The echo of boots on concrete. The way the fluorescent lights buzz like they’re mocking us for thinking we’d find answers here.
We breach clean. We sweep methodical. We clear corners and catwalks and offices that look staged—too tidy, too bare, too ready to be abandoned.
Wyatt’s voice crackles in my ear. “No heat signatures in the north bay.”
Rhett answers from the opposite side. “South offices are clear.”
Chase mutters, “This place is a damn ghost.”
Rafe’s tone stays calm, but I hear the steel underneath. “Keep moving. If it’s a dump site, they’ll have traces.”
Eli’s behind me, med kit strapped tight, eyes scanning. Harlan is a shadow to my left, heavy and silent, weapon steady. The FBI team fans out with us, tight, disciplined.
And still—nothing. No cages. No paperwork. No phones. No bodies. No sign we ever had the right place.
My gut twists with something I don’t like. A cold, familiar sensation.
You’re late.
I stop mid-step, head turning slightly as if I can hear the mountain whispering at me through the concrete walls.
Something’s wrong. I open my mouth to call it— and the radio detonates with sound.
“CONTACT AT THE SUVs!” a voice shouts—FBI, frantic. “—female! She’s being pulled?—”
The words slam into me like a blast wave.
Kayley.
My entire world bottoms out.
For a fraction of a second, everything goes quiet inside my skull. Like my brain refuses to understand reality. Then it hits. Heat. Rage. Panic. A feral kind of terror I haven’t felt since Kandahar—since the moment I realized I couldn’t save everyone.
