Her eyes widen, the first crack in her composure. "What are you doing?"
"I'm not going to shoot you." I set the rifle against the wall and start walking toward her. "That would be too quick. Too clean. Too merciful."
She backs up, hitting the desk, real fear flickering across her face for the first time. "Guards!"
"Dead. All of them." I keep walking. Slow. Deliberate. "There's no one coming to save you, Helena. There's just me. And everything you taught me about pain."
I reach for her throat.
And behind me, Asher's voice crackles through my comm: "Jinx, we've got a problem. One of the kids has a weapon. She's on the move towards you.”
The words freeze me in place. A child… a weapon… a hostage.
Helena laughs. "That would be Twelve. One of my most promising projects. She's been conditioned to protect this facility at all costs." Her smile is razor-sharp. "You see? Even now, my work protects me.”
I stare at her. The rage is a living thing inside me, clawing at my chest, demanding release. But there's a child out there with a weapon. A child who's been turned into a killer. A child who needs help, not punishment.
What the fuck do I do now?
Chapter Fourteen: Asher
Thechildrenmovelikezombies.
Forty-two of them now, and an assistant we found, shuffling through the corridors in a ragged line, some holding hands, some clinging to Marlee or Jace, some walking alone with their arms wrapped around themselves like they're trying to hold their broken pieces together. Their bare feet whisper against the tile. Their eyes are hollow, haunted, fixed on nothing and everything at once.
The youngest can't be more than four. The oldest might be fifteen. All of them wear the same expression: the blank mask of survival. The face you learn to wear when showing emotion means punishment.
I'm at the front of the line, the sedated boy still cradled in my arms. He hasn't stirred since Jinx handed him to me. His breathing is shallow, his pulse steady, but wherever his mind hasgone, it's far from here. Deep in the safe place that children like him build when reality becomes unbearable.
I know that place. I lived there for years.
"Left at the junction," Jagger's voice guides us through the comms. "Maintenance corridor is fifty meters ahead. You're clear to the exit point."
"Copy." I adjust my grip on the boy, shift his weight to ease the ache in my arms. He weighs almost nothing. Skin and bones and trauma. "How's our window?"
"Tight. Camera loop resets in twelve minutes. After that, you're visible on every feed in the building. Local security will converge on your position within four minutes of detection."
Twelve minutes to get forty-three traumatized children through a maintenance corridor, out of the facility, and into waiting vans. The math doesn't work, but it has to. There is no other option.
"Marlee, take point. Jace, bring up the rear. Nobody gets left behind. I don't care if they're walking, crawling, or being carried. Every child makes it to those vans."
They move without question, Marlee sliding past me to lead the group while Jace falls back to cover our six. His knives are out, blades catching the red emergency lighting, ready for any threat that appears.
The children shuffle forward, and I count heads as they pass. It's automatic, instinct drilled into me from years of managing groups in high-stress situations. Always know your numbers. Always know who's missing.
Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one.
Forty-one.
I count again. Same result.
"We're missing two."
"What?" Marlee stops, turns, her face sharp with alarm. "I counted forty-three when we left the wing. I did a head count myself."
"Count again."
She does, her lips moving silently as she scans the line of shuffling children. Her face goes pale. "Shit. The girl from cell twelve. And the assistant, the one we found tied up in the admin office. The woman in the scrubs."
