The joke comes automatically. Armor sliding into place, the grin that says nothing touches me. CJ doesn't smile.
"Twenty minutes. Mitzy's got your loadout prepped. Sat coverage on the cabin is limited, so you're going in mostly blind once you're off the road." He pauses. "Riot."
I stop at the door.
"Don't die out there."
"Wasn't planning on it." The grin again, bright and easy and absolutely bulletproof. "I've got a coffee debt to settle. Fancy oat milk. Very important."
I don't wait for his response.
The hallway is quiet—that particular hum of a compound holding its breath between operations. Crash of waves against the cliffs below, the distant whir of Mitzy's servers, nothing else. I should feel tired. It's three in the morning and I've been awake for twenty hours and the smart thing would be to catch twenty minutes of sleep before the drive.
But sleep and I have an understanding. I don't ask too much of it, and it doesn't show me Joey drowning, or Deacon's body, or the aid worker who died fifteen feet from freedom.
Fair trade.
Mitzy’s already at the armory door when I arrive, tablet in hand, violet hair practically vibrating with contained energy.
"Loadout's inside. Primary, secondary, suppressed option, four mags each. Trauma kit, GPS beacon, backup comms." She's talking fast, scrolling through data as she speaks. "I've got access to traffic cams on the main roads, but once you hit the mountain routes, you're dark. Sat window opens again at 0630, so if you're not clear of the cabin by then?—"
"Then the bad guys have the same eyes you do."
"Exactly." She looks up from her tablet. For a second, the manic energy drops, and what's underneath is sharp enough to cut. "She's a kindergarten teacher, Riot. She makes construction paper turkeys and teaches kids to share. She's not supposed to be in a kill site."
"I know."
"So don't fuck it up."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
She nods once and disappears back toward ops, already talking into her headset, already three problems ahead. I push into the armory and start gearing up.
Evangeline Sinclair. Evie. Brown hair, warm smile, tiny scar by her eyebrow.
In four hours, she's going to have to make the hardest choice of her life: trust the system that's about to kill her, or trust a stranger who breaks down her door at dawn.
I really hope she picks door number two.
THREE
The Extraction
EVIE
Sleep doesn't come.
I lie in the dark and listen to the cabin breathe—Travis's pacing, the creak of floorboards, the wind pushing against windows that won't open. My mind runs calculations it has no business running. Distance to the door. Distance to the treeline. Whether I could make it through the painted shut window if I broke the glass.
Whether I could survive in the mountains alone, with men who have guns, training, and every reason to make sure I never testify.
You're being dramatic.Daniel's voice is smooth and reasonable.You always do this. Take something small and spin it into a catastrophe.
But Daniel said that about a lot of things. Said it when I told him his business partner looked at me wrong. Said it when I found the texts on his phone. Said it when I finally, finally trusted my gut and left.
Daniel was wrong.
These men are going to kill me.
