Page 96 of Freedom’s Inferno

Elliott studied us with an unreadable expression. “I’ll have a clean-up crew in here within the hour.”

Charlie stared at him, something passing between the two men too layered and too ancient for me to follow. His jaw worked, whatever he was trying to say catching in his throat. Instead, his lips pressed thin and he gave a single nod, Adam’s apple bobbing.

Elliott held his gaze. “Now we’re even.”

Charlie pulled back, looking me over again. He slipped an arm around my waist and helped me up, his grip firm but gentle.

Every movement felt surreal, like the air in the room had thickened.

He glanced once more at the door, his eyes sharpening. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

I looked around at the blood, the bodies, and the wreckage. My stomach turned, bile burning my throat.

Charlie stepped away long enough to grab the blue folder from the desk, flipping it closed with a snap. “We’ll burn this later,” he muttered, tucking it under his arm.

He took my hand again, pulling me toward the door. I stumbled once, still shaking, but he didn’t let go. We stepped over the bodies, over the slick red stains spreading across the concrete.

The night air hit us as we pushed out of the warehouse, cold and sharp, smelling of rain and exhaust. The Lexus was still parked under the flickering floodlight, waiting like a lifeline.

Charlie unlocked it with a trembling hand, opened the passenger door for me, and I slid in, my body still trembling, adrenaline buzzing under my skin. He went around to the driver’s side, glancing once over his shoulder toward the warehouse before getting in. The engine roared to life, and the tires spat gravel as we pulled away, leaving the building, and everything inside it, behind.

Chapter 38

Charlie

The road unspooled beneath the headlights, a steady ribbon of black that stretched on forever. My hands locked on the steering wheel, knuckles white, the tendons in my wrists tight enough to ache. The Lexus hummed, too clean a sound for what we’d crawled out of.

Lana sat beside me, silent. She hadn’t spoken since we’d pulled away from the storage facility. Her hands were still trembling in her lap, and the faint, metallic smell of blood hung between us. Lana held her hands out toward the vents, letting the warm air wash over her torn palms. The heat made her flinch at first, but she didn’t pull back.

I forced myself to speak, voice low and hoarse. “Our things are in the trunk. I checked us out of the hotel before I went back for you.”

Her head turned, eyes unfocused in the passing dark. “Where are we going?”

“For now,” I said, “my place.”

She nodded, her gaze drifting back to the window.

Outside, the world passed by in muted streaks of gray and black, empty stretches of highway, and the occasional sign half-swallowed by the night. We didn’t talk after that. I think we were both too numb. Shock worked through me like a second pulse.

My mind sat suspended between motion and stillness. Part of me was wired and ready to fight again, but the other part was hollowed out. The danger was gone, my body just didn’t know it yet. My chest still clenched tight, my heart still beating too fast, waiting for the next gunshot, the next command. For days I’d lived on adrenaline and fear, and now only the unbearable quiet remained.

The further we drove from Poughkeepsie, the emptier the roads became. The highway cut through the dark hills, the kind that swallowed towns whole. Two hours, maybe a little more, and we’d cross into Connecticut. The miles blurred together in a haze of exhaustion.

Every few minutes, I glanced over at Lana, just to make sure she was still there, paranoid she’d vanish on me. At some point, she drifted off. Her head tipped against the seat, a strand of her hair falling across her cheek. The faint bruise on her temple caught the dashboard light every time we passed under a streetlamp.

I couldn’t stop looking at her, at the rise and fall of her chest, the small tremor that lingered in sleep.

Love was too small a word for what I felt, too fragile to hold everything inside me. What lived in my chest when I looked at her was something deeper, rougher, built from relief so fierce it ached, grief that sat heavy in my bones, and awe that stole my breath.

She had saved us both, pulled me out of the dark when I didn’t deserve it, and the thought of that, of her, made my throat tighten until I could hardly breathe.

The road stretched ahead, endless, and I drove on through the dark, the hum of the tires steady against the silence. Every once in a while, I reached over, brushing my fingers against hers where her hand rested in her lap. Just to remind myself she was real. We’d made it out.

The world outside was still black and hollow, but for the first time in days, no one was chasing us. No ticking clock, no threats waiting around the corner. Just the road, the whisper of her breathing, and the fragile, terrifying truth that we were still alive.

By the time the tires crunched over the gravel of my driveway, the sky had turned the deep gray-blue of early morning. The trees closed in around us, tall and black against the paling horizon. My house came into view at the end of the winding road, the windows dark. It looked exactly as I’d left it, quiet, tucked into the woods and forgotten by the rest of the world.

I cut the engine and turned to Lana.