Chapter 13 Hale
Hale
Cold wind slaps across the trees as we roar down the back road toward the warehouse, the truck loaded with more firepower than a SWAT team and enough rage in the cab to light up a city block.
The intel came from a local sheriff Nate has in his pocket. Someone who lost a niece to a trafficking ring two years ago and never stopped digging. He got a partial license plate hit outside an old meat-packing plant two counties over—abandoned for years, now sealed up with padlocks and lies.
Micah grunts beside me as he checks his rifle. “This is the place. Feels wrong. Feels right.”
“It’s them,” I say, voice low.
Nate leans in from the backseat. “I pulled a layout of the structure—north entry, two side exits, upper catwalk that runs the whole length. Two heat signatures outside, minimum four inside, not counting the girls.”
My jaw locks. “One of them is her.”
I feel it in my bones.
We pull into the treeline, lights off. Micah kills the engine. The world goes quiet except for the wind and the quiet clicks of gear locking into place.
I strap on my chest plate, load my mags.
Gloves. Comms. Earpiece. I pull my jacket tight, feel the press of the photo in my chest pocket—the picture of Wren her father gave me years ago.
She was only eighteen. Smiling, arms around a puppy bigger than she was.
God, she’d kill me if she knew I carried it.
But I never stopped.
Never stopped watching. Never stopped loving her.
Yeah. Loving.
The word hits hard, but I don’t flinch from it. I’ve been circling it for years. Denying it. Fighting it.
Now?
Now I own it.
“I’m going in first,” I say, checking my rifle. “Liam’s mine.”
Nate just nods. Micah slams a round into the chamber and mutters, “Let’s fuck up some monsters.”
We move in fast. Quiet. Controlled.
Two guards posted at the back get dropped with tranq darts Nate cooked up himself—clean hits to the neck. We breach through the south side with a crowbar and a silent count.
Inside, the air is cold and metallic, filled with the hum of machines long dead and the rot of old meat and mildew. There’s movement down the corridor. Flashlight sweeps. Voices in low tones.
We slice through the dark like a blade.
One down. Two.
Then—
I hear her.
A scream. Wren.
I move faster than thought, kicking through a side door into a long hallway stacked with crates. I hit the first guard with the butt of my rifle. He drops like a sack of bricks.
“Wren!” I call out.
Her voice is muffled but close. “Hale!”
My heart explodes in my chest. I follow the sound, Micah on my flank, Nate sweeping the upper level.
We find them in a side room lit by a single hanging bulb. Wren’s on the floor, wrists raw, blood on her face but alive—alive—and three other girls huddled close.
Liam stands between us, pistol in one hand, a knife in the other. Smiling like a man who thinks he still has the upper hand.
“Drop it,” I growl.
“You’re too late,” he says, eyes flicking to Wren. “You don’t get to take her from me.”
“You never had her,” I spit, raising my rifle.
Liam lunges for Wren, gun swinging toward her head.
Bang.
My shot hits him dead center in the chest.
He crashes backward into a steel pole, and hits the ground hard.
Micah disarms the second man who tried to rush the door, and slams him into the wall. Nate cuffs another two, dragging them out with the help of the sheriff and his men who followed ten minutes behind us.
I drop to my knees beside Wren, cutting the plastic tie around her wrists. Her eyes—those goddamn eyes—fill with tears as she launches herself into me, arms locking around my neck.
“You came,” she sobs. “I knew you would.”
I hold her tight, burying my face in her hair. “I told you. I always come back.”
She trembles in my arms, and I feel something inside me finally, finally, come undone.
“You okay?” I whisper.
She nods against me. “Just scared. Not broken.”
“No,” I say fiercely. “You’re never broken.”
Paramedics are flooding in now, checking the girls, wrapping them in blankets, shining lights in their eyes. I carry Wren outside myself, her body light against mine, her hand gripping the collar of my shirt like she’ll never let go.
I don’t want her to.
Liam is alive. Barely. They’ll patch him up, but I hope he remembers what it felt like to lose.
He won’t get another shot.
None of them will.
Three hours later, we’re back at a safehouse—one of Nate’s properties tucked behind an old ranger station.
Wren sits beside me on the couch, her legs draped across my lap, a fresh blanket around her shoulders. I haven’t let go of her hand since we got here.
She’s quiet for a long time. Then she says, “I thought I was going to die in there.”
I turn to her. “Not while I’m breathing.”
She gives me a look, searching my face like she’s trying to see past all the pieces I try to keep hidden.
“I love you, Hale,” she says.
It hits like a bullet to the chest.
Raw. Honest. Undeniable.
I pull her closer, my hand cradling the back of her neck.
“I’ve loved you for years,” I whisper. “I just didn’t think I had the right.”
“You do.” Her voice shakes. “You’ve always had it.”
And when I kiss her it isn’t rushed or desperate. It’s a promise.
A vow I’ll never break.
Just us.
Alive. Whole. And finally, home.
Thank you so much for reading Wren and Hale!