Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Reid snapped awake in the lounge chair beside her bed, heart pounding. He must have fallen asleep mid-watch. The clock on the wall confirmed it—four hours, on the nose.
The monitors ticked steadily. Then a shift. Claire’s lashes fluttered, slowly and unevenly. Her chest strained against the ventilator rhythm.
Reid was out of the chair instantly, leaning over her, his hand wrapping hers. “Claire,” he breathed, “easy. Don’t fight it. Breathe with the machine. I’m here.”
Her eyes opened just enough, glazed but searching. They caught his, locking for a heartbeat. She tried to speak, but the tube blocked it. Her fingers tightened weakly around his.
He bent closer, his forehead nearly brushing hers. “You’re safe. You hear me? Safe.”
Her chest hitched once more, then her strength faltered. The monitors steadied as sedation and exhaustion pulled her under again. Reid stayed bowed there long after, hand still covering hers, whispering promises she couldn’t hear but he meant like steel.
The door opened with a soft hiss. Pete Walter stepped in, scrub cap shoved into his pocket, dark circles etched under his eyes but his presence steady as stone. He glanced at Reid first, then at the monitors. “Tuck’s down. I sent him to rack out.”
Reid straightened but didn’t let go of her hand. “She tried to wake up. Fought the vent.”
Pete moved to the bedside, reading the monitor feeds with the calm precision of someone who’d spent a lifetime in trauma wards. He checked the rhythm, the pattern of her breaths slipping over the machine’s cycle. Then he looked at her chest rising, shallow but self-driven.
“Good girl,” Pete murmured, more to her than to Reid. “She wants to breathe on her own.”
Reid’s grip tightened slightly. “What does that mean?”
Pete adjusted a line, eyes on the waveform. “If she keeps triggering the vent, meaning her body keeps taking its own breath before the machine forces it, for another two hours, I’ll pull the tube.”
Reid swallowed hard. “Two hours.”
Pete gave a faint nod. “But only if she’s strong enough. You keep her calm. No fighting. No panic. She needs steady, not rushed.” He looked at Reid fully. “That’s your job, soldier. Hold her steady.”
Reid dipped his head once, hand still locked around hers. “I can do that.”
Pete rested a hand on Reid’s shoulder for a beat, then stepped back into the quiet hum of the room, leaving him there to steady her.
The monitors whispered their rhythm in the low light.
Reid hadn’t moved except to shift his chair closer, forearm braced along the mattress, his hand still cradling hers.
For two hours, he counted each rise of her chest, each faint defiance against the ventilator’s rhythm. She was steady now—weak, but steady.
The door eased open. Pete returned with Foley at his side, both of them scrubbed, faces tight with fatigue but sharpened with focus.
Foley moved straight to the monitors. “She’s still doing it?”
Reid nodded once. “Every breath. Didn’t stop.”
Pete leaned in, checked the chest movement against the waveform, then exchanged a look with Foley. The surgeon gave the smallest nod.
“All right,” Pete said softly. “She’s earned it.”
“We’re going to take the tube out, Claire,” Foley said as though she could fully hear him. “I want you to stay with us. Keep breathing on your own. No fighting.”
Reid bent closer, his voice just above a whisper. “I’m right here. Don’t stop now.”
Pete disconnected the ventilator tubing, steady hands guiding the lines clear. Foley’s fingers worked with quiet precision, deflating the cuff, sliding the tube smoothly and quickly from her throat. A faint gag, a rasping cough, then nothing but the raw, human sound of her own breath.
The monitors flickered. One beat of hesitation. Then her chest rose again.
Reid sagged in relief. Pete leaned in, listening closely with his stethoscope, watching the oxygen numbers climb back up.
Foley didn’t look away until he was sure. “She’s breathing on her own.”
Pete set a hand against Reid’s shoulder. “She’ll be hoarse. Weak. She may drift in and out. But she made the cut.”
Reid’s answer was almost like a vow. “She always does.”
There was a rasp—barely a sound, but unmistakable. Her lips moved, cracked, voice hoarse and broken from the tube. “...Reid?”
His head snapped up.
Her eyes fluttered halfway open, glassy but trying to find him. The syllable carried no strength, but it carried her.
“I’m here.” His hand tightened around hers. “Right here. You don’t have to say anything. Just breathe.”
Her throat worked. “Hurts.”
“I know.” He leaned closer still. “They’ll keep you comfortable. Don’t fight it.”
Her lashes dipped again, already sliding back under the weight of exhaustion. But her fingers twitched faintly against his palm, her own form of an anchor.
Reid’s hand was still wrapped around the rail of her bed when Pete Walter’s voice cut through, “Out. Now.” He smiled down at Claire. “I’ll watch her pain. Her last morphine is still in her system.”
Reid didn’t move. His grip tightened like, if he let go, she’d vanish.
“Reid,” Pete stepped in and grabbed Reid’s wrist, not cruelly, but firmly, “you’re contaminating my sterile zone. She needs rest. Not your shadow leaning over her.”
Reid’s jaw locked. “I’m not leaving her.”
“Yes, you are,” Pete snapped, voice breaking its calm for the first time. “She’s alive right now, but I’m not losing her to an infection.”
Reid wanted to put Pete through the wall. Instead, he forced his hand free, took one last look at Claire’s face, and walked out before his control shattered completely.
CHASE HQ – STRATEGIC OPERATIONS – 0604 HOURS
Fuse barely glanced up from her console. Screens glowed blue and gold in front of her, cycling through camera feeds, security paths, timestamps. Relay sat beside her, jaw tight, fingers moving fast across his keyboard.
Apex stood nearest the holo-table. He didn’t move until Reid came in. Then he gave a single nod. “Anchor.”
Reid didn’t waste time. “Talk to me.”
Fuse’s eyes stayed on her screen. “Claire Bowman was shot at 12:10 p.m. At eight o’clock yesterday morning, someone slipped into Weill Hall’s and Ford Hall’s internal camera feeds.”
Reid’s chest went tight. “From where?”
“Not the university,” she said. “And not us. Whoever it was used Chase’s own digital ID to get in. The system thought it was one of ours.”
Reid felt the air sharpen. “Keep going.”
Relay finally looked up. “We found three suspicious trails. One through our Operations floor. One through Communications. And one that came from outside Chase completely, but that one used the stolen ID to slip past the gate.”
Reid stared at the screen. “So, either someone inside helped them, or they’ve already compromised us.”
“Exactly.” Apex’s arms folded. “They didn’t just watch her. They planned this. And it couldn’t have worked out better with her release of information. But I believe they were already planning to shoot her after her scheduled class.”
The doors opened, and Scope walked in, field bag still slung across her shoulder. She set it down. “Shooter used a precision rifle. Suppressed, not silent. Two rounds, tight timing. Both of them meant to kill.”
“Two? I only heard one.” Reid stared at Scope.
“None of us heard the first shot. I found this in a trash can off the quad.” She held up an evidence bag.
Inside was a suppressor. “A piece of the lining bent. Only slightly but enough to alter direction. I dug this out of a brick, directly in the line of sight.” She held up another evidence bag with a bullet.
“But here’s the thing—they weren’t panicked, and they weren’t guessing. ”
“Claire was hit in the side,” Reid said. “But her forward motion was slowed by the NSA agents.”
“Range?”
“Fifty meters. 308 Winchester. Shooter had the high ground. Building across the quad. Can’t tell you the rifle yet. They timed it perfectly.”
Relay turned his monitor toward Reid. “Every camera matches. Twelve seconds between the shots. Not a second more.”
Reid’s jaw tightened.
Apex said it flatly, “This was control.”
“They hit Claire,” Reid said, his voice like steel. “That’s not control. That’s escalation.”
“Or,” Apex countered evenly, “they hit her to show they could’ve hit you. They didn’t miss. They chose.”
The words hung in the room like a live wire.
Scope asked, “You think it was a kill order?”
“Yes. Someone had her exact location,” Reid said. “They knew where she’d be, when she’d be there, and how to get out clean.”
Fuse finally asked, “Do we take this upstairs?”
Reid looked at each of them. His team. His responsibility. “We take it all to Ian. Every piece. No guesses. No half-work. Proof.”
No one argued. Apex gave a sharp nod. And Tree Town One went back to the hunt.
Reid turned toward the window, staring out over the courtyard below. Whoever gave the order chose to hit her. And when he found out who, he would return the favor.
EXECUTIVE CORRIDOR – OUTSIDE IAN’S OFFICE – 0642 HOURS
Reid moved fast, intent carved into his stride. He was halfway to Ian’s door when Zach Wentworth stepped out of the shadows.
“Don’t.” Zach’s hand pressed against Reid’s chest firmly. “Ian’s finally down. First sleep in thirty-six hours. You wake him with fury, you’ll lose the leverage we need.”
“They hit Claire—from inside our walls.”
“I know.” Zach’s eyes were sharp, calculating. “Which is why we need your proof before Ian burns our next card. Give me an hour, then we’ll wake him together.”
Reid stood, rigid, breath taut like a wire. He wanted to shove past. He wanted to tear the door open and demand blood.
Instead, he stepped back. But the look in his eyes expressed one thing: when they woke Ian, Reid was going to bring hell with him.