17. Flashpoint
Flashpoint
IRIS
The sound isn’t a noise.
It’s a pressure change.
One second, the air in the glass office hangs stagnant, heavy with fear and ozone, the faint metallic tang of exposed circuitry burning somewhere in the walls. Next, the atmosphere detonates.
CRACK.
The reinforced glass wall behind Mercer doesn’t shatter. It disintegrates, atomized into a violent cloud of diamond dust and razor-edged hail. The shockwave slams into me like a physical blow, a massive hand driving me backward into the metal desk.
Instinct takes over. Arms up. Chin down.
A scream erupts from Mercer.
Through the gaps between my hands, I see it.
The crisis manager, the man who planned on amputating my fingers, is no longer standing. The blast hurled him sideways. He scrambles across the floor, shrieking, a jagged spear of laminate glass embedded deep in his shoulder.
He’s alive.
But I stop looking at him.
Because the doorway changed.
A man stands there now, framed by darkness and falling sparks, rainwater streaming off torn tactical gear, blood and mud smeared into his clothes like war paint. His face strips clean of humanity. Nothing left but purpose.
Boyd.
He doesn’t look like a rescuer.
He looks like an extinction-level event.
The rifle comes up.
Thwip-thwip.
Two subsonic rounds hit clean and surgical.
A soldier by the door collapses mid-stride, biology shutting down before the nervous system can catch up. One instant a threat, the next a crumpled weight of meat and gear.
Mercer lunges for his weapon. His hand skids across wet glass.
Boyd steps fully into the room.
His boots crunch over debris. He doesn’t shout. Doesn’t warn. He simply angles the rifle downward.
Thwip.
The floor tiles next to Mercer’s hand explode, spraying ceramic dust. A warning. Or maybe a miss.
Mercer understands.
He abandons the gun and rolls out of the way, scrambling through the shattered side panel, disappearing into the smoke and the chaos of the processing floor below.
Boyd doesn’t chase him.
He turns to me.
For a heartbeat, I don’t recognize him. The man I slept with, the man laughing in the kitchen, vanished.
This is the US Marshal. A weapon the government aims at things they want erased.
His gaze is a dark void, pupils blown wide, adrenaline and survival chemistry rewriting his nervous system.
His lungs work like a forge bellows, radiating heat in waves.
“Iris.” The name rips from his throat like it costs him blood.
He crosses the room in two strides. No wasted motion.
He grabs me.
Not gentle. He clamps his hands onto my upper arms, digging his fingers into the muscle hard enough to bruise. He hauls me against him. Not a hug. He’s checking for structural integrity. He pats me down, ribs, spine, skull, rough and desperate.
“Are you hit? Are you hur?” He shakes me slightly.
“No. I’m fine.”
“I saw the glass. I saw the fire.” He grips my face between his hands. His palms feel freezing cold, rough as sandpaper. He forces my head up, searching my gaze for shock, for dilation.
“I’m okay, Boyd. I’m okay.”
He shudders. A violent, tectonic vibration traveling from his frame into mine. He presses his forehead against mine for one second. Just one. The heat radiating off him is feverish, chemical.
Then he pulls back. The mask slides back into place.
“We’re leaving. Now.” He turns to the door.
“Wait.” I grab his arm. The muscle runs rock hard, trembling with tension. “The laptop.”
I point to the ruggedized computer sitting on the desk. The screen radiates a soft blue light, the timer sitting at zero.
“Leave it.”
“No. Mercer left it unlocked. It’s connected to their network.” I don’t wait for his permission. I lunge for the desk.
I grab the laptop and yank the satellite cable free. I shove it into the inner pocket of my parka, zipping it tight against my ribs. A heavy, cold weight against my ribs, but it feels like leverage.
Boyd stares at me. His gaze narrows. He registers the defiance along with the logic.
“Move.” He shoves me toward the door.
We step out onto the catwalk.
The facility turned into hell.
The fire suppression system rains cold, dirty water down on everything. It mixes with the smoke from the skirmish on the main floor, creating a thick, gray fog obscuring everything. Strobe lights flash: red, white, red, disorienting the senses.
Gunfire erupts from below.
Crack-crack-crack.
Bullets spark off the metal railing inches from my hip.
I gasp, recoiling.
“Stay low.” Boyd grabs the back of my coat and shoves me down. We crouch behind the solid steel panel of the walkway. “Wraith.” He presses his headset mic. “Suppress the floor. I have the package. We’re moving to the roof.”
Below us, a rhythmic, heavy thudding begins. Precision fire. Someone is systematically eliminating the threats.
We move.
Boyd takes point. He moves in a crouch, his rifle shouldered, scanning the gloom. Predator in his element. He clears corners before I even see them. He checks the angles.
I follow him, gripping the back of his tactical vest. A clinician’s eye does its work.
The drag of his left leg. Blood, dark in the strobe light, soaking his right sleeve, dripping steadily onto the grating.
He hides it. I catch the hitch in his gait. The left leg, the one he favored in the woods, is worse. But there’s something else.
Blood.
Almost black in the strobe light, it soaks the sleeve of his right arm. It drips from his elbow, leaving a trail on the metal grating.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Keep moving.”
“Boyd, your arm—”
“I said move.” He drags me forward.
We reach a junction. A ladder leads up to the roof access.
“Up.” He points to the ringing metal. “Go.”
I grab the rungs. The metal slips slick with oil and water. I climb.
Below me, Boyd turns. He kneels at the base of the ladder, rifle aimed back the way we came. Rearguard. The shield.
I reach the top and push a hatch open.
The wind hits me.
It shrieks across the roof, snow needling my face, shock-cold after the swelter below. I scrabble out, lungs cinching shut around the frigid air.
I look down the hatch.
“Boyd. Come on.”
He starts climbing.
Slow. His left arm pulls each rung. His right arm hangs at his side. He grunts with every rung, a sound of wet, grinding pain.
He clears the hatch. Rolling onto the roof, he lies on his back for a second, lungs heaving.
“Contact.” A massive figure drops into view on the other side of the roof.
I spin around.
Three men separate from the shadows of the ventilation units. Mercer’s security detail is cutting us off.
They raise their weapons.
I freeze. No cover. Nowhere to go.
Boyd roars.
He surges up from the ground, abandoning the dropped rifle. He draws the pistol from his belt with his left hand.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
He fires while moving, placing himself between me and the threats.
One man drops. The others scramble for cover behind the AC units.
Return fire rips the roof apart.
“Get down.” Boyd tackles me. He throws his body over mine, driving me into the snow and gravel. Dead weight of muscle and armor.
He flinches. Once. Twice.
The impacts shudder through his frame into mine. He takes rounds. Taking them for me.
“Boyd.”
“Stay down.” He raises the pistol over my shoulder. Fires blindly, suppressing them.
Then, a roar drowns out the gunfire.
A shadow falls over us.
A helicopter. A Blackhawk, sleek and predatory, rises up over the edge of the roof. The rotor wash hits with the force of a hurricane, flattening us against the deck.
The side door sits open.
A man leans out. Strapped to the frame, he holds a machine gun.
brRRRRRT.
A chainsaw tearing through the sky.
The ventilation units where the soldiers hid disintegrates in shredding metal and exploding concrete. The threat erased in a cloud of dust and pink mist.
The chopper pivots. It hovers five feet off the deck.
“Go.” Boyd hauls me up.
He shoves me toward the open door.
I run and dive into the cabin. Strong hands grab me and pull me in.
I scramble to the back of the compartment, making room.
“Boyd.”
He stumbles toward the bird, limping badly now. His right arm swings limp at his side. His face runs gray, washed out by the landing lights.
He reaches the door. The man inside, a giant with a beard, grabs his vest and hauls him in.
“Go. Go. Go.” The giant slaps the cockpit wall.
The chopper banks hard, dropping off the roof before the door even closes. My stomach lurches. We dive into the dark, leaving the burning mine behind.
The cabin flashes red.
Boyd collapses on the bench seat opposite me.
He slides down until he sits on the deck, his back against the bulkhead. His head lolls back. His eyelids half-close.
The adrenaline abandons us. The chemical crutch of the epinephrine burned out, leaving nothing but trauma.
I unbuckle my harness, crawling across the vibrating floor.
“Let me work.” I shove the big man away as he tries to put a headset on Boyd. “Back off.”
He notes the blood on my hands and the look in my eyes. He backs off.
I kneel between Boyd’s legs.
“Boyd. Look at me.”
His eyelids flutter open. Hazy, unfocused. The pupils unequal. Concussion? No, shock.
“Hey, Doc.” His voice slurs.
“Did we get them?”
“We got them. Stay with me.”
Primary survey. Airway is clear. Respiration is rapid but equal bilaterally. Circulation...
Blood pools everywhere. It spreads on the rubber floor mat under his legs.
“Where are you hit?” I rip a med kit from the wall.
He tries pointing to his arm, struggling to lift it.
“Right arm. And...” He grits against the pain. “Side.”
I reach for the trauma shears. I cut his sleeve.
The fabric falls away.
The wound runs ugly. A deep laceration carved across the full width of his biceps, furrowing into the muscle belly. The bullet missed the bone and the major vessels but tore the tissue to ribbons. Dark, venous blood wells up from the wound, steady and relentless.
“Tourniquet.” I hold my hand out.
The big man slaps a CAT tourniquet into my palm.
I slide it high up on Boyd’s arm, near the armpit, and crank the windlass.
Boyd grunts. His teeth clench. A cord stands out in his neck.
“Sorry. Sorry.” I twist it until the bleeding slows significantly. I lock it in the clip.
“Arm is secured. Where else?” I cut the side of his tactical vest, rip the Velcro, and pull up his thermal shirt.
A massive, dark-purple bruise spreads across his entire left side, perfectly mapping the impact zone of his Kevlar vest. A long, angry furrow runs where a bullet skimmed the skin just below his armpit.
Not penetrating. No sucking chest wound.
“Deep tissue bruising.” My fingers probe the ribs beneath the mottled skin. “Structural integrity holds. No cracked ribs. Lung sounds remain clear, but you’re going to feel every breath for a month.”
I look at his face. His gaze is locked on me.
He isn’t fading out. He fights the crash. He forces himself to stay awake to supervise his own triage. Holding onto consciousness with both hands.
“How bad, Doc?” He stares at the ceiling.
“You’ll live. But you’re going to need proper layer closure to repair the muscle in that arm.”
“Sew it.” He meets my gaze.
“What?” I blink.
“Sew it up.” He grips his knee. “Stop the bleeding. We aren’t going to a hospital.”
“Boyd, you need an OR. You need a sterile field and deep fascia sutures.”
“I have you.” He reaches out with his good hand. He grips my arm. His hand shakes, but the grip lands hard. “We can’t go to a hospital. It’s too risky. Patch me up. Here.”
I look at the wound. The tourniquet slowed the bleeding, but a laceration this deep requires immediate traction, or the muscle will retract permanently.
I look at the medical kit. Suture packs. Hemostats. Lidocaine.
Field medicine. Meatball surgery.
“Hold the light. Steady.” I shove a flashlight at the big man.
He nods, thumbing on a tactical light to aim it at the wound.
I grab the Lidocaine syringe.
“This is going to hurt. I can’t knock you out.”
“Do it.”
I inject the local anesthetic into the ragged edges of the wound.
Boyd doesn’t flinch. He just stares at me. His amber gaze locks onto my face. He grounds himself on me, using my presence as an anchor against the pain.
I grab the needle driver and silk suture.
Time to work.
The chopper shudders. The light wavers.
I time my stitches to the turbulence.
In. Twist. Pull. Knot.
I coax the severed muscle belly together. I close the deep fascia. I close the skin.
My hands run steady. My mind sets, cold and clear as ice. Not the woman zip-tied in a chair. Dr. Iris Kincaid, emergency trauma physician, fixing a patient.
Boyd tracks every move. My hands. My face.
“You’re good.” The words scrape over his lips.
“I know.” I tie the final knot and snip the thread. “Releasing the tourniquet. Slowly.”
I unwind the windlass. Blood rushes back into the limb.
My gaze stays locked on the wound.
It holds. No spurting. A slow ooze from the skin edges.
I slap a pressure dressing over it, wrapping it tight with Coban.
“Done.”
I sit back on my heels, wiping my bloody hands on my thighs.
The adrenaline dump hits me then. My hands start shaking. The reality of what just happened crashes down. The glass. The fire. The blood.
I sway.
Boyd’s good hand shoots out. He grabs the back of my neck. He pulls me down until my forehead rests against his chest.
“You got me,” he whispers into my hair. “You got me, Iris.”
His heart beats strong and steady in my ear.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He’s alive.
I pull back, looking at him.
He runs pale, sweating, and exhausted, but he’s alive, watching me with a look that feels more dangerous than the storm outside.
Not just a survivor. The man who killed for me. And God help me, I let him.