14. The Way Out
The Way Out
Steve
Crew throws the SUV through the first corner, the tires giving a brief squeal before they bite into the asphalt.
Behind us, Meridian Memory Institute disappears between the trees, its soft lights swallowed by dusk and distance. No sirens follow. Not yet. Strauss’s security may know how to restrain patients, but they’re not built for pursuit, and Crew made sure their first car won’t be going anywhere fast.
“Status,” I say.
Bear’s voice comes through comms from the second SUV. “Road’s clear behind us. If anyone follows, I’ll see them.”
Jan is already bent over Naomi in the seat beside her, fingers at the woman’s wrist, voice low and steady while Bliss holds Naomi’s other hand.
“Pulse fast but strong,” Jan says. “She’s scared, not crashing.”
“Maribel?” I ask.
“Awake,” Cole answers. “Shaking. Following instructions.”
“Camille?”
“Quiet,” Dimitry says. “But moving with us.”
Victor’s voice cuts in. “Grayson?”
G answers immediately. “Wiping corridor footage, badge logs, and reception timestamp discrepancies. Leaving enough normal system noise that it looks like their cameras glitched during a medication audit.”
“And Matthias?” Jan asks without looking up.
“I’m cleaning up everything he touched,” G says. “Access logs, search history, file traces, badge movements. By the time Strauss works out those records were copied, if he does, he’ll be chasing ghosts.”
I glance at Matthias in the rearview mirror. He sits beside Bliss as the SUV jolts over the road, one hand braced against the seat and the other wrapped around hers.
“That’ll hold?”
“For a while,” G says. “Not forever. Eventually they’ll realize he’s gone. I’m just making sure they spend the next few hours blaming corrupted systems, failed audits, and each other before they blame Matthias.”
Matthias meets my eyes in the mirror.
“That’s all we need.”
“The archive?” he asks.
“Already verified,” G says. “Twice. Phase 1, Rothman, Sterling, Thalassa, all of it. Don’t be heroic, professor. It’s bad for my blood pressure.”
Matthias’s jaw tightens at Thalassa, but he nods.
Crew barks out a laugh and swings onto the access road leading toward the private airfield.
Lights appear ahead.
Hangar.
Learjet.
Exit.
Jan looks up from Naomi and catches Liberty’s eye in the rear seat.
“We triage in the air. No stop between here and the jet.”
Liberty is already opening the second med kit. “Vitals every five until wheels up?”
“Every five,” Jan confirms. “Start with Iris.”
She nods once and reaches for the med kit.
The medical decisions are Jan’s.
My job is making sure nothing slows us down before we reach that jet.
Behind us, the road stays dark.
For now.
Private Airfield Outside Eugene, Oregon. 1835 hours
The Learjet is lit and waiting when we hit the tarmac.
Crew brakes beside the open hangar doors, and everything becomes movement at once. Cole and Dimitry are out first, scanning the apron while Bear gives the surrounding tree line one final look before falling in behind the stretcher team.
Jax opens the rear door before the vehicle fully settles.
Jan is already giving orders.
“Naomi walks with me. Liberty, Iris first. Matthias, keep an eye on her breathing. Angus, stretcher straight to the jet.”
Nobody questions her. That’s one of the reasons this works.
Angus lifts Iris’s stretcher with Jax at the other end and carries her toward the stairs like the weight means nothing.
Liberty moves beside them with the med kit open against her hip, already checking oxygen and pulse ox while she walks.
Matthias stays at Iris’s head, eyes locked on every breath she takes.
Bliss helps Naomi down from the SUV, pale and shaking but stubbornly upright. Maribel leans on Cole. Camille grips Dimitry’s sleeve with both hands, her eyes huge as she stares at the jet.
“It’s okay,” Bliss tells her. “It’s loud, but it’s leaving.”
Camille looks at her.
Bliss holds Naomi’s hand tighter.
“And leaving is the important part.”
Jan hears it. I know she does, because her mouth softens for half a second before she turns back to Iris.
“Respirations?” Jan asks.
“Shallow but regular,” Matthias says.
“Pulse?”
“Fast.”
Liberty reads out the blood pressure.
Jan’s expression tightens. “Get her aboard. We’ll stabilize her in the air.”
I follow them up the stairs, checking the tarmac once before I step into the cabin. No pursuit. No headlights cutting through the access road. No security sedan limping after us on Crew’s deflated tires.
Just Oregon dusk, engine noise, and five women Meridian no longer owns.
Inside the jet, Liberty’s planning is waiting for us. Before we left San Francisco, she told Victor what she’d need if we were bringing out sedated patients, and Victor used Adrian’s aviation contacts to make it happen.
By the time Crew gets us to the private airfield, the pilot and ground crew have transformed one side of the Learjet into a flying treatment bay, with blankets, oxygen, monitors, fluids, and med kits secured exactly where Jan and Liberty need them.
I stay on my feet until everyone’s aboard.
Cole and Dimitry cover the cabin door while Bear keeps an eye on the tarmac through the nearest window. Jax helps Matthias secure Iris as Liberty clips the pulse ox to her finger and reaches for the blood pressure cuff.
Only when the cabin door seals shut do I finally take a seat.
Jan kneels beside Iris and looks at Matthias.
“Tell me what they gave her.”
“Last confirmed dose was midazolam with a proprietary reinforcement compound,” he says. “Possibly layered with beta blockers. Strauss adjusted her protocol yesterday.”
“Withdrawal risk?”
“Likely, but not immediate.”
I hear that and file it away.
Likely means later.
Later is still a problem, but later means we get airborne first.
The pilot’s voice comes through the cabin. “Two minutes to take off.”
Jan doesn’t look up from Iris. “Liberty, oxygen on. Matthias, talk me through the tremor pattern. If this is withdrawal starting early, I want to know before it becomes a seizure.”
Liberty reaches for the mask. “On it.”
Matthias leans closer to Iris, his focus narrowing. “Right hand first. Fingers only. No facial involvement yet.”
The engine’s revving deepens beneath us, but no one relaxes.
I stay seated and watch the everyone in the cabin settle around the urgency. Bliss keeps hold of Naomi’s hand. Matthias doesn’t take his eyes off Iris. Across the aisle, Jan and Liberty work without wasting a movement.
Bliss watches Jan and Matthias work over Iris with the desperate focus of someone who knows exactly how much is being fought for.
The jet starts to taxi.
Crew barks out a laugh from somewhere behind me. “Beats driving.”
Cole settles back into the leather seat and gives the cabin one measured look. “I’ve had worse deployments.”
Then Iris’s fingers twitch against the blanket.
Matthias sees it first.
“So it begins,” he says quietly.
Jan lifts her head.
“Then we stay ahead of it.”
MacLeod Baby Bump Hotel, Sausalito, California. 2200 hours
Three hours after leaving Oregon, the Learjet settles onto the runway with barely a bump.
By the time the engines wind down, another team is already waiting.
Two discreet hotel vehicles stand beyond the private terminal, their windows darkened. MacLeod Baby Bump Hotel manager Jillaine Garvey has already taken the entire floor offline under the cover of a private postpartum wellness retreat, exactly the kind of booking no one asks questions about.
The transfer is quiet.
Naomi walks between Jan and Liberty, slightly unsteady but answering every question she's asked. Maribel's hands shake constantly now, her skin clammy despite the cool night air. Iris remains on the stretcher, her breathing easier than it was on the flight, but Matthias watches every breath.
By the time they arrive at the hotel and the elevators open onto their private floor, Dr. Joshua Tran is waiting with Dr. Riley Santos, both already wearing scrubs.
Dr. Josh meets Jan halfway down the corridor while Riley's attention moves over each woman with quick clinical precision.
“Status?” Riley asks.
“Five women,” Jan says. “One medically fragile, one beginning withdrawal, all chemically conditioned.”
Riley's expression sharpens immediately. “Withdrawal from what?”
“We're not certain yet,” Matthias answers as he joins them. “Strauss altered protocols between patients. We know the memory compounds. We don't know what he layered underneath.”
Riley nods once. “Then we prepare for everything.”
“No restraints,” Matthias says quietly.
Dr. Josh doesn't hesitate. “Agreed. No one wakes up feeling trapped again.”
The hotel floor has been transformed.
Medical monitors sit beside beds dressed in the hotel’s soft linen. Warm lamps keep the suites from feeling clinical, while fresh meals wait ready on the sideboards. Security is invisible unless someone knows where to look.
Safe doesn't have to feel clinical.
The women are settled into the adjoining recovery suites with Riley, Joshua, Jan, and Liberty moving between them.
No one is left alone unless she asks to be.
Camille stays close to Dimitry until he walks her through the first room and shows her the open connecting door to the others.
Naomi pauses at the threshold of her suite, scanning the bed, bathroom, and unlocked exit before Jan tells her she can keep the door open for as long as she needs.
Maribel barely notices where she's walking. Riley stays beside her, already tracking the tremor in her hands, the sheen of sweat across her forehead, and the tiny spasms beginning around her jaw.
“I'll stay with her,” Riley says.
Jan nods. “Call me the second anything changes.”
“I won't wait that long.”
Only Bliss doesn't move toward her room.
She stops outside the small sitting area overlooking the lobby below.
A wide arrangement of fresh flowers sits on the table beneath a lamp, sunflowers, deep blue delphiniums, crimson roses, white lilies, and bright orange gerberas. Rich, brilliant color spills into the tranquil room.
She stands perfectly still.
Matthias says nothing. No one does.
Bliss reaches out slowly, almost as if she’s afraid the colors will disappear if she touches them. Her fingertips brush the edge of a sunflower petal.
Her breath catches.
“They're real,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “They're really that bright.”
Something inside Matthias gives way.
Not because she's crying.
Because Meridian convinced a woman who once painted the world in incredible color that she could no longer trust her own eyes.
He steps beside her without touching her.
“You remembered,” he says softly.
Bliss keeps looking at the flowers, tears falling freely now.
“No,” she whispers.
“I remembered what I lost.”
MacLeod’s Baby Bump Hotel, Private Recovery Floor, Sausalito, California. 2330 hours
The hotel floor settles into an uneasy quiet.
Maribel is sleeping under Riley's careful watch, her withdrawal managed minute by minute.
Iris has finally stabilized enough for Liberty to leave her bedside for a cup of coffee.
Naomi has eaten half a bowl of soup before exhaustion won.
Camille is asleep beneath a warm blanket, the bedside lamp glowing at its lowest setting.
Bliss sits by the window with a sketchbook Mercy bought in the hotel gift shop, one temple resting against her fingertips as she turns the blank pages without yet finding the energy to mark the first one.
Dr. Josh and Riley compare notes in the corridor while Jan updates medication schedules and observation plans. Matthias quietly briefs Riley and Joshua on every protocol Strauss used, answering their questions while they review the charts and adjust the women’s treatment plans.
I watch it all from the end of the hallway.
Every room holds another woman who survived.
Every closed door means another life Meridian didn't get to finish destroying.
Jan walks toward me after checking the last patient.
“They're settled,” she says softly.
I slip an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close.
Nine missions. Nine groups of women brought home.
We've rescued women from luxury estates, yachts, office towers, refugee camps, ports, hidden laboratories, and now a place that tried to erase minds instead of bodies.
The locations change.
The women change.
The feeling never does.
Each time they reach safety, something inside me loosens. The tension I've carried since we walked through Meridian's front doors finally begins to ebb. Only now do I let myself believe the mission is over.
Jan rests her head briefly against my shoulder.
“They're safe.”
“They are.”
I look down the quiet corridor one more time, checking every closed door and the soft line of light beneath each one.
Tomorrow we'll begin helping these women rebuild their lives.
Tonight, they're simply alive.
Sometimes, after everything we've seen, that's enough.
“Let's go to bed,” I say, watching exhaustion settle around her eyes.
She doesn't argue, only nods once, her hand slipping into mine.
We leave the quiet hallway behind, head to our suite on the upper level, and close the heavy oak door on the rest of the world.
No words are needed between us now. We've both survived another mission, and the silence of the room is the only shelter either of us needs.
We begin to undress, leaving the scrubs, armor, and the weight of the day in a heap on the floor.
The relief of finally being alone slowly gives way to something warmer.
Our hands and mouths move over each other with a desperate gratitude, tracing familiar curves and scars, the silent acknowledgment of two people who keep choosing this dangerous life and each other.
We keep our movements quiet, knowing the floor below is filled with the women we rescued, but the restraint only makes the friction of our bodies more intense.
She wraps herself around me, her skin burning against mine, and the sheer desperation of being alive takes over. I ease her back against the mattress and slide deep inside her, finding her warmth. The intensity between us builds naturally as I hold her hips pounding into her with a fierce rhythm.
Every touch is a reminder that we made it back, our breathing rushed and muffled against each other’s shoulders, until the tension snaps and we come together in a sudden, breathless rush of heat.
Later, we lie tangled together beneath the blankets, the room quiet except for the slow rhythm of our breathing.
Nine missions.
Nine times I've held her afterward and thought:
She's here.
She's breathing.
She's mine.
I don't think I'll ever grow used to how extraordinary ordinary life feels after walking people home from hell.