Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Ryan
Blood on the wall. Boot prints by the door. Signs of struggle, not execution.
I crouch by a larger stain, touching it with my fingertip. Still tacky. Maybe six hours old.
“They took him alive,” I say, more to myself than to Celeste. That’s something, at least.
Celeste stands in the doorway, arms wrapped around herself. “They knew we were coming. They knew exactly where to find Torque.”
“Yeah.” I straighten, wiping my finger on my jeans. “And that’s the real problem. Phoenix didn’t just get lucky. It knew about a safehouse that exists on exactly zero official records.”
“What does that mean for us?”
I don’t answer right away. My brain’s running scenarios, and none of them are good. If Phoenix cracked Cerberus protocols, we’re properly fucked. Our safe houses, our emergency channels, our whole damn network—all compromised.
Well, almost all of it.
“We need to disappear,” I say, moving toward the door. “And I mean really disappear. Off every grid, every system, every map.”
Celeste follows close behind me. In just a few days, she’s gotten good at reading my movements, matching my pace. Not bad for a journalist who has never been shot at before last week.
“Is that even possible anymore?” She glances over her shoulder as we step outside.
“One place.” I lead her back to the Chevelle, staying low near the tree line. “Ghost’s cabin.”
“A cabin?”
“Not officially.” I slide behind the wheel, my brain already mapping out the routes. “No paperwork, no utilities, no digital footprint. Ghost built it after leaving Delta, before he started Cerberus. It’s where he found Willow when her ex was hunting her.”
I fire up the engine, backing away from Torque’s bloodstained sanctuary. “We need to ditch this car. Too flashy. And we’re dumping every piece of tech we’ve got.”
“Everything?” Celeste’s hand goes to her pocket, where Jared’s flash drive sits like a ticking bomb.
“Everything except that.” I scan the mirrors as we pull away. “Phones, cards, anything with a circuit board. Phoenix has eyes everywhere. Time to go blind.”
She unfolds the map, fingers tracing potential routes. “How far to this cabin?”
He laughs. "Back in Montana. Ghost's cabin is in the northwestern mountains, completely off-grid. From here, it's mountain roads and logging tracks—slow going, but untraceable.”
“Montana? How ironic?”
“This time, we’ll be so indirect it’ll make a drunk snake look straight.”
We drive in silence for a while, the dense forest giving way to Portland’s sprawl. I keep us slightly under the speed limit—just enough to blend in, not enough to get caught on a traffic camera.
“I know a place in Gresham,” I say finally. “Guy named Mike. Ex-Marine. Runs a scrapyard. No cameras, cash only, and a pathological hatred of paperwork.”
“And the Chevelle?” She touches the dashboard like she’s saying goodbye to an old friend.
“Gets a nice vacation under a tarp while Phoenix chases false leads toward California.” I glance in the mirror again.
Force of habit. Or maybe something more personal this time.
“And when this is over, Mike will make sure it gets back to its owner. Leave a nice thank-you note for the unwitting loan.”
Morning traffic builds around us. Every car is a potential tail, every intersection a decision point. I weave through side streets and residential neighborhoods, avoiding main roads where cameras cluster like digital vultures.
“You’re worried about the rest of Cerberus,” Celeste says quietly. Not a question.
“If they’ve got into our systems, everyone’s exposed.” No point sugarcoating it. “Mason, Cooper, Jonah, Diego. The whole team.”
“Can you warn them?”
“Not with anything electronic.” I hang a right, doubling back on our route for the third time. “When things go this sideways, we go dark. Completely dark.”
“So how do you reach them?”
“Old school.” I tap my head. “Things we memorized. Places only we know about. Codes that never got written down. Real spy shit, but less sexy than the movies make it look.”
Mike’s scrapyard looks like tetanus waiting to happen. Rusted cars stacked three high, a chain-link fence that’s more holes than metal, and a sign that says “MIKE’S” in letters faded by decades of Oregon sun and rain.
I pull around to the back, avoiding the front entrance, where there might be cameras, despite Mike’s paranoia. No sense taking chances. A massive man walks out of the garage, dirty rag in his hands.
“Wait here,” I tell Celeste. “Two minutes.”
“Ellis?” His eyes narrow, then he breaks into a yellow-toothed grin. “Holy shit, man.”
Mike still looks like he eats nails for breakfast—six-foot-four of muscle gone slightly soft around the middle, arms covered in fading Marine Corps tattoos, and the same high-and-tight he’s probably worn since Desert Storm.
“Need a favor, Mike.”
“You need wheels?” Mike asks after I explain just enough of the situation without getting into details. He knows better than to ask too many questions.
“And cash,” I add. “Account’s been compromised.”
Ten minutes later, we’re climbing into a truck that time forgot—a ‘92 Ford F-150 with more rust than paint and an engine that sounds like it’s coughing up a lung. Mike also handed over five thousand in cash stuffed in an old gym sock.
“Cerberus is good for it,” I told him.
“I know.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Ghost saved my ass in Fallujah. Consider this payback with interest.”
The truck might be ugly, but it starts right up. “This thing will make it?” Celeste eyes our new ride like it might disintegrate under her.
“It’ll make it. And nobody looks twice at another piece-of-shit truck in the backwoods.” I pat the dashboard affectionately. “They only notice the pretty ones.”
We stop at a sad little gas station on the outskirts of town. I send Celeste in with instructions while I rip out the truck’s aftermarket radio—the only electronic component besides the ignition.
She comes back loaded down: water bottles, beef jerky, protein bars, first aid stuff, a prepaid flip phone still in its package, and two disposable cameras.
I raise an eyebrow. “Disposable cameras?”
“Film.” She’s already stashing everything in her backpack. “Analog. In case we need evidence that can’t be erased with a keystroke.”
Smart. Damn smart. Add it to the growing list of reasons Celeste Hart keeps surprising me. Her quick thinking, her guts, her refusal to just be a victim in all this.
And the way she looks in the morning light, auburn hair catching the sun, determination etched into every line of her face …
Focus, Ellis.
We drive another fifteen miles before pulling over at a small bridge. One by one, I remove the batteries from my devices and throw them in opposite directions, then pitch the phone into the rushing water below.
“Feels primitive,” Celeste says as we get back in the truck.
“Primitive keeps us alive.” I start the engine. “Phoenix was built to track modern humans—people who can’t take a shit without checking Instagram first. We’re going Stone Age on its ass.”
That gets me a smile. Small victory.
We turn northeast, taking back roads that barely qualify as roads. Oregon transforms around us—farmland to forest, civilization thinning out until we drive for hours without seeing another car.
“You’re sure this cabin isn’t compromised?” Celeste asks after we’ve been quiet for a while.
“Nothing’s certain anymore,” I admit. “But Ghost built this place. Paid cash for everything. Used cutouts for the few materials he couldn’t source himself. If Phoenix found it, we’re dead anyway.”
“Comforting.”
“I’m not known for my bedside manner.”
“I don’t know,” she says, a hint of mischief in her voice. “I might disagree.”
My eyes lock onto hers, gaze heavy with intent. “What we’ve done so far?” I let my voice drop to the register I know affects her. “That was barely a preview.”
She shifts in her seat, the mischief in her expression replaced by something darker, hungrier.
“Promise?” she whispers, the single word both shy and eager.
“I’ve been thinking about what comes next,” I continue, one hand leaving the wheel to brush my knuckles lightly against her thigh. “All the ways I want to push you. Test your limits. See just how completely you can surrender.”
I curl my fingers around her thigh, squeezing hard enough to make her gasp.
“You’ve awakened something in me. Something I usually keep tightly controlled.” My voice is barely above a whisper now. “But what I want to do to you requires more time and privacy than we have right now.”
“But first we survive,” I continue, reluctantly returning my focus to the road. “The cabin has what we need. Emergency equipment. Communication gear that Phoenix can’t track. And a way to examine that flash drive without broadcasting our location to every killer in the Pacific Northwest.”
“That sounds paranoid.”
“Mason’s paranoid.” Simple as that. “And right now, his paranoia might save us both.”
Long hours pass as we head back toward Montana, another twelve hour day, but I don’t care. Not with Celeste by my side.
The roads narrow as we climb higher, the pavement giving way to gravel, then packed dirt. Tree branches scrape the truck’s sides like fingers trying to hold us back. We pass the remains of old logging operations—rusted equipment slowly being reclaimed by the forest.
I pull into a clearing barely large enough for the truck and kill the engine.
“We walk from here,” I say, already getting out. “About two miles.”
Celeste doesn’t argue. Just grabs her pack and helps me cover the truck with branches cut from nearby pines. She catches on quickly—a woman who understands survival instinctively.
We move through the forest like ghosts. Well, I move like a ghost. Celeste moves like someone trying very hard not to snap every twig underfoot. But she’s learning.
“Stop,” I whisper, throwing out an arm.
She freezes instantly. Progress.
I point down to where a nearly invisible wire stretches across our path. “Trip wire. First layer of Ghost’s security. Nothing electronic, just good old-fashioned mechanical alarms.”
“Ghost set these?”
“He set seven layers of security. This is just the starter course.”
We clear four more triggers before the cabin appears through the trees—a small log structure nestled against a sheer rock face. Looks like any other hunting cabin abandoned in these mountains. Nothing special.
Except it’s a fortress.
The walls are steel-reinforced. The windows are ballistic glass that looks like ordinary crap. The stone chimney houses air filtration and communications gear. And underneath the whole thing is a bunker that would make doomsday preppers weep with envy.
“Wait here,” I tell Celeste, drawing my weapon.