Chapter 14 #3
The second week of the third month begins with the kind of silence that warns of storms. Not weather, something worse.
A silence within me. A quiet place so deep it feels like standing at the bottom of a well.
We’ve been working furiously on organizing how to get Claire back and have met with more resistance than we expected.
Leif puts out feelers to his buddies at the federal office as well as local law enforcement.
They have been providing us with a wealth of insider information that constantly occupies my mind.
My brothers watch me the way men watch a candle guttering in the dark, afraid of the moment it goes out. I don’t blame them. I barely recognize myself anymore. I stopped shaving. I live on caffeine and rage. My voice is either too sharp or too quiet.
I’ve lost weight from forgetting to eat; I’ve lost sleep from refusing to rest. My brothers try to intervene gently, then firmly.
“Erik,” Leif says one morning, “you need a few hours of sleep. Just a few.”
“I’ll sleep when she’s home.” Bjorn steps in front of me, palms raised like he’s approaching a wild animal.
“You’re going to collapse.” I meet his eyes, empty, unblinking.
“I don’t have that luxury.” There is no room inside me for anything except the thought of her, somewhere cold, somewhere afraid, somewhere thinking I’ve abandoned her.
That thought alone keeps me upright. That thought alone destroys me.
Grace tries to keep her distance from the worst of my unraveling, but she’s pregnant, emotional, and overwhelmed. One afternoon she breaks, quietly, with just a single sob she tries to cover with her hand.
I freeze. She flinches like she startled herself.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to; I just miss her. And I hate watching you suffer. I hate it so much.”
I swallow hard.
Her belly is so round now; Claire should have been here watching that progression with her. Grace is so close to her due date that the midwife says it could be any day now.
“It’s not your fault,” I say quietly. “None of this is.”
“But it feels like it is,” she murmurs. “I feel guilty being safe when she’s not.”
I want to comfort her. I want to say something gentle. But the words come out like sandpaper. “Claire wouldn’t want you to feel that.” She nods, wiping her eyes. “Then bring her home.”
As if I need the reminder.
By Wednesday morning, Axel has another lead, an abandoned lab on the city outskirts.
I go alone this time. They try to follow; I refuse. Inside the lab, the walls are stripped. Equipment removed. Floors scrubbed with industrial solvent. Empty. Like they’d never been there. Like Claire had never been there. I smash a stainless steel table into the floor.
My knuckles bleed from punching a wall. Still empty. Still nothing. Still gone. I stand in the center of the room, chest heaving, fists trembling. “Claire…”
Her name is a prayer. I drop to my knees in the middle of the barren room. For the first time, I think: What if I’m losing her? Not because I won’t find her. But because she won’t have anything left of herself by the time I do.
That thought breaks me.
Thursday night, everything shifts. Axel appears in the doorway of my office, face pale, tablet clutched in his hand.
“Erik… you need to see this.” My pulse spikes.
“What?”
“A satellite request finally came back from Leif’s friends. We flagged all industrial properties connected to dummy corporations Dr. Rhys had access to. One of them has unusual heat signatures.”
I stand so quickly that the chair crashes back. “Where?” He shows me the image, a thermal map of a massive, remote facility.
Secluded. Armed. And in one wing of the building, continuous heat spikes. Repetitive timing. An oscillating pattern.
“What is that?” I demand.
Axel’s voice goes low. “Rhythm patterns consistent with industrial pumps. A lot of them.”
My vision narrows. “Oh my god,” he whispers. “Erik… they’re milking.” My stomach drops.
My knees almost buckle. She’s there. She has to be there. A pulse of violent, desperate hope slams through my chest so hard it hurts.
“Show our brothers and alert Leif’s friends. I want everyone armed and ready. We leave in—"
“Erik,” Axel interrupts, voice cracking, “there’s more.” He zooms in.
One tiny anomaly glows a faint yellow in the corner of the thermal map. Small. Warm. Human-sized. A single room. A solitary occupant.
He whispers, “This signature… it’s consistent with someone being sedated.” My world tilts. My breath stutters. My vision burns. “Claire…” I choke on her name.
Axel nods, tears in his eyes. “We think so.” I grip the table as if I’ll fall through the floor.
Then I straighten. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. My voice steadies into something lethal. “Gear up,” I say. “We go in at dawn.”
His eyes widen, not at the violence in my tone, but at the clarity. Erik Halvorsen is back. Not the broken version. It is not the ghost that is walking through the house. The soldier. The predator. The man who promised he would burn the world to reach her.
I stand alone in our room that night. I touch her pillow. Her books. My throat closes. “I’m coming,” I whisper to the empty room. “So help me God, I’m coming.”
Outside, dawn creeps closer. Inside me, a sense of clarity finally emerges. Hope. Rage. Love. Purpose. All of it. And the world should tremble for what I’m about to do.