Chapter 45 She Can Scream Into The Void #2
Hatchet’s eyes flick toward the office door, then back. A tiny movement of attention, like a silent agreement: clock’s running now.
Ghost whispers, “He says boats sink,” and flinches like he didn’t mean to speak aloud.
Snow laughs softly. “Ark,” he murmurs, like he’s tasting it.
I turn my head slowly.
Snow meets my gaze with that too-bright expression that always means he’s entertaining himself with something cruel.
“Say it,” I tell him.
He smiles. “Nothing. Just…funny word.”
Bones’s stare narrows. Valentine’s shoulders square.
Hatchet doesn’t move, but the air around him tightens.
We’re all thinking the same thing.
If Snow knows more than he’s saying, he’s going to get someone killed.
If Snow doesn’t know more, he’s still going to try to make it true.
I don’t trust the guy. And if he double-crosses us, I’ll kill him myself.
The burner rings again near evening.
This time Bones answers on the first vibration and puts it on speaker without looking at anyone for permission.
Branson’s voice comes through, harsher, urgent. “I’ve got it.”
The room changes.
It doesn’t matter what he says next – everything in us leans forward.
“Coordinates. East coast,” Branson replies quickly.
“Exactly as suspected, it’s an old military medical site.
Mostly underground, like I said before. Black-listed after 2012.
On paper it doesn’t exist. But it’s drawing power and it matches your signal window.
We managed to get an exact ping and the location, but we can’t tell you much more than that yet about security and how armed the place is.
Tex is working his magic as we speak but I knew you wouldn’t want to wait any longer. ”
My hands are already moving. Blades. Ampoules. The small necessities of violence.
“Send details,” Bones says.
“I can’t,” Branson replies. “Not over this line. Too exposed.” A pause. A breath. “I’ll give them to Tex. He’ll get them to you. Different channel. Different device. If you don’t have one, get one.”
Valentine swears under his breath. “He’s right. I’ll get another burner. Leave it with me.”
Branson’s voice drops. “And Graves? After this, you never ever call me again. I have a family to protect now.”
The line goes dead.
Silence holds for half a second.
Then I’m on my feet.
“We move,” I say.
Valentine steps in front of me. “We don’t have transport ready. I need to get the burner—”
“Then make it ready.”
“Night—”
I stop so close he can feel the heat off me. “You either come with me or you don’t. But if she’s alive, she’s not waiting another night.”
Valentine’s jaw works, calculating. He looks past me at Honey, Bones, Hatchet, Ghost, Snow – six men shaped like catastrophe.
Then he nods once, tight. “Give me forty minutes.”
“Thirty,” Bones corrects.
Valentine’s mouth twitches. “Thirty, then.”
Honey cracks his knuckles once, slow. “Finally.”
Ghost whispers, “He says she was here,” and his eyes go wide as if he surprised himself.
Snow smiles like he’s pleased the story is catching up to him.
Hatchet’s gaze locks on Snow for one heartbeat longer than necessary.
I see it.
I don’t comment.
Not yet.
Because we have a direction now.
And if anyone stands between me and Kayla – handler, facility, board, god – they’re all going to learn what the word inevitable actually means.
We don’t talk once the van starts moving.
The road east narrows and unravels, trading streetlights for tree lines, concrete for wet gravel, civilisation for the kind of dark that feels watched.
The city lets us go without noticing. The marsh doesn’t.
Fog crawls low over the road, pale and patient, swallowing the headlights just fast enough to make distance unreliable.
Valentine drives without music, without comment, jaw set, eyes flicking to mirrors that never show what he’s checking for.
Bones keeps glancing at the notebook where he’s written down the information that Branson’s contact sent through – numbers, partial schematics, fragments that refuse to settle into a map.
Ghost goes quiet in a way that isn’t relief. His hands stay clenched around his bag of weapons like he’s afraid to put it down. Snow hums once, then stops when Hatchet’s gaze finds him in the reflection of the window. The silence after that feels deliberate.
The coordinates don’t take us to a town.
They don’t even take us to a road.
They take us to a stretch of land that looks like it was forgotten on purpose – trees too evenly spaced, fencing half-swallowed by moss, signage stripped down to posts and bolts. The signal spikes and drops as we approach, like something is aware of us and trying to decide whether to hide.
Valentine doesn’t slow the van. No one suggests it.
The facility rises out of the dark without warning, concrete pale against the trees, lights burning steady and wrong. No perimeter chatter. No response pings. No last-second objections from command.
Just a gate that we blast through that raises no alarms.
That’s when the pressure in my skull changes.
Not pain. Not fear.
Recognition.
She’s here.