Chapter 4
FOUR
Simon
The silence in the sleek, ultra-modern rental house wasn’t peace; it was the heavy, pressurized quiet of a bomb counting down, the kind that makes your ears pop before the explosion even hits. It was a sterile vacuum, devoid of the messy, chaotic noise of actual life, and it set my teeth on edge.
I sat on the white suede sofa, a piece of furniture so aggressively impractical it offended me on a structural level, and dragged a thick stick of compressed charcoal across the tooth of my sketchbook paper.
Scritch. Scritch. Snap.
The tip broke. Again. Beheaded by my own tension.
"You're going to grind that black dust into the upholstery," Anders stated flatly.
He didn't turn around from the kitchen island, where he was presiding over his laptop like a general in a war room, illuminated by the harsh blue light of a spreadsheet.
His posture was rigid, the line of his tailored charcoal suit jacket unyielding even after hours of travel.
He smelled like expensive stress, sharp aged bourbon and the ozone crackle of electricity, radiating a need for control that made the air in the room feel physically thin, as if he were inhaling all the available oxygen.
"Send the cleaning bill to the studio if you're so worried about the deposit," I muttered, blowing the loose black dust off the page. It dispersed into a fine cloud, settling on my jeans.
It didn't help. The drawing was garbage.
It was just a frantic, frenetic mess of heavy, angry lines and jagged shadows.
I had been attempting to capture the violence of the storm raging outside, but the sketch lacked the one thing I needed: a focal point.
It was all noise, no signal. Just like us, sitting in this glass cage, waiting.
Daniel was in the kitchen, organizing the pantry with the terrifying serenity of a man who believed Earl Grey tea could solve structural failures. He moved with a soothing largeness, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his flannel shirt as he aligned boxes of pasta.
"Ten minutes until the hour, Anders," his deep voice rumbled, smooth as polished timber and warm as the spiced chai scent clinging to his skin. "Maybe she’s just having connectivity issues. Look at the weather. It's nasty out there."
"This isn't a rural bed and breakfast. She has military-grade satellite internet," Anders clipped out, tapping a key with unnecessary force, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the open-concept room. "I paid for the installation myself three years ago, buried the cables, and secured the server. If she’s offline, it’s a choice. And right now, it’s a breach of contract. "
I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the entire western wall.
The world was a wash of violently grey slate and charcoal.
The rain wasn’t falling; it was being thrown against the glass in sheets, a deluge so thick it distorted the coastline into a blurred, impressionist nightmare of dark shapes and whitecaps.
I knew that grey. I knew the specific, suffocating weight of a storm that trapped you inside your own head, where the shadows got longer and the silence got louder.
"Maybe she's crashing," I said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended, scraping against the back of my throat.
Anders stiffened, his back muscles bunching under the suit. "Don't be dramatic, Simon. She’s a professional writer with a deadline, not a Victorian fragility case having a fainting spell."
"I don't mean the deadline," I said, looking down at my ink-stained hands.
The calluses on my fingers were permanent, little badges of honor, or perhaps shame, from years of clutching styluses and pens, trying to draw the world instead of participating in it.
"I mean her. Have you actually read the drafts?
Everything about her emails, the fluctuating tone of the manuscripts, the frantic pacing.
.. it screams trauma response. And you just threatened her with the legal department. "
"I motivated her," Anders corrected coldly. "There is a difference between pressure and persecution."
BZZT-BZZT-BZZT.
The sound severed the argument instantly.
It wasn't the polite, melodic chime of an email notification or a text.
It was a harsh, discordant siren, a jagged saw-wave emanating from the pile of gear on the island, specifically, the ruggedized tablet we used for location scouting and emergency protocols.
Anders frowned, his hand freezing over his mouse. He looked at the device like it was a live grenade. "What the hell is that?"
I was moving before I processed the decision. My body reacted while my brain was still buffering. I vaulted off the white couch, dropping the sketchbook to the floor, and reached the marble island in three long strides.
I grabbed the tablet. The rubberized casing was cold and damp in my hand.
The screen was flashing a rhythmic, terrifying red. A topographic map of the coastline dominated the display, overlaid with a pulsing crimson bullseye that throbbed like a dying heart.
ALERT: OMEGA HEALTH FOUNDATION
SIGNAL TYPE: BIOMETRIC CRITICAL / ENDOCRINE FAILURE
STATUS: UNRESPONSIVE
MED-EVAC: GROUNDED (WEATHER)
"It's a distress beacon," I said, the words tasting like copper on my tongue. The scent of burnt sugar, my own distress pheromones, spiked in the air, bitter and acrid. "Someone out there is flatlining. The tech picked up a broadcast signal."
"Who?" Daniel asked, abandoning his tea sorting. His large presence immediately crowded my shoulder, his scent of fresh bread turning slightly sour with worry. "There's nothing out on this cliff but vacation rentals and rocks. It’s a dead zone."
I tapped the notification, expanding the data stream. My eyes scanned the scrolling coordinates, my artist’s brain instantly overlaying the digital map with the rough mental sketch I’d made of the topography earlier that morning.
47.9 degrees North. The Ridgeline. The jagged promontory overlooking the Needle Rock.
My stomach dropped, a sickening sensation like missing a step on a staircase in the dark. I looked at the encrypted file path Anders still had open on his laptop screen, the secure drop box for transferring manuscripts to T.L. Rose.
"It’s her," I whispered, the realization chilling my blood.
Anders spun his stool around, his icy blue eyes narrowing. "What?"
"The coordinates," I said, shoving the tablet into his chest so hard he had to grab it to keep it from hitting the floor. "Look at them, Anders. It’s the exact location of the IP ping you traced. It’s the drop box location. It’s the Fortress."
Anders looked at the screen, and I watched his face drain of all color.
For a split second, the mask slipped. The high-powered literary agent, the man of steel and spreadsheets, vanished, replaced by a flash of genuine, raw panic.
"Biometric critical? That’s... that’s not a panic attack.
That’s systemic shock. That's organ failure. "
"The ambulance won't fly in this," Daniel said, his voice dropping into that deep, resonating command register he used for narrating war epics, the voice that usually made Omegas swoon, but now just sounded like a death sentence.
"Look at the status line. Med-evac grounded.
The system is pinging the nearest registered Medical Support Pack. "
He looked at me. Then he looked at Anders.
We were the pack.
We had registered years ago, mostly for the tax breaks and the group insurance benefits for the studio, a bureaucratic formality Anders had insisted on to save two percent on our premiums. We were three healthy, prime Alphas with clean records and basic first-aid certifications.
We were supposed to be the backup on a spreadsheet, not the first line of defense in a hurricane.
"She has less than twenty minutes before permanent neurological damage sets in," I read from the scrolling text, the medical jargon cold, detached, and final.
"We have to go," I said, the charcoal dust on my hands smearing onto the marble counter.
Anders hesitated. I saw the calculation running behind his eyes, the rapid-fire assessment of liability, danger, the structural integrity of the bridge, the absurdity of the situation. He was frozen. Just like he had been on that stage ten years ago. Rigid. Correct. Useless.
"Give me the keys," I snapped, snatching the rental fob from the counter before he could formulate an argument.
I didn't wait for permission. I grabbed my leather messenger bag, habit, purely habit, as if my sketchpad could stop bleeding, and kicked the front door open.
The wind hit me instantly, a physical blow that carried the scent of wet pine, churned earth, and salt spray, ripping the climate-controlled warmth of the house away in a heartbeat.
"Simon, wait!" Anders shouted, his voice nearly lost in the howl of the gale.
But I was already running, boots sinking into the mud, sprinting toward the black beast of an SUV parked in the drive.
I threw myself into the driver’s seat, jamming the keyless start button. The engine roared to life, a mechanical growl that matched the dark, aggressive adrenaline flooding my veins.
The passenger door ripped open. Anders climbed in, his pristine suit soaked in three seconds flat, his golden hair plastered to his forehead. Daniel piled into the back, clutching the heavy orange trauma kit we kept for set accidents, his face set in a grim line.
"You drive like a maniac in clear weather," Anders hissed, buckling his seatbelt with hands that were visibly shaking. "Do not kill us before we even get there."
"Then don't distract me," I snarled, slamming the shifter into drive.
The tires spun, spitting gravel and mud, screaming for traction before finding purchase. The SUV lurched forward, tearing down the narrow access road that wound along the cliff's edge like a precarious ribbon.