6. Enley
Enley
The secret channel to Orchid changes everything. I don’t know how Orchid’s doing any of this, and I have to hope it’s really her and not Serfina playing us for fools.
I wake on day four to find Render already at the table. The man barely sleeps. Or if he does, it’s only in those quiet hours right before dawn when even he can’t keep going. The laptop screen shows new maps and notes pulled from the hidden messages Orchid’s been sending us.
“How long have you been at this?” I ask, swinging my legs off the bed.
“A while.”
“That’s your answer to everything.”
“It’s usually accurate.”
I cross to the table and sit down. Render slides a cup of mint water toward me without being asked, a small routine that’s started to feel comforting. Then he tilts the laptop so I can see.
The information Orchid’s sent is partial but terrifying.
The building has two main structures above ground connected by a covered walkway.
Below them is an underground level with holding cells, a central monitoring area, and one room she calls a demonstration room. The name alone makes my skin crawl.
“Guard count?” I ask.
“Eight to ten at any time. They rotate on the schedule we caught earlier. Armed. Serafina’s second-in-command, a man named Ross, is running the place.”
“Not Serafina herself?”
“She hasn’t been there since the first day. She gives orders from somewhere else. Ross carries them out.” He pauses. “Orchid says Poe’s in the cell farthest from the stairs. They’ve been focusing on him specifically.”
The words make my chest squeeze tight. I know what that means. They’re hurting my brother down there where no one can hear, trying to break him because Serafina wants the financial network he built and Poe’s refusing to give it to her.
My left hand starts trembling again. I tuck it into my lap. “Ross could be the one helping Orchid,” I whisper. “It makes sense. How else would Orchid be able to send these messages.”
“Quite possibly.”
“We need to move faster,” I say.
“We need to move smarter. Fast without smart gets people killed.”
“Smart without fast means Poe keeps suffering while we sit here drinking mint water.”
He looks at me then. Really looks. The careful mask he usually wears slips for a moment, and I see the raw worry underneath. He cares about my brother almost as much as I do. That shared urgency feels like the first real brick he’s taken out of the wall between us.
“I know,” he says. “I’ve been hearing that clock too. Since before I came for you.”
The admission means something. Render doesn’t share vulnerability easily. The fact that he’s telling me this feels important.
I nod. We get back to work.
The morning settles into the rhythm we’ve built over the past few days. He focuses on the physical plans, possible ways in and out, guard movements. I handle the hidden messages from Orchid, looking for more details, and work on ways to keep our communications invisible. We sit side by side.
At eleven forty-seven the proximity alarm goes off.
It’s a small sensor Render placed near the start of the driveway. When something bigger than a deer moves through, it sends an alert to the laptop. Three signals appear on the screen. Moving on foot. Spread out in a search pattern.
“Three signatures,” Render says, voice calm but his body already in motion. He grabs the go-bag and starts packing.
I check the feed. Three heat signatures coming down the driveway. Not random hikers. This is deliberate.
“How did they find us?” My voice stays steady. I’m proud of that because I feel anything but steady.
“Doesn’t matter right now.” He shoulders the main bag and reaches for the second one with extra supplies. Then he stops, and looks at the table. The laptop. The router. The drives holding everything we’ve built.
“We can’t carry all of it,” he says.
The simple sentence changes everything.
The laptop goes in the main bag. It has all our keys and setup. The router too. But the external drives don’t make the cut.
“Render, all our work is on those drives. The hidden channel to Orchid. The facility details. If we leave them…”
“We leave them.” He’s already at the window, scanning the trees. “Wipe them. Quick format. Then we move.”
I run the wipe command on all three drives while he checks his gun. My heart pounds as the progress bars fill. Those little black rectangles hold days of our best ideas, the only real advantage we’ve got.
“Done,” I say.
“Back window. Go.”
Render opens the rear window and slips through first. He reaches back for me. I take his hand and drop down beside him. His grip is warm and sure. For a second after I land, he doesn’t let go. Then he does, but the touch lingers in my mind.
“North. Stay low. Don’t run until I say.”
We move through the thick pines in a crouch. The ground is soft with needles, muffling our steps. I can hear the searchers behind us now. Branches cracking. Low voices.
The car is parked thirty yards away, but we’ll have to cross open ground to reach it.
Render stops behind a thick tree trunk. I crouch beside him, close enough to feel the heat from his body. He’s calculating angles and timing.
“I’ll draw them east,” he says. “You take the car.”
“No.”
“Enley.”
“We talked about this. I’m not cargo. We move together or we don’t move at all.”
His jaw tightens. He’s weighing the risks. Then he nods. “Together. Fast. Don’t stop for anything.”
We break from the trees at the same time. The open stretch to the car feels endless. My legs pump hard. The go-bag bounces against Render’s back. Someone shouts behind us. Then gunshots.
Render reaches the car first and yanks the driver’s door open. I throw myself into the passenger seat. The engine roars to life. Gravel flies as he reverses and spins us around.
A bullet hits the rear window. It cracks in a spiderweb pattern but holds. The sound is deafening inside the car.
“Stay down,” he says.
I stay low, heart hammering. Render drives like the devil is behind us, calm and focused, hands steady on the wheel. Another shot rings out. He pushes the car harder, taking the curves like he was born doing this.
I pull the main go-bag into my lap. The laptop and router are safe. We have the first-aid kit and a few protein bars. But we lost the second bag with extra ammunition and other supplies.
“We lost the secondary bag,” I tell him.
His jaw tightens. I’m learning to read the small signs. Losing equipment bothers him. Every item in those bags was chosen for a reason.
“What do we have?” he asks.
“Laptop. Router. First-aid kit. Six protein bars. One magazine in your weapon. Whatever cash is in the side pocket.”
“Three hundred dollars. And ten rounds.”
“That’s not a lot of rounds.”
“It’s enough if I don’t miss.”
The SUVs are gaining behind us. Black and menacing. Render handles the car beautifully, using the curves to keep distance while I monitor the road ahead.
We’re running. We’re alive. But as of a few minutes ago, we’re truly on our own.