Chapter 14 #2
He turned to her. “Go back in the room and keep the door locked. Don’t allow anyone but Jasper or Vivi in, got it?”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing to worry about. Jasper will be here shortly.”
Katherine placed her hand on the biometric scanner, and the door opened. She stepped inside. Sebastian jogged off.
She slid back through the opening before it closed and raced toward the east service corridor.
Her heart hammered so hard her chest hurt. Every step felt like betrayal. Every breath tasted like fear. But Emma’s van filled her mind. Her nieces’ backpacks. The pink jacket.
The hallway lights flickered. Katherine’s grip tightened on the strap of her bag.
At the east service gate, the corridor ended in a reinforced door with a narrow interior access panel.
Beyond it lay the fenced service lane and the darkness beyond the compound’s perimeter.
The camera above the door showed a green light, then yellow, then black.
The feed was gone.
Sixty seconds, the message had promised.
Katherine stepped into the service vestibule and saw the figure waiting on the other side of the gate. He wore a rain slicker with the hood up. She couldn’t make out his face.
She pulled the flashlight Jasper had given her from her bag and flicked it on. A light mist dampened her face, her hair, her bag, as she stepped out, took a breath, and marched to the gate.
“Ms. Townsend,” the man said, holding out a gloved hand. “The paper.”
The gate stood between them, its vertical bars slick and black beneath the security lights.
The camera above the door stayed dark, a dead glass eye aimed at nothing.
On the other side of the compound, the distraction at the main gate continued.
Distant voices rose and faded through the mist, too far away to help her.
Her light caught the lines in the man’s face. It wasn’t her attacker. He was well into his sixties, his eyes expressionless. “You’re…” Her voice faltered but her memory fired. “You’re the driver.” Except Katherine knew better now. “But you’re more than that, aren’t you? You’re Cinder.”
“The paper,” he repeated. His voice was quiet, almost bored. It made the hairs on the back of her neck lift. “That name doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
“It meant enough for you to threaten my sister and nieces.”
“Then don’t waste time.”
Katherine should have handed it over. That was why she’d come. That was why she’d left her phone in her room, lied to Sebastian, and walked toward the east service gate while every instinct screamed for Jasper. The threat had done exactly what it was designed to do.
But the page had changed everything.
The original wasn’t just paper. It was proof. The flame watermark. Vance’s cramped handler acknowledgment. Upton’s authorization code embedded in the routing line. The cipher that turned dull archive language into a non-attributable kill channel.
Cinder didn’t only want the page because of what it said. He wanted it because of what it was. “You’ve been doing unsanctioned work for years, haven’t you?” she asked.
The stillness in him sharpened. His gaze flicked once to her bag, then back to her face. “You’re an archivist, Ms. Townsend. Don’t mistake recognition for understanding.”
“I understand enough. Flame mark means final-action authority. Handler-retention original. Copy invalid without signature chain.” She pulled the archival sleeve from the notebook in her bag, letting him see the edge of the page but not take it.
“Vance’s signature gave you provenance. Upton’s code gave you authorization.
Caldwell gave you a name to hide behind. ”
His mouth flattened.
Katherine leaned into it because fear was still inside her, but anger had finally found room beside it. “How long did you think it would stay buried? What have you been doing for them? For the Agency? Wet work through Caldwell’s group under a false identity? Something else equally damning?”
“Careful.”
“Why? Because I’m right?”
“Because you’re alive because I’ve allowed it.”
A cold wave moved through her, but she didn’t step back. If she stepped back, she’d lose the fragile ground she’d gained.
“Vance knew,” she said. “He tried to leave a record.”
“Vance was weak.”
“He was your handler.”
“I’m surrounded by idiots who either don’t have the guts to do what needs to be done themselves or are too hotheaded to do assignments without drawing attention.”
Katherine’s breath caught. She’d guessed from the signature. From the position of the mark. From the way Vance’s note had been tucked into the collection like a confession he hadn’t been allowed to make aloud.
But Cinder’s reaction was confirmation, silent and ugly. “Vance didn’t want to be involved,” she said.
“He didn’t get to choose.”
“Upton forced him.”
Cinder smiled then, a small, joyless curve that made him look less like an elderly driver and more like the weapon he’d always been. “Upton understood necessity. Vance understood paperwork.”
“Vance had a conscience. You killed him, didn’t you? Why? Was he going to out you and Upton?”
“Conscience is what men invent after the work is done.”
The words slid through her like ice. She thought of Vance writing that coded line, pressing his pen hard enough into the page to leave marks in the paper, using language as a hiding place because every official channel had already been compromised.
He’d known exactly what Cinder was. He’d known exactly who had authorized him.
He’d tried, somehow, to leave a fuse buried in the archive for someone like Katherine to find.
Her hand tightened on the sleeve. “You’re not getting this.”
Cinder’s gaze settled on hers with a patience that felt worse than rage. “Yes, I am.” He reached through the gate.
She’d expected the movement and still barely moved fast enough. His gloved hand grabbed the edge of her bag, jerking her forward. Her forehead struck the bars, but Katherine twisted the bag against her chest.
Not before Cinder grabbed the sleeve. The paper slid partway out. For one awful second, the fragile edge bent beneath the pressure of both their grips.
“No,” she snapped.
His other hand shot through the bars and caught her wrist.
Pain exploded up her arm. She gasped as he wrenched her toward the gate. Metal slammed against her shoulder. The flashlight hit the bars hard enough to shoot pain through her injured palm.
Her bag hit the ground, but Katherine kept the archival sleeve pinned beneath her forearm. Cinder’s grip tightened until her wrist felt as if the bones were grinding out of alignment.
“Hand it over,” he ground out.
“You better run.” She flipped the switch on the side of the flashlight and drove it against his arm.
The charge cracked through the rain-damp air. Cinder jumped back, a harsh sound breaking from him as the stun current hit.
But he’d been swift enough to avoid a direct hit. His hand caught her again, this time around the sleeve of her sweater. He jerked her back to the bars, and her wrist folded at a bad angle against the metal edge of the gate.
Pain burst bright and sickening. She cried out, but she didn’t let go of the sleeve. Cinder swore and reached beneath his coat.
The gun appeared in his hand.
Images of the cracked door, the mask, the voice flooded her mind. The gun rising toward her chest. Tthe fear tried to freeze her in place.
Then she thought of Emma. Mardi and Cordi. Jasper bleeding because he’d put himself between her and a bullet.
No!
She swung the flashlight, not at his hand this time but at the gun. The blow knocked his aim sideways as he fired. The shot cracked through the service lane and punched into the metal frame above her head, showering her cheek and neck with stinging fragments.
She stumbled, slipped on the wet concrete, and hit the wall hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
The back of her head clipped the edge of the access panel. The world flashed white.
For a heartbeat, the rain had no sound.
Then everything came back at once: the alarm shrieking far away, Cinder cursing, the smell of burned metal from the stun charge, and Jasper’s voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.
“Katherine!”
Cinder’s face changed.
Not fear--calculation.