Chapter Forty-Two
We turn off the lights on the lower levels before we talk about the future.
It feels right—bury the ghosts, then figure out how to live around the graveyard.
Upstairs, the warehouse is strange, suspended quietly like the building is holding its breath, waiting to see which way we fall.
Lila paces with a mug in her hand while Cam colonizes the main table with maps, printouts, and a tablet full of sins.
He’s in full analyst mode—hair a disaster, glasses smudged, fingers moving fast.
“The lab coat and the ice queen?” Lila looks up as we come in. “Done?”
“Done,” Kiera echoes.
Cam exhales deeply, some hard knot in his chest finally letting go. “Good,” he whispers low enough that only I can hear. “We can’t carry them and everything else.” He pauses, looking toward Kiera. “How is she?” he asks.
Kiera answers for herself. “Functional,” she snips. “You guys can stop worrying. I’m not fragile.”
Lila winces. “Wow,” she says. “We’re leaning into the bitchy coping mechanism?”
“You’re one to talk.” The exchange has a bite, but there’s no real heat.
Just the tremor that comes after you’ve finally done the thing you’ve been circling for years.
For her to kill both her parents without a second thought, it has to be taking its toll.
I take the spot beside her, close enough that our shoulders almost touch—a pillar for her to lean on.
“All right.” Cam claps, breaking the awkward silence.
“We have three major variables: Kiera’s pregnancy, Cicada’s inevitable response to the Nesting House, and the list of suspected locations we still haven’t touched.
We need a new game plan that doesn’t end with any of us dead in a ditch or in a black site. ”
Kiera glances sideways at me. Her jaw is set, but there’s something else in her eyes now.
Less fatalism. More grim or stubborn intent.
She’s keeping it. She said the words out loud this morning, and I felt every piece of my world tilt around them.
I clear my throat. “We’re still going after Cicada. That doesn’t change.”
“Agreed,” Cam speaks up first.
“Variable one,” I go on, because if I stop, I might start pacing. “Ki is no longer front-line deployable in the same way. She won’t be walking into active fire, close-quarters fights, or anywhere her body gets used as a crash test dummy. That’s non-negotiable.”
Kiera’s head snaps toward me. “You know I can still…”
“I know exactly what you can still do,” I cut in. “That’s the problem. You’ll keep pushing until something breaks. I’m not letting that happen. Not now.”
Her eyes flare. “It’s my body,” she says. “My choice.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “And you chose to keep this child. That’s the only reason I’m making this argument.
You want to end it, we can go back to throwing you at doors until they fall.
But you didn’t, so you no longer get the option to throw yourself in harm's way.” That lands its intended mark. She looks away, jaw working.
Lila watches us, mouth tight. “He’s not wrong, Ki. Much as it pains me to say those words.”
“Lila, stop it.” Cam taps a finger on the table. “We’re all on the same page about the goal; we just need to redefine roles.”
Cam drags a map closer and points. “Mara’s house is operational.” A circle. “We don’t know if there are other locations yet, but we will find them.” He looks over to me. “When we do, though, we’ll have to change who does what.”
Nodding, I take a step toward the table. “You and Lila will take tactical point. You make the hits, run the kids to Mara or other safe houses. Kiera and I run command and control. I’ll help with tactical if needed.”
Lila raises an eyebrow. “Since when did I get promoted to battering ram?” She asks, but there’s a sharp, pleased edge under the sarcasm.
“Since you were just promoted to auntie and you’re psychotically good at getting in and out of bad places, apparently,” I say. “Plus, the kids like you.”
“That is true,” she snorts. “But they like you and Ki more.”
“Not true,” I say. “I terrify them. You terrify their enemies. Big difference.”
Cam looks between us. “Okay,” he says slowly. “We need to build out a network so if anything happens to one of us, the rest doesn’t fall apart.”
“Exactly. For now, this warehouse is our primary base. We need to tighten the security of this place. We treat it as if we’re already under observation.”
“Because we probably are. Cicada may not know exactly where we are yet, but they know we burned their house and stole their files. They’ll start pulling threads.”
“Let them tug.” Kiera’s voice is cold and calm in a way that sends a shiver coiling down my spine.
Cam clicks his pen. “Risk assessment,” he says, looking at her directly. “Pregnancy changes your thresholds. Where are we going to put Kiera that’s safe?”
Kiera opens her mouth, then closes it. When she speaks, her voice is flatter. “I’m not sitting in a tower while you three die for me.”
“No one said tower.” Jesus fucking Christ, woman.
“You’re still in the fight. You’re just not fighting.
You're intel. The brain network, planning. You’re the one who understands how your parents thought, how they would’ve structured Cicada, and their horrors.
You’re the best person to anticipate their next move, but you can’t be the one absorbing the impact when they swing. ”
Lila nods her head in agreement. “Also, have you seen what you’re like in front of a whiteboard?” She winces. “It’s terrifying, but useful.”
A reluctant huff escapes Kiera. “You want me to turn into Cam.”
“Fuck, no,” Lila immediately says. “One of him is more than enough. We want you to be you, just less…explodey.”
“Kiera, think about it this way.” Cam grabs her attention.
“When you’re on the front line, we gain one very lethal asset and risk losing our newest asset if something goes wrong.
When you’re running point on strategy, we gain a whole system that keeps working even if a mission goes sideways.
It’s a shitty trade emotionally, but tactically it’s solid. ”
Kiera drums her fingers on the table, restless. “I hate that you’re making sense,” she mutters.
“Someone fucking has to.” She’s going to give Cam grey hair before this baby is here.
I watch her while they talk. The way she keeps shifting her weight, like she’s testing where she stands now: weapon, mother, Cicada’s monster, our ally. All of the above. “Timeline?” I ask Cam when there’s a pause. “How long before we have to vanish completely?”
Cam sighs. “Best guess? A couple of months if we play it right. Weeks if they get a lucky hit.”
“And Ki?” I ask.
Cam glances at her, then back at me. “The second trimester is when visibility kicks in. And risk goes up if we stay in one place too long. We need to be ready to move her off the board before that. New identity, new location, minimal digital footprint.”
“You’re talking like I’m not here again,” Kiera snips.
“We’re talking like we have to think ahead for you, because you’re still wired to volunteer for the worst job in the room.” I shrug. She needs the truth.
Kiera scowls. “You say that like it’s a flaw.”
“It is now. You don’t get to martyr yourself. Not anymore.”
Kiera’s gaze drops to the table, to the lines and circles and arrows. When she looks up again, her eyes are clearer. “Fine. We’ll build the damn network and run the ops from here. When I start to show, we disappear, but we still work on this.”
For the first time since we walked back into this place, the room feels like what it is: a war room—not a bunker, not a tomb. “We need a cover story,” Lila says. “For the world. For anyone who goes sniffing around. We can’t exactly file an out-for-lunch notice.”
“Cam and I are fine. We have a trusted employee in place. We don’t need a story. We just… stop showing up.”
“But what about Mara? The kids? Any contacts who aren’t fully in on the we faked our deaths plan?” Lila asks quietly.
Kiera answers that one. “We tell the ones who need to know that we’re going dark and why. Everyone else gets plausible deniability. The less they can honestly say, the better for them if Cicada comes knocking.”
Lila nods slowly. “You’ve thought about this.”
“Been thinking about running since I saw two lines that changed everything.”
There’s a beat of silence where something settles between us—an agreement, unspoken but solid.
Cam starts tapping on the keyboard. “I’ll prioritize finding out if they have any other facilities and their locations.
You two,” he points at Kiera and me, “start building the spine. Safe houses, contacts we can trust, contingencies for when we have to move.”
“On it,” I nod
“I’ll start with Mara. Ask who she trusts. People who’ve already been fighting this fight off the books,” Kiera announces.
Lila stretches, joints popping. “And I’ll start shopping for body armor that fits your new… priorities,” she says, waving a hand at Kiera’s midsection as she leaves the room.
Kiera flips her off. “If you try to put me in maternity tactical gear, I’m leaving you in a trunk somewhere,” she yells after Lila.
“You say that like it’s not on my bucket list.” Lila laughs out. A hint of some normalcy fills the air between us.
After the maps are pinned and the initial tasks split, I find Kiera leaning over the rail on the mezzanine, looking down at the mess below her. She doesn’t turn toward me when I step up beside her. “We just made this real,” she says quietly.
“It was already real. We just admitted it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “I do.”
We stand there for a moment, the warehouse humming beneath our feet, the future laid out in messy lines and half-formed plans downstairs. “You can still opt out,” I say quietly. “Of this. Of the whole thing. If you look at the plan and decide it’s too much.”
“Maybe it was by design,” she whispers. “Maybe they put our files next to each other and called it a project. They made their choices, but they don’t get to own the fact that I chose you anyway.
Or the fact that you’ve claimed me from the beginning.
” She looks back down at the floor, at the table, at the plans we just made for a war and a life.
“But I am scared of what’s to come,” she admits, her voice soft with worry.
“Me too.” I pull her closer to me. “But that’s a good sign.”
She snorts. “Only you would say that.”
“Having no fear makes people do stupid things, make stupid choices. Fear means we know what we stand to lose, and we’re still choosing to fight for it.”
Kiera’s quiet, the gears of her head processing that thought. “All right, Ghost. Let’s build something they didn’t plan for.”
“On it, Thorn.” I kiss her temple, and we turn back toward the stairs—toward the maps, the missions and the fragile, dangerous future we just committed to, together.