Chapter 54
Callum
The air was chokin’ with smoke and scorched metal, the kind that clung to your throat and made every breath feel like chewin’ on ash.
Facility E wasn’t just a hole in the ground—it was a bloody hive of rot and secrets, and now it was screamin’ to be buried.
Alarms blared like banshees in the distance, red strobes slicin’ through the darkness as I pushed forward through corridor after corridor.
“Feckin’ bastards had a failsafe,” I muttered, low beneath my breath. “Of course they did.”
Emerson’s voice had cracked over comms ten minutes ago—short, panicked, then cut out. I hadn’t heard him since. That alone told me everythin’. Something had gone sideways, and the longer I went without his voice, the heavier it sat in my gut like a stone.
I pressed my palm to the panel on the door ahead. Locked. "Sera, luv… where’s me override?" I asked, tryin’ to sound calm, though my heartrate was doin’ a bloody marathon.
A beat passed, then the lock hissed open. Good girl. She was still fightin’. Still inside that control room, tryin’ to claw us a chance to live before this place turned to rubble.
The hallway beyond opened into the west wing labs—cold, sterile rooms that had once been filled with children.
Subjects. Test groups. That’s what the files had called ‘em. Not boys. Not girls. Just batches of meat for their experiments. And now… it was bein’ scrubbed clean.
Wiped out before we could drag it all into the light.
I caught movement to my right and dropped low, rollin’ behind a tipped table. Boots thundered. Automatic fire lit up the hallway, pingin’ off metal and wall. I waited. Counted two shadows. Shifted right.
“Come on, then,” I growled, low and ready.
The first one came around the corner and dropped before he could blink—two shots to the chest, one to the head. The second tried to pull back, but I surged forward, tacklin’ him into the wall before drivin’ my knife up into his gut. He gasped once, then fell limp.
I didn’t have time to linger.
I moved fast through the corridor, duckin’ through maintenance doors and emergency bulkheads Sera had flagged open for me.
Every step, I could feel the facility tremblin’.
This wasn’t just fire. It was a controlled burn.
Systems were droppin’—lights flickerin’, pressure in the air changin’. The whole place was breathin’ its last.
That’s when I heard the shot.
Close. Sharp. And followed by a choked-out scream. Too small to be one of the lads. Too sharp to ignore.
I ran.
The door to the auxiliary server room had been forced open. Blood was already smeared on the wall. Quinn was down, half-leanin’ against the mainframe, one hand clutchin’ his side. Basen knelt beside him, tryin’ to apply pressure. But the damage was done. Quinn was pale. Soaked.
“Shite—Quinn—hold on, lad.”
His eyes flicked to me, but his voice was barely a rasp. “Still breathing,” he gritted out, brave little fecker. “Not going out here.”
“You’re not,” I promised him, crouchin’ beside Basen. “We’ll carry you if we have to.”
I turned to Basen. “He needs evac now. Get ‘im to the north exit—fast. I’ll cover you.”
Basen nodded, jaw tight. He didn’t argue. Just hauled Quinn up onto his shoulder and vanished down the corridor.
I turned back toward the lab sector, where the final upload was still runnin’—whatever Sera was pullin’ from the last backups was takin’ time she didn’t have. But I’d buy her more if I could.
That’s when I saw him.
Down the corridor, through the smoke and flickerin’ lights, stood a ghost I’d buried a long time ago.
Patrick Mallin.
Ex-handler. Ex-mentor. Feckin’ snake in human skin. He’d trained me. Shaped me. Taught me to shoot, to stab, to kill clean. And when the company turned, he’d stayed. Played loyal. Played silent.
And now he was standin’ in my path like nothin’ had changed.
“Patrick,” I said, voice low. Calm. But my fingers flexed around my rifle, itchin’.
He didn’t flinch. Just smiled that same smug twist he always wore. “Callum. Never thought you’d crawl back.”
I stepped forward. “Didn’t crawl. Walked. Straight through the fire.”
“You should’ve stayed gone. Should’ve left the past where it belonged.”
“Funny,” I said, eyes narrowin’. “You sound like a man who knows he’s already lost.”
He raised his weapon, but I was faster. One shot clipped his shoulder, knockin’ him back. The second hit his leg. He dropped, groanin’. I crossed the distance in three strides and kicked his gun away.
Could’ve ended him right there.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I knelt beside him, watchin’ the panic twitch in his eyes.
“I should kill ya,” I said, low and sharp. “For everythin’ you let them do. For every kid. For Sera. For me.”
His lip curled, defiant even now.
“But I’m not the same bastard you built,” I whispered. “I’ve got somethin’ now. Somethin’ real. So I’m leavin’ you alive… to rot in whatever hole you end up in.”
He looked stunned.
I stood and walked away.
Because control wasn’t leavin’ bodies behind.
It was choosin’ not to.