Chapter 8
Jen gripped the edge of the platform with frozen fingers. Her arms protested. One more pull. Just one more.
She hauled herself over the lip and collapsed onto the metal grating. Rain pounded her face. Cold soaked through her coveralls, settling into her bones like it planned to live there.
What she wouldn’t give for a cup of real coffee, right now. The good stuff from home. Not the sludge from the station dispenser. Real Arabica. Black. Scalding enough to burn her tongue.
Hell, she’d settle for lukewarm at this point.
She rolled aside as Wyatt climbed up behind her. His breathing was even, maddeningly calm.
She hated him a little for that.
But when he straightened and offered his hand, she took it. He pulled her upright with quiet strength.
They stumbled back inside through the watertight door. The wind died instantly, but the cold followed them in, clinging to her skin like a second layer.
Jen bent forward, hands braced on her knees, trying to remember how lungs worked.
In. Out. Yeah. That.
Wyatt’s warm hand settled lightly on the small of her back.
“It’s okay,” she managed. “I’m good.”
The hand remained a second longer. Then lifted.
She straightened and wiped her face with a sleeve equally drenched—achieving absolutely nothing except smearing water around. Whatever. Now was not the time for self-pity.
“We need to get to engineering control.” Her voice sounded a hell of a lot calmer than she felt. “I can lock down the mechanical systems they’d need to extract the missiles. Cranes, tube access, exterior hatches—the whole loading deck.”
Wyatt inspected the corridor with a quiet predatory awareness. “Vent shaft will be safest.” He gestured back toward the narrow opening.
Jen stared at the metal artery of the station that would squeeze around her from all directions, whispering you’re trapped in the dark.
She exhaled. “Hell, yeah. Back into the fun-sized coffin we go.”
His mouth twitched—a smile there and gone.
He boosted her up, and she scrambled in before her brain decided to panic.
The vents were still a maze, but she knew the HVAC schematics. East trunk line took them over mess storage toward the canteen.
Wyatt crawled behind her, his presence filling the tight space—steady breath, solid weight, a heat at her back she shouldn’t have noticed but did. The shaft widened slightly giving her a little more room to breathe.
Light filtered up through a vent grille below.
Jen stopped and looked down.
The canteen.
Crew were huddled on the floor—thirty, maybe more. Orange coveralls for engineering. Gray for tech support. White for the kitchen crew. Their heads were down, hands secured.
Eight terrorists paced among them with a confident swagger.
Her eyes searched the crowd until—
Max.
Like the others, his hands were zip-tied, but his face was up, eyes open and alert. Tracking everything. Thickness swelled in her throat. Relief collided with rage inside her chest, volcanic and immediate.
Eighteen months. She’d fixed coolant pumps at 3 a.m. with these people and celebrated birthdays over sheet cake. Argued about coffee and safety codes and whether anyone should trust the mess hall fish.
My people.
And these bastards had them kneeling on the floor like they were nothing more than collateral. She crawled past the vent before instinct dragged her into something terminally stupid—like dropping down there with a torque wrench and a death wish.
Twenty feet later the shaft widened at a junction—just enough room to turn.
She twisted around. Wyatt filled the space behind her, broad shoulders blocking the dim light.
She grabbed his arm and whispered, her whole body shaking. “We have to help them.”
“No.” His head shook sharply, decisive.
“We can’t just leave them.”
“Two of us, Jen.” He held up two fingers. “Against eight in there, plus another God knows how many within shouting distance.” His eyes held hers. “We go in there, we die. They die. And the terrorists get the missiles anyway.”
He was right, damn him, but still. “So we do nothing?”
“We complete the mission. Then they get rescued.”
“Five hours,” she hissed. “Do you think they have five hours?”
“Charging in gets them killed. And us.” His jaw flexed.
His logic was infuriating, but it didn’t quench her anger.
“Max is down there.” Her voice cracked. “He saved my life.”
Something shifted in his expression, and his lips pressed into a thin line. “What if we don’t go in?”
“What?”
“What if we give them a chance instead?”
She frowned. “A chance?”
He pointed down through the nearby vent—toward the corridor outside the canteen. Toward the wall panel that controlled fire suppression, emergency lighting, and door locks.
“We create a distraction?”
“An opportunity. If your people are smart—and they are—they’ll use it.”
Not a rescue.
But a chance.
Something her people could turn into survival. Her anger sharpened into resolve. Anything was better than leaving her crew on their knees, waiting to find out if five hours was enough.
“Okay,” she breathed. “Let’s do it.”
“Scooch back.” He wiggled his fingers through the vent. He reached the quick-release latch and freed it silently.
“Clear.” He dropped eight feet to the deck—quiet, controlled, weapon ready. Then motioned her down.
Okay. Piece of cake.
Her pulse thudded. She lowered herself until she hung from her aching fingers. Her arms shook, gave out—
Wyatt caught her. His hands closed around her waist, supporting her as if she weighed nothing at all. He set her down gently, and for a heartbeat they were too close, breath mixing with breath.
She stepped back, turning to the control panel before she could get stuck in the moment.
Wyatt covered her, his body angled between her and the canteen door.
Her fingers flew. She knew this interface better than she knew her own phone.
Fire suppression. Lighting. Lock overrides.
The fire suppression used halon gas, designed to suffocate any fire.
It would also disorient and briefly reduce visibility to nothing.
She accessed the door controls. Unlocked all exits from the canteen with a tap.
Emergency lighting. Off.
Fire suppression. On.
Execute.
The alarm shrieked.
Lights snapped to red.
Halon gas thundered from the canteen ceiling like a white tidal wave. Screams and shouts answered.
The canteen door blew open.
White halon fog blasted into the corridor.
Guards staggered out, coughing and swearing.
Jen barely registered moving shapes before Wyatt slipped past her into the mist.
Unhurried.
Controlled.
Like he already knew exactly where every man in that fog was standing.
A guard stumbled out of the fog, weapon loose in his grip.
Wyatt appeared. Struck. A sharp blow to the side of the neck. The man folded where he stood.
Another shape barreled out of the chilled cloud. Wyatt intercepted him without breaking stride, a hand fisting in the man’s vest, dragging him forward into the point of his elbow. The crack echoed sharply even under the alarm’s shriek, and the second guard dropped, boneless.
A third man burst from the fog with his gun already rising. Muzzle flash seared the mist. Jen ducked as the shot lit the corridor in a violent burst of orange.
Wyatt pivoted, one hand grabbing the barrel and twisting the rifle aside, using the man’s own momentum to wrench the arm backward until something tore. His scream was startled—cut off when Wyatt drove the shooter face-first into the steel plating.
Three men down.
It had taken less than five seconds.
Her brain tried to keep up with what she’d just seen and failed completely.
Fuck.
Jen wheezed a breath.
For a moment, she didn’t recognize him.
The man walking toward her wasn’t the one who’d steadied her shaking hands on a ladder, who’d coaxed her through that terrifying climb. This was a man shaped for violence who’d never quite shed the form.
Then he blinked. And the hard edges receded, folding back beneath the calm she knew.
His eyes swept the corridor—corners, doorways, shadows—before he looked at her.
“We did our part.” His voice was rough as he caught her arm. “Time to move.”
Inside the canteen, gunfire erupted, muffled by the halon fog. Through the open door shapes bolted, crew members, remaining guards disoriented, people scrambling for any escape they could find. A flash of orange coveralls, a familiar set of shoulders.
Max.
Still fighting and protecting the people around him. He looked back—checking for pursuit, not for her—and their eyes met for a heartbeat. Relief hit her hard and then he was gone, swallowed by the smoke.
“Come on.” Wyatt tugged her away.
Jen pressed her palm to the vent edge as Wyatt lifted her, scrambling back inside.
Her fingers wouldn’t close properly, and the edges of her vision stuttered in and out. But inside her chest, something fierce and bright flared to life.
They’d given her crew a chance.
Wyatt followed her into the vent and sealed it behind them, the noise below fading into muffled chaos. They crawled fast, the metal warm under their palms from the heat of the suppression discharge.
The radio Wyatt had taken from the terrorist earlier spat furious Russian. He silenced it immediately and clipped it back to his belt.
Jen exhaled shakily. “We did it.”
The words felt unreal—fragile, like they might dissolve if she said them too loudly.
Wyatt’s mouth curved —slower this time, like he meant it. “Yeah. We did.”
Everything was too bright. Too loud. Adrenaline making her world vibrate. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“We drew more attention to ourselves. Made this harder.”
His gaze held hers, unchanging as a held breath. “Some risks are worth the cost.”
Heat rippled through her—not from fear or cold. He’d listened and put himself in the line of fire because her people mattered to her.
“Who are you, really?”
“Coast Guard. Like I said.”
“Coast Guard doesn’t move like you do.”
The muscle at his temple jumped, the only sign she’d struck something sensitive. “I wasn’t always Coast Guard.”
“What were you?”
A long pause expanded between them. The vent vibrated under her palms. Distant shouts echoed up the shaft. His eyes found hers in the dim glow of her flashlight—shadowed, conflicted, something dangerous banked beneath the surface.
“Someone who did things I’m trying not to do anymore.”
Silence filled the shaft. She waited for more.
It didn’t come.
But tonight he’d done them anyway, for her. Because she’d asked.
“I didn’t think you’d listen,” she whispered. “When I said we had to help them. I thought you’d override me. Make the tactical call and keep moving.”
“I made the tactical call.” His gaze didn’t waver. “Sometimes the tactical call is trusting the person who knows the ground better than you.”
“I’m not military.”
“No. But you know your people. And Seven. And you were right. They needed a chance.”
Warmth filled her chest. He’d listened and trusted her judgment. When was the last time someone had done that?
“Thank you,” she said, her voice hushed.
He gave a sharp nod. “We should move. They’re going to be pissed. Might speed up whatever timeline they’re on.”
“Engineering Control.”
“Lead the way, Chief Engineer.”
A smile lifted her face, and for the first time since she’d run from the elevator, she had a glimmer of hope that maybe everything would be okay.
She turned and crawled forward, arms trembling from exertion and adrenaline. Her head wound throbbed as the cold sank deeper.
But her people had a chance now.
Wyatt wasn’t one of her crew.
He owed her nothing.
And still, he’d chosen her side without hesitation.
That changed everything.