13. Medical Evac
Medical Evac
Janice
The second SUV door opens, and cold Oregon air cuts straight through the hangar.
I pull the scrub top over my vest and smooth the fabric down until the armor underneath looks like nothing more than bad tailoring.
Across from me, Steve does the same, his face set in that unmoving way that tells me he’s counting exits, windows, weapons, and every person between me and the institute.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m vested, armed, and dressed like a consultant no one invited.”
His mouth twitches with almost a smile. “Terrifying.”
“Accurate.”
Crew loads the last wheelchair into the rear transport vehicle while Liberty checks the stretcher straps with quick, practiced hands. Angus and Jax stand near the open gear case, both in scrubs, both looking exactly like men no hospital administrator would mistake for harmless.
Cole adjusts his badge lanyard, then checks the compact sidearm concealed beneath his scrub jacket. Dimitry watches the hangar entrance, unmoving, already halfway inside the mission.
Victor’s voice comes through the comms. “Grayson seeded the urgent pharmacy audit fifteen minutes ago. Felicity built the documentation trail. Your badges are live, but temporary.”
“How temporary?” Steve asks.
“Long enough if no one looks twice.”
“Comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
I open the med case and check the sequence again. Fluids. Anti-nausea medication. Glucose. Blood pressure cuff. Pulse ox. Soft restraints sealed at the bottom, where I hope they stay. This isn’t a raid kit. It’s a lie with enough real medicine inside to keep five women breathing through the escape.
Grayson cuts in. “Matthias is on the line.”
Static shifts before Matthias’s voice replaces his, low and controlled.
“I’m in the patient wing. Strauss is in his office on a secure call with Holt. I heard her name when I passed the door. Nurse Larkin is at the west station. Two orderlies near the group room. Bliss is awake.”
My hand tightens around the case handle.
“Does she know we’re coming?”
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
A pause. Too short to be reassuring.
“Ready,” he says. “Not steady.”
That will have to do.
Steve steps closer to the open SUV door. “We’re six minutes out from approach. When the audit alert hits your floor, move Bliss toward creative integration. We’ll make contact there.”
“Understood.”
“And Matthias,” I add, “don’t start moving anyone until I’ve assessed them.”
“I won’t.”
Victor returns. “G can lock the west nurses’ station for ninety seconds, loop corridor cameras for forty-five, and redirect one orderly to the east wing with a maintenance alert. After that, the system starts noticing.”
“Then we don’t waste the window,” Steve says.
I look toward the vehicles. Five patient blankets. Two wheelchairs. One stretcher. Seven armed people pretending to be medical staff, and one woman inside who has already fought her way back to herself once today.
Steve catches my eye across the SUV door.
“Ready?”
No.
“Yes.”
We climb in, and Crew pulls the lead vehicle out of the hangar.
Somewhere ahead, Meridian Memory Institute is waiting behind its polished clinical cover, full of people who know how to make captivity look like care.
This time, we’re walking through the front door.
Meridian Memory Institute, Rural Oregon. 1800 hours
The institute appears through the trees exactly the way expensive lies usually do.
Soft lighting. Timber beams. Wide glass entrance. A discreet brushed steel sign beside the circular driveway promising restoration, privacy, and evidence-based care.
I hate it before Crew even stops the SUV.
Victor’s voice comes through the comms. “Audit credentials are active. Reception received the notice eight minutes ago. Strauss hasn’t acknowledged it yet.”
“Of course he hasn’t,” Steve says. “Blokes like that don’t like surprise paperwork.”
Crew pulls beneath the entrance canopy while the second SUV stops behind us. The team moves without looking like a team. Cole gets out first with a tablet in hand, then Jax and Angus with the transport equipment.
Dimitry steps out on the far side, lights a cigarette, and scans the driveway through the first curl of smoke like a bored staff escort instead of a man who could turn lethal before anyone finished calling security.
Before I climb out, I reach into the travel carrier secured between the seats and stroke Faris behind one tiny ear.
“You stay with Liberty.”
He blinks at me, deeply unimpressed with the arrangement.
Liberty settles one hand on top of the carrier. “I’ve got him.”
“I know, thanks.”
Then I get out.
The vest sits snug beneath my scrubs. The sidearm at my waist is hidden under the loose medical jacket. My badge swings from a lanyard with a name that isn’t mine, attached to a clinical audit team that didn’t exist yesterday.
Steve falls into step beside me, exactly where I need him.
The automatic doors open on a lobby designed to lower blood pressure.
Pale wood. Soft chairs. Gentle music. A water feature murmuring beside a wall of framed credentials.
A receptionist looks up from behind the desk, already annoyed.
Perfect.
“Dr. Ellis?” she asks, checking the screen.
“That’s me,” I say, giving her the kind of clipped smile clinicians use when the clock is already behind. “Urgent medication reconciliation. Rothman batch instability review. You should have the notice.”
Her eyes flick to the screen again. Felicity’s paperwork holds.
“Yes, but Dr. Strauss hasn’t approved external access yet.”
“Then page him while we begin the records match,” I say. “If batch 9B is unstable and your patients received it, every minute you spend waiting for his approval becomes something your liability carrier will enjoy explaining.”
The receptionist’s face loses just enough color.
Steve coughs once into his fist.
I don't look at him.
She reaches for the phone.
Grayson speaks quietly in my ear. “Badge access will clear in three, two, one.”
A soft chime sounds from the desk.
The receptionist pauses, then frowns at the screen.
“You’re cleared for pharmacy and patient wing consult.”
“Thank you.”
Her gaze moves past me to the wheelchair and folded stretcher.
“We weren’t told transport equipment was required.”
“Then someone failed to read the full notice,” I say, opening the tablet Felicity built for me. “If batch 9B caused syncopal episodes or seizure activity, we’re not assessing patients without transfer support on hand.”
The receptionist looks back at her screen.
“Adding equipment notation now,” Grayson says.
A new line appears on her monitor.
Her mouth tightens.
“Right. I see it.”
“Thank you.”
Cole is already moving toward the corridor with the tablet. Jax wheels the first chair. Angus pushes the folded stretcher, looking far too large for clinical transport and entirely too calm about it.
Steve stays close at my side as we pass through the first locked door.
Clinical air replaces lobby perfume.
Antiseptic. Laundry detergent. Sealed medication packs.
The institute’s pretty face falls away one corridor at a time.
Matthias's voice comes through, barely above a whisper.
“I see you on the corridor camera. Turn left at the nurses’ station. Bliss is in creative integration. Naomi is nearest the west lounge. Camille and Maribel are in adjacent rooms. Iris is in observation.”
“The rear service corridor branches behind observation,” he continues. “Laundry, pharmacy deliveries, kitchen supplies. It leads to the loading dock.”
“How sedated is Iris?” I ask.
“Too sedated to walk.”
“Stretcher?”
“Yes.”
Steve touches his comm. “Copy that, Bear?”
“Copy,” Angus replies.
We reach the west nurses’ station just as Grayson says, “Locking station doors now. Ninety seconds.”
A nurse inside looks up as the glass door refuses her badge. She tries again.
I keep walking.
No rushing. No hesitation. Just authority with a clipboard and a lie strong enough to get us past the first layer.
Ahead, a door opens.
Matthias steps into the corridor in a white coat, his face composed, his eyes urgent.
Behind him, paint-streaked and pale but standing, Bliss Fontaine looks directly at me.
She knows we're here.
For days I’ve been reading charts, dosages, side effects, and Matthias’s reports. None of them prepared me for the woman standing in front of me with dried paint on her skin and defiance in her eyes.
Hope flashes across her face so quickly it almost hurts to see.
Now we have to make sure she leaves.
Meridian Memory Institute, Rural Oregon. 1807 hours
Matthias reaches us with Bliss already at his side.
She’s paint-streaked and pale, but upright, one hand gripping the edge of his sleeve as though she’s chosen her anchor and has no plans to let go.
“They’ve just started evening medication rounds,” Matthias says quietly. “Strauss is upstairs. Larkin’s covering the west wing until shift change.”
Steve nods once. “Walk us.”
“We need Creative Integration first,” Matthias says. “It gives us a reason to move Bliss through the corridor before we collect the others, and Strauss will look there before he looks at the patient rooms.”
Bliss lifts her chin. “The painting stays visible.”
I understand then. The canvas isn’t a detour. It’s bait.
Matthias sets a pace fast enough to look purposeful but not urgent, and Bliss moves with him. We follow through corridors that smell of disinfectant and lavender, every door painted in warm colors that try to disguise what happens behind them.
Grayson’s voice crackles in my ear.
“West nurses’ station remains locked. Sixty-five seconds.”
“Crew,” Steve says quietly, “bring the vehicles around to the rear loading dock.”
“Already moving,” Crew answers.
We reach Creative Integration, and Bliss steps beside the drying rack where her painting dominates the room in violent red, black, white, and other colors smeared over each other.
Perfect. Let Strauss stare at the canvas.
Bliss looks at me first, then Steve.
“You came.”
“We did,” I answer. “And we’re not leaving without you.”
She nods once, emotion flickering across her face before she forces herself to focus.
“There are four others.”
“I know.”