13. Medical Evac #2
Matthias opens the patient layout on his tablet.
“Naomi first. She’s closest and mobile. Maribel can walk with assistance if we move slowly. Camille freezes when she’s frightened but follows clear instructions. Iris is heavily sedated. She’ll need the stretcher.”
Bliss shakes her head. “Not instructions.”
Matthias looks at her.
“She needs something to follow that feels human,” Bliss says.
A beat passes.
Then Matthias nods. “Then we give her that.”
“And Bliss?” Steve asks.
Matthias looks at her.
“She’ll tell you she’s fine.”
Bliss sighs. “I am.”
Matthias doesn’t even look at her. “She isn’t.”
“I can still walk.”
I step in front of her.
“Then that’s exactly what you’re going to do. Nice and slowly.”
She smiles despite herself.
“I’ve missed nurses who argue.”
“You’ll regret saying that.”
A sharp chime sounds through my earpiece.
Grayson.
“Thirty seconds. West station lock expires.”
Steve’s eyes meet mine.
“Move.”
We split without another word.
Cole heads for Naomi’s room.
Jax stays with Matthias as they guide Bliss into the corridor.
Angus unfolds the stretcher with practiced efficiency while Dimitry slips to the rear intersection, watching both directions.
I duck into Naomi’s room.
A young woman sits on the edge of her bed, hands folded neatly in her lap as though she’s been waiting for permission to exist.
Her eyes lift to my badge.
“Am I in trouble?”
The question almost breaks me.
I crouch in front of her instead.
“My name’s Janice.”
She watches me carefully.
“We’re taking you somewhere safe.”
Her gaze shifts past me to the wheelchair.
“I don’t think I’m allowed.”
“No,” I say gently. “They’ve told you that for a long time now.”
She blinks.
“You don’t need their permission anymore.”
Tears fill her eyes before she even stands.
Behind me, Grayson counts down.
“Ten seconds.”
Naomi grips my hand so tightly my fingers ache.
“I don’t remember how.”
I help her sit in the wheelchair and tuck the blanket around her knees before releasing the brake.
“You don’t have to,” I tell her. “We’ll remember until you can.”
“Camera loop ending,” Grayson says.
The lights on the nurses’ station flick back to normal.
Somewhere down the corridor, a door opens.
Someone is coming.
Meridian Memory Institute, Rural Oregon. 1815 hours
The first crack in the plan comes from a nurse doing her job.
She steps out of the west station the second Grayson’s lock releases, sees Naomi in the wheelchair, and frowns at my badge.
“Where are you taking her?”
“Medication review,” I say, one hand on Naomi’s shoulder. “Possible adverse reaction to batch 9B.”
“I wasn’t told about a transfer.”
“That’s why we’re reviewing the chain of documentation.”
Her gaze shifts to Bliss, then Matthias, then the stretcher Angus is guiding out of observation with Iris lying pale and motionless beneath a blanket.
Too much. She sees too much.
Steve steps slightly closer, not threatening, just present.
The nurse reaches for the radio at her hip.
I move first.
“Camille Laurent is hypotensive in room twelve,” I say sharply. “If you want to argue paperwork, do it after you bring me a crash cart.”
Training wins.
Her hand leaves the radio.
She runs.
“G,” Steve says.
“Orderly redirected,” Grayson answers. “Cameras looped. You’ve got forty-two seconds before the hallway exists again.”
“Move.”
We move.
Cole brings Maribel from the adjacent room, one arm braced around her waist while she whispers something in Spanish under her breath. Dimitry guides Camille with short, calm instructions every time her feet stop, but she freezes at the first alarm chirp.
Bliss pulls away from Matthias just enough to crouch in front of her.
“Camille,” she says. “Look at me.”
The younger woman’s eyes lift.
“My name is Bliss. I remembered today. You can too. But first we leave.”
Camille stares for one heartbeat.
Then she reaches for Bliss’s hand.
Jax stays close to them both while Angus controls the stretcher like it weighs nothing.
Naomi’s hand finds mine on the wheelchair handle.
“I’m scared.”
Bliss reaches across the narrow space between them and takes Naomi’s trembling fingers with her free hand.
“I remember how to be afraid,” she says, voice shaking but clear. “And I remember how to be brave. Both are better than feeling nothing.”
Naomi stares at her. Then she nods.
We hit the service corridor as the first alarm sounds behind us.
Not fire.
Security.
Strauss has found the painting, or the empty rooms, or the lie finally tearing open beneath his feet.
“Front exit is closed,” Grayson says. “Crew has the vehicles at the loading dock. Rear delivery route is still open, but not for long.”
Steve looks at me.
I look at Iris on the stretcher, Naomi in the chair, three women walking because terror and trust are holding them upright.
“Rear route?” I say.
“Rear route,” Steve confirms.
We turn a hard left.
Five women move with us through the corridor, not neatly, not quietly, but moving.
A facility built to erase them lets them pass under soft lights and framed wellness slogans while every hidden system inside it starts screaming too late.
By the time we hit the loading dock, cold Oregon air slams into us carrying rain, diesel, wet pine, and freedom.
Liberty is already at the rear transport vehicle with the doors open and the med bag ready.
“Load fast,” Steve says.
Angus takes the stretcher straight to Liberty, while I guide Naomi’s wheelchair down the ramp. Maribel leans hard against Cole, Camille grips Bliss’s hand and Dimitry’s forearm, and Bliss holds on as if she can keep them all moving by force alone.
Only when I reach the vehicle do I see Faris’s carrier secured behind Liberty’s seat.
He lifts his tiny face toward the noise, whiskers twitching.
I have never loved that ridiculous ferret more.
Liberty catches my eye. “He’s fine. Focus.”
Right.
I turn back to Naomi.
Behind us, shouting breaks through the rear doors.
Bliss doesn’t look back.
She keeps hold of Naomi’s hand until both women are inside the SUV.
Then she looks at Matthias.
“I’m still here.”
His face changes.
“Yes,” he says. “You are.”
Crew slams the rear door shut.
Steve climbs in beside me, breathing hard, eyes on the institute as Cole and Dimitry cover the retreat.
Dr. Strauss appears at the rear doors with a nurse beside him, both running too late to matter. Behind them, two security guards cut toward a parked sedan near the staff entrance.
Crew barks out a laugh from the driver’s seat. “Good luck with that, boys!”
Steve looks at him.
Crew winks. “I let their tires down.”
Steve blinks once. “You’re an absolute menace.”
“Useful menace,” Crew says, throwing the SUV into gear.
Victor’s voice comes through comms, calm and sharp.
“Move now.”
The SUVs surge forward.
Behind us, Meridian Memory Institute disappears between the trees, white walls, locked doors, and all its careful lies shrinking in the rear window.
Five women left alive.
Five women left remembering enough to choose.
Behind them, the institute disappears into the trees.
Ahead of them waits fear, withdrawal, grief, recovery, and for the first time in weeks, every mile belongs to them.