Chapter 31 | Kincade
The drive was silent. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and her gaze focused on the road through the windshield. Like she was mentally preparing.
Over the last week, I’d been testing the bond, opening it a little at a time to gauge her thoughts. Sometimes erratic and all over the place. Sometimes laser focused on what she intended to do. Sometimes analyzing her feelings about us—thoughts I wanted to hear but had no right to intrude on.
Always Anna.
But tonight, I didn’t listen. I wanted her to trust her instincts without interfering. Even though every instinct in me said to keep her out of harm’s way. I reminded myself she wasn’t the woman I’d carried out of Bagras weeks ago.
I parked the car a mile away from the facility concealed in a wooded area. We’d hike the rest of the way.
We geared up in silence. I checked the pistol, made sure the magazine was full, then slid it into the holster at my hip. Knife at belt. Small device for looping camera feeds into my pocket.
She pulled on her tactical vest, then tucked her own knife into the sheath strapped to her thigh.
Two bottles of accelerant went into the pack she’d carry, then she slung it over her shoulder.
Her movements were precise, practiced, like she’d done this before.
Like someone else had trained her for it.
When she was ready, she looked up at me.
“How do I look? Like a future cover model for Guns and Ammo?”
“Terrifying,” I said, with a nod.
“Good. That’s the look I was going for.”
There was no hesitation. No fear. Nothing but determination, sarcasm, and accelerant.
I wanted to tell her to be careful. To stay behind me. To let me handle it. But she’d never go for it. She wasn’t that person anymore. She never had been. I’d underestimated her all along.
“Let’s go, soldier. We don’t have all night.” She smirked.
“I go first. Give me ten minutes to take out security, then follow me in.”
She nodded.
The facility sat against the night sky. Concrete. Steel. Secrets. Three stories, minimal exterior lighting. One guard visible at the front entrance like Silas’s notes said.
I moved low through the shadows. The perimeter fence was chain-link and easy to scale. No razor wire. They weren’t expecting outside threats. They didn’t know what was coming for them yet.
The service entrance was unmanned. I bypassed the keycard reader in thirty seconds. The lock clicked. I pulled it open, wedged a rock between the jamb and door to keep it open for her.
Inside, the hallway was dimly lit. I moved slow and kept close to the walls where the sensors had blind spots.
The security station was where the floor plan said it’d be. One guard. Bored. Watching monitors. Coffee in hand. He never heard me coming.
The guard went down without a sound. I caught him before he hit the floor, lowered him down silently. Unconscious. No need for bodies yet.
Cameras covering every entrance, every corridor. I watched the monitors for thirty seconds. Empty hallways. No movement. Perfect. I plugged in the device, let it record the current feed, then set it to loop. The cameras would show those same thirty seconds on repeat.
She’d be on her way.
By the time I got to the service entrance, she was stepping through the door I’d left ajar for her. Silent. Efficient. Every movement controlled. She caught my eye, nodded once. Ready.
She fell in step beside me as we moved through the building heading for the research wing. Both moving from memory of the floor plan.
The server room was at the end of the hallway. Locked. I bypassed it in seconds, and she slipped inside. I stood guard at the door. A narrow window ran alongside the doorframe.
It was more like a climate-controlled closet. Rows of equipment racks lined one wall. Servers, switches, storage racks, all emitting a low hum. Organized color-coded cables ran in lines overhead. A backup power unit sat in the corner, green lights blinking.
Easy to defend, hard to escape from.
In a building this advanced, there were no sprinklers. Only fire suppression to protect the equipment.
She didn’t waste time. Moved straight to the first server rack, pulled the knife from her thigh, and drove it into the first hard drive.
The crack echoed in the small room. Then the next.
Moving down the line. Methodical. Efficient.
Destroying data with the same precision they’d programmed into her.
She was on the third rack when I heard footsteps in the hallway.
Guard.
Her head snapped up. She heard the footsteps, too.
“Keep going.”
I stepped into the hall to deal with the guard. He reached for his gun, but I was on him in a second and disarmed him before he could pull it. I smashed his face into the wall. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
But while I was distracted, two more slipped past me, heading for the server room. My mistake. A rare one.
Through the window, I saw her head snap toward the door. Saw her pupils dilate—black swallowing violet—as the programming kicked in.
Then she moved.
The crack of bone. A body hitting the floor. Then another.
It was over in seconds.
By the time I reached the doorway, both guards were down. Unconscious. One with his arm bent at an unnatural angle, the other’s face already swelling.
She stood over them, hands in fists, breathing hard. As I watched, the black receded—violet bleeding back through.
She’d accessed it. Used it. Controlled it.
All in the time it took me to drop one guard.
Control wasn’t the same thing as restraint. I’d known that. I’d taught her the difference.
She looked up at me then, met my gaze. Steady. Present.
“Clear?” she asked.
“Clear.”
She nodded once, stepped over the bodies, and went back into the server room. Back to work. Like she hadn’t taken down two trained fighters in seconds.
I watched through the window as she finished destroying the remaining drives, then pulled the accelerant from her pack. She moved methodically pouring it over the servers, the terminals, letting it pool on the floor.
I stood there a moment longer, staring at the unconscious guards.
They’d turned her into this. A weapon that didn’t hesitate.
And I’d helped her sharpen the blade.
The question wasn’t whether she could use it. It was whether there would ever be a reason she wouldn’t.
It should have felt like victory—her controlling it, using it on her terms.
It felt like watching something precious turn into a weapon.
She popped back into the doorway with two empty accelerant cans which she tossed on the floor.
“Ready.”
I reached into my pocket, grabbed the box of matches, and tossed it to her. “Light it up.”
She struck one—tossed. Two—tossed. Three—tossed.
“Three?” I asked.
She shot me a look. “I want to make sure it burns.”
Then closed the door and stood rigid, gaze fixed on that narrow window, watching the flames consume everything inside.
She reached into her pack, drew out a thick black marker and turned to the wall opposite the server door.
In large black letters two-inches high, she wrote:
THIS IS WHAT YOU MADE.
COME FIX IT.
Then tossed the marker on the floor.
“Think he’ll get the message?” she asked.
She wasn’t threatening him. She was notifying him.
“I think he has no choice.” I took her hand. “Let’s go.”
Walking quickly, we retraced our steps. Past security, the fire alarm sounded. Her face was impassive, her jaw set. Her gaze focused. Behind us, chaos.
We said nothing as we made it out, then hiked back to the car.
Back on the road, the first ten minutes passed in silence. I glanced her way. She was focused on the dark road ahead.
“I didn’t hesitate,” she said.
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
“I broke his arm. Like snapping a twig.” Her voice caught, the words raw and uneven. “I didn’t like the way it felt. It was too easy.”
She glanced down at her hands clenched tight in her lap.
“That was the programming,” I said. “You’re not supposed to like it.”
And when the day came that she did—when it stopped bothering her at all—I wasn’t sure what that would make her capable of.
She was quiet for a time. Then asked, “Do you think he’ll come?”
“Yes.”
And we’d be waiting.
Because some doors, once opened, only closed one way.