Chapter 6
RACHEL
The panic room is smaller than I expected.
Steel walls on all sides, reinforced door sealed behind us, single overhead light casting harsh shadows across the cramped space.
Minutes in here already feel like hours.
Lucas sits pressed against my side on the narrow bench, his stuffed wolf clutched tight against his chest. I can feel him trembling despite my arm around his shoulders.
"Mom, what's happening?" Fear makes his voice thin. "Why did we have to hide?"
"Mr. Stryker's being extra careful, baby." I keep my tone light, steady, even as my heart hammers against my ribs. "Remember how I said some bad people might be looking for us? He wants to make sure we're safe while he checks things out."
"Are the bad people here now?"
The first gunshot cracks through the air outside before I can answer.
Lucas flinches violently against me. I pull him closer, one hand covering his ear while I press his other ear against my chest. The wolf falls to the floor between our feet.
"It's okay," I whisper against his hair, even though nothing about this is okay. "It's going to be okay."
More gunfire erupts. Not single shots anymore but sustained bursts that make the steel door vibrate. Automatic weapons. Multiple shooters. The sounds are muffled by the reinforced walls but still loud enough to make Lucas whimper.
I close my eyes and force myself to breathe. Four counts in. Hold. Four counts out. The breathing technique grounds me even when nothing else does.
Mateo's compound taught me how to survive when terror wants to freeze you in place. How to function when your child's life depends on staying calm. How to be the strong one when everything inside you is screaming.
The compound was hell, but it was a hell I understood. I knew the layout. Knew where the guards were positioned. Knew which doors locked and which windows offered escape routes. Knew every inch of that hacienda because survival meant memorizing details.
Here, I know nothing except that Colton Stryker is somewhere outside this steel box. Outnumbered and outgunned. Standing between us and the Committee operatives who want my son dead.
The firefight intensifies. Shouting now, muffled and indistinct through the reinforced walls. Heavy impacts shake the floor beneath us. More gunfire, the sounds blurring together into continuous noise.
Lucas is crying against my chest, his small body shaking. I rock him gently, the same motion I used when he was a baby screaming through nightmares about things he couldn't remember but somehow knew.
"Shhh, baby. I've got you. You're safe. I promise you're safe."
The lie sticks in my throat, but I say it anyway because that's what mothers do. We lie to our children about monsters and safety and tomorrow always coming, because the truth would break them.
An explosion rocks the building somewhere beyond our steel walls.
Lucas screams and I'm suddenly back in the hacienda nursery bathroom, crouched in the bathtub with an infant pressed against my chest, one hand covering his mouth to muffle his cries while Micah Hawthorne's team eliminated every living soul in that compound.
I survived that night. Lucas survived that night.
We'll survive this one too.
"Tell me about your wolf," I say into Lucas's hair, desperate to distract him. "What's his name again?"
"Ghost." His voice shakes. "Because Micah said wolves are like ghosts in the forest."
"That's right. And Ghost is very brave, isn't he?"
"Yeah." Lucas loosens his grip slightly, looking down at where the wolf fell to the floor. "He's the bravest."
"Just like you." I reach down and retrieve the worn stuffed animal, pressing it back into his arms. "You're being so brave right now, Lucas. I'm so proud of you."
Silence falls outside. No more gunfire. No more shouting. Just quiet that's somehow worse than the noise.
I strain to hear anything. Footsteps. Voices. Any indication of what's happening beyond this steel door.
Nothing.
My phone is in my pocket, but there's no signal in here. The panic room is a Faraday cage, blocking all wireless transmission to prevent tracking. We're completely cut off.
"Is it over?" Lucas whispers.
"I don't know, baby."
More silence. Stretching. Endless.
Then a crackling sound from the intercom panel mounted beside the door. A beep as someone enters the security code.
I tense, every muscle in my body going rigid. My hand finds Lucas's head, pressing him closer. The code could have been compromised. Someone could have forced it from—
"Rachel." Colton's voice comes through the speaker, rough and tired. "It's me. We're clear."
Relief hits so hard my vision blurs. I sag against the wall, suddenly aware of how tightly I've been holding myself together.
"Mom?" Lucas looks up at me. "Is that Mr. Stryker?"
"Yeah, baby. That's him." I stand on shaking legs and move to the door, hands fumbling with the lock mechanism. "We're coming out."
The lock disengages with a heavy clunk. I push the door open.
Colton stands in the hallway, covered in blood and dust. His tactical vest shows impact marks where bullets hit body armor. Blood runs down his left arm from a wound I can't quite see. His weapon hangs loose in his right hand, pointed at the floor.
But he's alive. He's standing. He's here.
"Are you hurt?" The question comes out steadier than I feel.
"Nothing serious." His eyes scan us both, checking for injuries with the same efficiency he probably used clearing the house. "You're both okay?"
"We're fine." I keep myself between him and Lucas, even though the threat is past. Even though he just fought off an assault team to keep us safe. "What happened?"
"Committee assault team." He gestures back toward the main room. "Multiple operatives down, some retreated when they realized reinforcements were inbound. Kane scrambled a team from Echo Base the moment Tommy detected the thermal signatures. They couldn't wait."
Multiple operatives. He killed people in the time it took me to count my breaths and rock my son.
"How did they find us?"
"Don't know yet. Tommy's running analysis." His jaw tightens. "But we can't stay here. Even with reinforcements, this location is compromised. We need to move again."
Lucas tugs on my shirt. "Mom, I want to go home."
The words gut me. Home. He still thinks we have a home to go back to. Still believes this is temporary. Still trusts that his mother can fix this and return everything to normal.
"Soon, baby." Another lie. "We just need to stay with Mr. Stryker a little bit longer."
"Rachel." Colton's voice drops. "I need you to take Lucas outside. The back yard, away from the house. Kane's team will be here soon. They'll extract us to a different location."
"Why can't we—" I stop. Look past him toward the main room. See the blood splattered across the wall visible through the doorway. "Oh."
"Yeah." His expression is grim. "Back door through the kitchen. I'll go first, make sure the path is clear."
I nod, understanding. Most likely, there are bodies littering this house. Men Colton killed to protect us. A crime scene that will traumatize my son if he sees it.
"Come on, Lucas." I take his hand as Colton leads us away from the main room. "Let's go wait outside for Mr. Stryker's friends."
Colton moves ahead of us, checking each room before gesturing us forward. The kitchen is untouched—no signs of the violence that erupted elsewhere. He opens the back door and scans the yard before stepping aside.
We emerge into afternoon sunlight that feels surreal after the claustrophobic confinement of the panic room. The desert landscape stretches out behind the house—scrubby brush, distant mountains, endless sky. Like the world didn't just explode in violence a few feet away.
Lucas sits in the gravel, making his wolf walk through the small rocks. I stand beside him, watching the road for approaching vehicles while my mind tries to process what just happened.
Multiple operatives. Colton faced a Committee assault team alone and survived. Killed some of them. Drove off the rest.
Because of us. Because a six-year-old boy witnessed a murder and now an entire shadow organization wants him dead.
Lucas looks up at me. "Are we going somewhere new again?"
"Yes, baby."
"When can we go home? I miss my friends. I miss my room."
My throat closes. How do I tell him he's never going to see his friends again? Never going to sleep in his own bed again? That everything familiar and safe is gone because he wandered off while I was distracted?
"I don't know," I say honestly. "But I promise wherever we go next, you'll be safe."
"You keep promising that." His voice comes out barely above a whisper. "But the bad people keep finding us anyway."
He's right. We ran to the safe house and the Committee found us in hours. Nowhere is safe when they have unlimited resources and institutional backing.
Colton emerges from the house, a duffel bag over his shoulder and his weapon secured. He's changed his shirt, the blood-soaked tactical gear replaced with a clean black t-shirt that still shows the outline of body armor underneath. The wound on his arm is wrapped with field dressing.
He approaches us carefully, keeping his movements slow and non-threatening for Lucas's benefit. "Reinforcements are minutes out. We'll extract to another location. Kane has arranged with some local operatives we can trust to handle the cleanup."
"Where are we going?"
"Echo Base." He meets my eyes. "It's the most secure location we have. My team is there, defensible position. The Committee knows it exists, but they've never successfully located or breached it."
"You want to take us to your base of operations."
"I want to take you somewhere the Committee can't reach." His voice drops. "Rachel, they found the safe house in under half a day. They're tracking us somehow, and until we know how, every location we move to is compromised before we arrive. Echo Base is our best option."