Chapter 6
DELANEY
Alex goes limp in my arms, his weight suddenly dead against me. Blood soaks through the pressure bandage and onto my hands. Too much blood. Way too much blood for anyone to lose and still be breathing.
"Alex." My voice stays steady despite the panic clawing up my throat. "Alex, stay with me."
Nothing. His head lolls against the seat, eyes closed, skin gray in the dashboard light.
Two fingers press to his throat. The pulse flutters there—thready, weak, but present. Relief floods through me so hard my hands shake. He's alive. Unconscious and bleeding out, but alive.
I need to move him. Can't drive with him slumped in the driver's seat.
Pushing open the passenger door from the inside, I grab him under the arms and pull him across the center console.
He's dead weight, two hundred pounds of unconscious muscle and blood loss.
His head lolls back, and for a second I think I'm going to drop him.
But then he's in the passenger seat, slumped against the door, and I'm sliding behind the wheel.
The truck idles on the abandoned road, surrounded by darkness and trees. No signs of pursuit yet. But Patterson's team will be tracking this vehicle. They have the resources, and they won't give up.
I need to think. Prioritize. The FBI training kicks in despite the adrenaline still burning through my system.
First priority: stop the bleeding. Second: find shelter. Third: figure out what the hell to do with an unconscious fugitive who might be the only person telling me the truth.
The road curves ahead into deeper wilderness. No streetlights, no houses, nothing but forest. I put the truck in gear, one hand on the wheel, the other keeping pressure on Alex's wound. Blood slicks my fingers. The metallic smell fills the cab.
Half a mile down, a turnoff appears barely visible through overgrown brush.
The kind of access road hunters use in the fall.
Branches scrape against the truck's sides as we push deeper into the woods.
The road ends at a small clearing with a decrepit hunting cabin that looks like it hasn't seen use in years.
Perfect.
I kill the engine and the headlights. Total darkness swallows us. For a moment, I just sit there, listening to Alex's shallow breathing, feeling the warmth of his blood seeping through the bandage.
Twenty-four hours ago, I was reviewing case files in my Alexandria apartment, drinking bad coffee, preparing to bring in a dangerous fugitive. My biggest worry was whether the electric bill got paid.
Now I'm sitting in a stolen truck with that same fugitive bleeding out beside me, my entire career destroyed, wanted by the same organization that sent me to arrest him.
The absurdity hits me—I'm a fugitive now too.
"Okay." Speaking out loud because something needs to break the silence besides Alex's labored breathing. "Let's get you inside."
Getting an unconscious two-hundred-pound man out of a truck turns out to be significantly harder than FBI training prepared me for.
I open the passenger side door and drag him out.
He slides bonelessly to the ground with a grunt.
I hook my arms under his shoulders and pull.
He's heavy, dead weight dragging through dirt and pine needles.
The thirty feet to the cabin door might as well be thirty miles.
The cabin door hangs unlocked—no surprise since the whole structure looks ready to collapse. Inside smells like rot and animal droppings. No power out here. But there's a ratty couch against one wall and a stone fireplace.
I get Alex onto the couch, using the last of my strength. His face is pale, lips tinged blue. Shock. He's going deeper into shock.
The trauma kit. I left it in the truck.
I sprint back outside, grab the kit and a go-bag, and return to find Alex exactly as I left him. For a terrible moment, his chest looks still. Then it rises, falls.
My phone is in my pocket. The screen illuminates the cabin with harsh LED light. Battery icon shows red. No signal.
I set the phone aside, face-up on the floor for ambient light. Then I turn my full attention to keeping Alex alive.
The pressure bandage has soaked through. I peel it away carefully, and fresh blood wells from the wound. It's bad. Worse than I thought. The entry wound is a ragged tear in his side, probably from shrapnel or a ricochet. No exit wound visible, which means whatever hit him is still in there.
"Alex." Tapping his face, trying to get some response. "I need you to wake up. Tell me what to do."
His eyelids flutter. For a second, his eyes focus. Recognition. Then awareness.
"Bleeding," he mumbles.
"I know. How do I stop it?"
"Pack it." Each word costs him. "Gauze. Pack the wound. Then... pressure."
My hands shake as I tear open gauze packages from the trauma kit. First aid training—every agent gets it—but this is battlefield medicine, and I'm not a combat medic.
"Like this?" I press gauze into the wound, and he arches off the couch with a strangled sound.
"Keep going." His hand finds my wrist, grips hard. "Has to... fill the wound cavity."
I pack more gauze in, each layer making him tense. Blood seeps around my fingers. The wound is deep. Too deep.
"More." His voice fades.
"There's no more room—"
"Make room."
Pushing harder, forcing the gauze deeper until the wound cavity fills. His grip on my wrist tightens to the point of pain, but he doesn't cry out. Just breathes through it, harsh and ragged.
"Pressure dressing." He releases my wrist. "Wrap it. Tight as you can."
I work fast, wrapping the pressure bandage around his torso. He has to lift slightly, and the movement makes him bite off a curse. But together we get it secured, tight enough that the bleeding finally starts to slow.
"Good." The word comes out slurred. "You're good at this."
"I'm terrible at this." My hands are still shaking. "You walked me through it."
"Still counts." His eyes drift closed.
"No." I tap his face, harder this time. "Stay awake. You said shock is the enemy. So stay awake and talk to me."
"Bossy." But his eyes open, focus with effort.
"You mentioned that already." I sit back on my heels, finally letting myself breathe. The cabin is cold. Alex is cold. I need to keep him warm. "We need to keep you warm."
A pile of old blankets sits in the corner, smelling like mildew and mice. I shake them out, and a small gray mouse shoots from the folds and scurries across the floor.
A scream rips from my throat.
From the couch, Alex makes a sound. Laughter. Weak and raspy, but definitely laughter.
"Are you seriously laughing?" Heat floods my face. "You're half-dead."
"Takes on... Committee operators..." Each word costs him. "Screams at... mouse."
"Shut up." But I'm almost smiling too. "Mice are different."
"Clearly."
I drape the blankets over him, careful to avoid his wound. He's still shivering.
I check his pulse again. Stronger than before. Not good, but better.
The phone screen dims. I tap it awake, and the light returns. Battery dying.
Alex watches me. Even half-conscious and bleeding, there's awareness in his gaze. Assessment. Calculating whether I'm a threat. Whether I'll run. Whether my helping him was a mistake.
"I'm not going anywhere," I say.
"Wasn't thinking that."
"Yes, you were." Moving, trying to find a position where my back doesn't ache from dragging him inside. "It's what I'd be thinking if our positions were reversed."
He doesn't deny it. Just watches with those unnervingly steady eyes.
Outside, wind moves through trees. Something small skitters across the cabin roof. The phone screen dims again, and I let it. Save battery.
In the darkness, Alex's breathing. The copper tang of blood mixed with gun oil and pine and something else—smoke, maybe. Old smoke, like he's been around fire so much it's soaked into his skin.
"I need to look at the rest," I say finally. "Make sure there aren't other injuries I missed."
"There are." His voice carries a bitter edge. "But most of them are old."
Phone flashlight on, and the beam cuts through the darkness. Alex flinches slightly from the brightness, but doesn't protest as the blankets push aside.
His shirt is destroyed—torn, blood-soaked, barely holding together. Helping him sit up enough to pull it off, and the movement makes him hiss through his teeth. But then it's off, and the map of violence written across his body becomes visible.
My breath catches.
Scars. Everywhere. Some old and faded, thin white lines that speak to clean cuts healed properly.
Others more recent—angry red tissue, poorly healed, the kind you get when medical care isn't available and survival is the only goal.
Puckered scar tissue on his left shoulder that looks like a bullet wound.
Shrapnel marks across his ribs, small constellations against skin.
And burns—distinctive burn patterns on his right side and arm, textured and deliberate.
Not accidental. Not from a fire or explosion.
Torture.
"Jesus." The word escapes before I can stop it.
"It looks worse than it is." But his voice tightens.
Forcing myself to focus. "Any of these need attention?"
"No. Just this one." He gestures to the wound I already packed. "The rest are history."
History. Like torture is just something that happened, filed away under past events.
Examining him anyway, checking for other bleeding, other damage. Fingers brush over the burn scars and he tenses. They're old enough to be fully healed, but sensitive. The kind of injury that never really stops hurting.
"Who did this?" I ask quietly.
He meets my eyes. "Interrogator called Scorch. The Committee's specialist."
The clinical description makes my stomach turn. "This is what Kessler authorized."
"Kessler gave the orders. Scorch carried them out." His voice stays flat, matter-of-fact. "Four days."
The single word carries everything. Confirmation. Admission. A challenge to see if I believe him or if I think he's lying like Patterson said.