Chapter 18 #2
Everything turns into gunfire and chaos. I dive behind a concrete pillar as rounds tear through the air where I was standing. Alex goes the opposite direction, drawing fire, giving me a chance to find better cover.
The FBI never trained me for this. Eight years profiling killers, interviewing psychopaths, building cases from evidence. None of that prepared me for bullets snapping past my head and concrete chips cutting my face.
But I had training before the Bureau. Range time, defensive tactics, survival skills my father insisted on. Alex sharpened those skills, pushed me harder, made me faster. The training takes over. I lean out, acquire a target, fire. The operative jerks backward, dropping his rifle.
Three left.
Alex is moving, using the room's layout to flank. I provide covering fire—not trying to hit anything, just keeping their attention split. He appears on their exposed side, moving from target to target with practiced efficiency. Two more drop.
The last operative runs. Smart. I would too.
"Exit's clear," Alex says, moving to the security station. "Tommy, we're at Bravo extraction."
"Copy. Van's two minutes out. You've got Committee response teams converging on your position from three directions."
"Then we better be gone in ninety seconds."
The extraction point is a loading dock that services the building. Less secure than the main entrance, which makes it useful for moving things the Committee doesn't want seen. Like bodies or evidence of crimes.
We hit the dock at a run. The van screeches up, side door already open. Stryker's at the wheel. Rourke provides cover from the passenger seat. Willa reaches out to pull us in.
I'm three feet from the door when the round hits.
The impact spins me sideways—shoulder screaming, body following momentum into the concrete. My rifle clatters away. The pain is immediate and overwhelming, hot and nauseating.
"Delaney!" Alex's voice, distant through the ringing in my ears.
I try to stand. My left arm won't cooperate. Won't even move. Looking down, I see blood soaking through my vest, dark and spreading. Through-and-through, the tactical part of my brain notes. Entry wound front, exit wound back. Missed the bone but got everything else.
"I can move," I manage. "Go!"
Alex appears above me, rifle firing past my head at targets I can't see. His face is locked in combat focus—not panicked, not frozen, just executing. He hooks one arm under my good shoulder, hauls me upright.
"Not leaving you!"
Rounds impact around us. Stryker lays down suppressing fire from the van. Rourke's rifle cracks with precision—each shot buying us seconds. Alex half-carries, half-drags me toward the van. My boots scrape concrete, legs trying to work but not quite managing it.
We're not going to make it. Too far, too exposed, too many hostiles.
Then Willa's there, firing with the same cold efficiency I've seen from all of them. She and Alex bracket me, moving together like they've done this a thousand times. Maybe they have.
We reach the van. Hands pull me inside. Rourke climbs into the back, rifle still engaging targets. Stryker accelerates before the door fully closes. We're moving, rounds pinging off the van's armored exterior, but moving.
"Pressure!" Willa's hands are on my shoulder, applying force that makes me gasp. "Keep pressure on the exit wound. Alex, hold this."
He takes over, hands steady despite the van careening through Committee security. Willa rips open trauma supplies, working with veterinarian precision on human tissue. The irony would be funny if everything didn't hurt so much.
"Talk to me," Alex says. His hand finds mine between working the pressure dressing. "Stay focused. We're almost there."
"We got it, right?" The words come out weaker than intended. "The evidence?"
"We got it. Everything." His grip tightens. "You did good."
The van hits a pothole. Pain explodes through my shoulder, vision graying at the edges.
Willa's voice cuts through the fog, commanding Alex, directing pressure points, talking me through staying conscious.
Professional. Calm. Like she's treating a dog instead of a person bleeding all over her tactical van.
"Almost there," Stryker calls from the front. "Thirty seconds to safe house."
Those thirty seconds stretch into forever. Each heartbeat pushes more blood out of the holes in my shoulder. Willa's packing the wounds, stemming the flow, but there's so much already. The van floor is slick with it.
We stop. Doors open. More hands lifting me, carrying me inside. The safe house basement becomes an improvised surgical suite—bright lights, Willa scrubbing up, Sarah assisting. Tommy hovers in the background, laptop open, already analyzing the data I bled for.
"Pain medication," Willa says, prepping a syringe. "This is going to make you drowsy, but I need to work on that shoulder. Understand?"
I nod. Or try to. The movement makes the room spin.
The injection burns going in, then warmth spreads through my arm. The pain recedes to distant throbbing, replaced by a floaty sensation that makes thinking difficult.
"Keep talking to her," Willa orders, working on the entry wound. "Keep her with us, Alex."
"Delaney." His face appears in my line of sight. "Tell me about the download. What did you get?"
"Everything." The word comes out slurred. The medication is working fast. "Names. Operations. Financial records. Everything Tommy said we needed."
"That's good." His hand is still holding mine. "You made this possible."
"We did." The correction feels important even if my brain's getting fuzzy. "Not me. We."
He squeezes my hand. "We did."
"Did we win?" The question sounds childish even through the drug haze. "Did we beat them?"
"Not yet." Kane's voice, from somewhere beyond my limited vision. "But we have the ammunition now. Tommy's confirming it all."
"Data's clean," Tommy calls. "Names, operations, financial records—everything we need. Cross's intel was perfect. This is enough to burn the entire Committee structure."
"Time to burn them all down," Kane says. Weight in those words. Promise and threat combined.
"Do it right." I force the words out clearly despite the drugs pulling me under. "Make it public. Make it stick. Federal standards. Chain of custody. Everything documented."
"We will," Alex says. His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. Gentle. Grounding.
Willa finishes with the entry wound, moves to the exit. The sensation of her working on tissue I can't see is surreal—pressure without pain, tugging without agony. Whatever she injected is impressive.
"Shoulder's going to be stiff for weeks," she says. "No permanent damage but you're benched from active operations until this heals. Understand?"
"Benched?"
"Grounded. Sidelined. No combat operations."
"But—"
"No arguing." Alex's voice carries command authority. "You took a bullet. You're done until you heal."
"I can still—"
"No." He leans closer, making sure I can see his face through the drug fog. "You did your part. You got the evidence. Now you heal while we finish this."
Kane appears beside him. "He's right. You've earned rest. Let us handle the next phase."
"Next phase?" I try to sit up. Willa pushes me back down with one hand.
"Stay still or I'm increasing your dosage."
"Next phase," Kane repeats. "We have the evidence. Now we expose it. Every news outlet, every journalist, every platform that'll run the story. We make it so public the Committee can't suppress it. We burn their entire structure down and make sure everyone knows why."
"And then?" The question feels important even though I'm having trouble remembering why.
"Then we hunt down the survivors," Kane says simply. "The ones who ordered those seventeen agents killed. The ones who tried to frame you. The ones who've been systematically murdering burned operators. We make sure they answer for what they've done."
"In court," I say. "Federal court. With evidence. With testimony. Legal."
"In court," he agrees. "If we can take them alive."
The qualifier hangs heavy. If. Because men like this don't surrender easy. Don't go quietly into custody and trials. They fight until the end, and sometimes the end comes at the business end of a rifle.
But that's not my problem right now. My problem is keeping my shoulder from bleeding again and staying conscious long enough to hear Tommy's full report on the evidence.
"Names," Tommy says, reading from his screen. "Starting with the top. Senator Richard Morrison—deceased. General Marcus Webb—active. James Kessler—status unknown. Victoria Cross—"
"Cross is on the list?" The name jolts me more alert. "She helped us."
"She's on everyone's list," Tommy says. "Cross plays all sides. She's connected to the Committee through financial transactions—they've paid her for intel, same as we have. She's a broker, not a member. Sells to whoever pays."
"We'll worry about Cross later," Kane says. "What else?"
The briefing continues but the drugs pull me under. Willa's voice fades to background noise. Alex's hand stays wrapped around mine—anchor keeping me from drifting too far.
Tommy's voice continues somewhere in the background, listing names, proving connections.