Chapter 21 Talia
TWENTY-ONE
Talia
EXTRACTION
The van smells of diesel, burnt rubber, and the heavy, metallic scent of too much blood.
Torque drives like a man possessed, banking the heavy armored vehicle around corners with g-forces that slam us against the walls. Every bump, every turn, sends a fresh jolt of pain across Jackson’s face.
He doesn’t make a sound. He just grays out, his skin turning the color of wet ash.
“Pressure,” Brass barks, his hands slick with red. “Don’t let up.”
My hands are buried in the wound at Jackson’s side. The Kevlar stopped the first round, but the second found the gap. It tore through the soft armor and into the flesh above his hip. It feels hot. Too hot. The blood pumps against my palms, a wet, rhythmic reminder of how fragile he is.
“I’ve got it,” I whisper. “I’ve got you.”
Jackson’s eyes are slits. He fights to keep them open, fighting the gravity of shock.
“Status,” he rasps.
“Shut up,” Ghost says from the passenger seat. He’s on the comms, coordinating a route that avoids police scanners and traffic cameras. “We’re four minutes out. Hold on.”
“Talia.” Jackson’s hand fumbles blindly, seeking mine.
I lace my blood-slicked fingers through his. “I’m here.”
“The drive,” he murmurs. “Secure?”
“I have it. It’s safe.”
“Good.” His head lolls back against the metal floor. “Good.”
“Stay with me.” I squeeze his hand, hard enough to hurt. “You don’t get to check out. You promised me a conversation. You promised me ‘after.’”
His lips twitch in a ghost of a smile. “I keep—my promises.”
“Then keep your eyes open.”
The van swerves violently. Tires screech. We decelerate, momentum throwing me forward. Brass catches my shoulder, steadying me.
“We’re here,” Torque yells.
The rear doors fly open.
We spill into the underground loading dock—bright lights, polished concrete, the sharp echo of boots and shouted commands bouncing off the walls. It looks less like a garage and more like the valet entrance of a luxury hotel … If a luxury hotel kept a trauma team waiting in the center of its floor.
Five people in scrubs stand ready beside a gurney.
Not surprised.
Not scrambling.
Prepared.
“Clear!” Ghost shouts.
Brass and I lift Jackson between us. His weight sags, his body fighting gravity with the last scraps of consciousness he has left. When we lay him onto the waiting gurney, a low, broken groan rips out of him—pain dragging through every syllable of sound.
“We’ve got him.” A woman steps forward. Auburn hair pulled tight. Eyes bright and unshakably calm. Her gloves snap on before the wheels even start turning. Her voice is sharp and controlled in a way that steals the air from my lungs.
The scrubs team moves instantly around her—fluid, rehearsed, terrifyingly efficient.
“BP’s dropping, Skye,” a tall woman says, fingers already probing for a vein.
“Ryker, airway. Tia, induction. I want blood, pressure bags, and a FAST exam on the table. Move.”
It all happens at once.
A laryngoscope appears. Fluids spike open. A mask drops over Jackson’s face. Someone squeezes a bag of medication into his IV with the smoothness of muscle memory.
They push the gurney forward.
Not toward an elevator.
Not toward any marked clinical area.
Toward a structure I didn’t see until we were almost on top of it—a clear vinyl tent set up in the center of the loading dock like a pop-up operating theater.
Bright LED panels hang from improvised rigs overhead, illuminating the inside of the tent with surgical clarity. Stainless steel trays sit ready. A portable anesthesia machine hums beside a surgical table.
It looks impossible.
Out of place.
Unbelievably professional.
A battlefield OR dropped into a parking garage.
They roll him through the vinyl flap. I go with them. My hand stays locked on the rail of the stretcher, every instinct screaming that letting go is equivalent to deletion.
No one stops me.
No one tells me to move.
No one even looks surprised that I’m glued there.
Inside, the temperature drops—cooler, controlled. The smell shifts to antiseptic and adrenaline.
Skye steps to Jackson’s right side, ultrasound probe in hand. She presses it against his abdomen, images blooming across a portable monitor inside the tent.
“Positive in the upper quadrant,” she says. “He’s bleeding into the belly. Prep now.”
Tia—the one managing the anesthesia—adjusts dosing like she’s conducting a symphony. Ryker secures the airway with a precision that makes my chest ache.
The rest of the team fans out around Skye, every hand moving with the practiced rhythm of people who have done this in worse places, under worse fire, with worse odds.
Jackson is the battlefield.
They are the counterattack.
Someone cuts away his shirt.
Someone else hangs blood.
Skye snaps, “Scalpel,” and a surgical tech slaps one into her palm without looking.
The vinyl walls tremble with the rumble of air handlers. LED lights reflect off Jackson’s skin, making him look pale, unreal, almost ghostlike.
I don’t let go.
Skye glances up once—just once—meeting my eyes.
“You can’t stay,” she says softly, but there’s steel under it.
Something breaks in my chest.
I lean close, my fingers brushing Jackson’s hairline, my breath trembling as the medical team transforms this makeshift tent into a lifeline, but I don’t step back.
Around me, they move with brutal calm.
Purpose.
Skill.
Velocity.
I don’t know who they are.
I don’t know why they were waiting.
I don’t know how any of this was prepared in advance.
But one thing becomes painfully, terrifyingly clear as they begin working to drag Jackson back from whatever edge he’s slipping toward …
This isn’t a hospital team.
This is something else.
Something built for war.
And they are fighting for him now.
A hand lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Immovable.
I spin, ready to fight.
It’s Ghost.
“You need to let them work,” he says gently.
“He needs me.”
“He needs a surgeon. You need to decontaminate.”
I look down at myself.
The realization hits me like a physical blow. I’m covered in him.
Jackson’s blood soaks my hands up to the wrists. It stains the front of my tactical vest. It’s smeared on my pants. I smell of Halon gas, sweat, and copper.
Ghost’s hand closes around my arm, steady but unyielding.
“Talia,” he says, quiet enough that it sinks under my skin. “You need to step back.”
My knees give out.
The concrete tilts.
Before I drop, Ghost catches me, hands braced around my elbows, his body a wall of calm in a room full of razor-edge urgency.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “You’re not leaving him. You’re just giving them space to work.”
Ghost pulls me back. Far enough to clear the surgical perimeter. Close enough that I can still hear everything.
Through the vinyl flap, the surgical team closes around Jackson in a rush of motion—voices sharp, instruments clattering, monitors chiming. Skye’s voice cuts through it all, sure and crisp, directing the room like she owns the air they breathe.
“Clamp.”
“Pressure’s dropping.”
“Hang blood.”
“Ready—move.”
“I activated Guardian HRS’s combat medical team,” Ghost says, eyes fixed on the blur of movement inside the vinyl tent. His voice stays low, even, like he’s narrating weather patterns—not life and death. “They were standing by.”
I blink at him. “Combat … What?”
“Think trauma surgeons who go where the bullets are,” he says.
“They deploy with us when we expect a fight to get loud.” He nods toward the tent where Skye and her team move like a single organism.
“Field surgery. Battlefield stabilization. They train to keep people alive in places worse than this.”
I stare at him.
“You had them waiting?”
“As a precaution.” His tone doesn’t shift—it’s not bragging, not dramatic. Just fact.
“Guardian HRS owed us support. I cashed in the marker. Got their best team.”
Inside the tent, a monitor alarms. Skye’s voice snaps a command. Someone adjusts a valve. The whole structure vibrates with urgency.
Ghost’s jaw tightens. “They’re the reason he has a shot,” he says. “You’re watching the top combat medics in the country do what they do better than anyone.”
He finally looks at me.
Direct. Unflinching.
“They don’t lose people easily.”
I don’t know what that means.
I don’t ask.
All I know is that strangers in scrubs materialized out of nowhere and are now fighting to keep Jackson alive.
Time bends.
Someone hands me water.
Someone else wipes dried blood off my face.
I don’t remember taking either.
Then the vinyl flap snaps open.
Skye steps out, pulling off her gloves. “He’s stable for transport,” she says. “We need to move him—now.”
Ghost nods once.
“Load him.”
The surgical team wheels Jackson out, monitors still attached, IV bags swinging gently. He’s pale. Too pale. His chest rises shallowly under the oxygen mask.
My blood goes cold.
“You’re coming with us.” Ghost guides me beside the stretcher.
That word—with—nearly undoes me.
The team lifts Jackson into the back of the van on a stretcher, along with enough medical gear to run a small clinic. Skye climbs in beside him. Tia secures equipment. The rest distribute across the seats.
Ghost opens the door to an SUV.
“You ride with the team.”
I climb in. I don’t ask where we’re going.
It doesn’t matter.
Jackson’s teammates pile into the SUV.
Doors slam.
The engine hums to life.
We pull away from the loading dock into the quiet Chicago night.
Nothing dramatic.
No sirens.
Just empty streets sliding past in blurred streaks of orange under the streetlamps.
Ghost sits in the front passenger seat, phone to his ear, issuing clipped instructions to someone I can’t hear.
We cross over the river, then slip into an industrial district—warehouses, fences, delivery trucks parked in neat rows. The city noise fades into the hum of tires on asphalt.
Ten minutes later, we turn through an unmarked gate.
A security guard waves us through without stopping the vehicle.
Beyond the fence:
A lineup of private hangars.