12. Ellie #4
Between training sessions, I send carefully worded emails.
Something about a family emergency, that I’m taking unexpected leave, and that I need to reschedule all appointments.
The lies come easier than they should. Weeks ago, I would have agonized over abandoning my patients.
Now I’m grateful none of them will be here when Cell 7 comes through that door.
By sunset on the second day, my hands are raw.
The house has gone quiet, not peaceful quiet, the kind where four armed men are listening to the dark.
I find myself standing at the dining table, staring at the place where my patient files used to sit.
Kai’s trauma shears are there instead. Gabriel’s flashbangs. Loose rounds rolled against the wood.
If we survive this, the police will find all of it. There’s no defending the illegal arsenal, the traps, the explosives scattered across my hardwood floors. My career, my practice, my entire life: all of it is forfeit.
Killian stands at the window, staring out into the pitch-black garden. Still. Watching the dark like he already knows which shadow moves first. I should be terrified. I am a little. But mostly I’m watching his jaw and thinking: I’d make the same choice again.
Jackson approaches Killian with a small electronic device.
“Time to lose the fashion accessory,” he says, nodding toward the ankle monitor blinking steadily beneath Killian’s pant leg.
Killian settles onto a kitchen chair, his leg extended.
The monitor is a thick black band, the industrial plastic scarred and scuffed from weeks of wear.
Its green LED blinks in a steady rhythm, a constant reminder that they are tracking him, a weight he’s been carrying since the day they let him out.
“My fucking pleasure,” Killian smirks.
“If someone had told me last month I’d be watching a convicted felon get his ankle monitor hacked in my kitchen, I’d have called them delusional.”
Jackson grins. “Welcome to the dark side, Ellie.”
He gets to work with an array of specialized tools.
“Government-grade piece of shit,” Jackson mutters, connecting his device to a nearly invisible port.
“Triple redundant anti-tamper systems. GPS tracking with cellular backup.” His fingers move across a digital interface.
“Bypassing primary security... creating loop feedback for motion sensors... and... killing the heart-rate monitor. Fucking child’s play. ”
The monitor’s LED continues its steady, green pulse, still feeding a looped signal back to the monitoring station. Jackson’s fingers are clinical as he slides the plastic over Killian’s heel, setting the device on the kitchen island without a single alarm.
“I’ve overridden their uplink. The idiots at the monitoring station will see him sitting exactly where he belongs,” Jackson says, dropping the device into a Faraday pouch.
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As night falls, they make final preparations.
The men check weapons, the metallic sounds of slides racking and magazines loading filling the room.
Kai is stacking trauma pads next to the fruit bowl, his focus narrowed to the surgical kit in front of him.
Gabriel distributes communication devices, all of them moving like this is just another Tuesday.
“It’s getting late,” Gabriel says, checking his watch. “Should grab some rest while you can. We’ll rotate watch. Jackson first, then me, then Kai. Killian sticks with the Doc.”
“Ellie,” I correct automatically.
Gabriel’s stern expression softens slightly. “Ellie,” he concedes with a nod.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Kai chuckles with a wink, my cheeks instantly flushing.
“Fuck off, Kai,” Killian playfully punches him on the shoulder, pulling a chuckle from Kai.
Killian guides me upstairs to my bedroom. Well, our bedroom now, though the circumstances hardly make it a romantic progression.
“Try to sleep,” he says, checking the perimeter alarms one last time. “I’ll be right here.”
“Will you sleep too?” I ask, noting the exhaustion lining his face.
“Yes,” he promises, which I recognize as bullshit. He’ll be on alert even while resting.
I change and slip beneath the covers, the cool sheets are a stark contrast to the heat of the day.
Killian stretches out beside me on top of the bedspread.
His presence is a solid, unyielding wall of warmth.
His combat knife and gun are arranged with lethal precision on the nightstand.
Close enough to reach in a heartbeat. He’s on guard, even in the dark.
“Killian,” I say quietly. “We’re going to survive this?”
He turns toward me, his expression softening in the shadows. “Yes. We are.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve fought alongside these fuckups in worse holes than this. Because they’re the best at what they do. And because I won’t let anyone touch you, Ellie. Not while I’m still breathing.”
“And after? When the smoke clears?”
“One war at a time, baby,” he murmurs, leaning over to press a kiss to my forehead. His lips are hot, his stubble grazing my skin. “Rest now. The storm hits tomorrow.”
I wouldn’t go back. Not to the quiet practice, not to the predictable life, not to any version of myself that had never known what it felt like to be this alive.
Exhaustion pulls me under, but I match my breathing to the steady, powerful rhythm of his heart. One. Two. Three. Four.
Then sleep takes me.