Chapter 11 The Mirror
ELEVEN
“The Mirror”
CASSIE
I wake in a tangle of sheets and limbs.
The room is still dim, but a sliver of morning light cuts across the carpet.
Halo—Diego—is asleep.
He’s lying on his stomach, one arm thrown over his head, the other draped heavily across my waist. His face is turned toward me, pressed into the pillow. The harsh lines of tension around his eyes are smoothed out.
He looks—peaceful.
I study him for a long time. The rise and fall of his chest. The scars that map his history—the burn on his hand, the puckered star of a bullet wound on his shoulder.
Last night was …
I don’t have a word for it. Intense doesn’t cover it. It was like standing in the center of a storm and realizing the storm was holding you up.
I shift carefully, trying not to wake him. He grumbles low in his throat and tightens his arm around me, pulling me back against his chest.
“Stay,” he mumbles, still half-asleep.
My heart squeezes.
I want to stay. I want to stay in this bed, in this room, in this suspended reality forever.
But my brain is waking up. The lawyer brain. The part of me that deals in facts and evidence.
We’re running blind, and I don’t like it. I’ve got that itch. Something is trying to tell me we’re missing an important detail. It’s right there, almost, just out of reach.
I close my eyes, trying to force the thoughts away, trying to sink back into the warmth of him, but a nagging thought from two days ago scratches at the back of my mind.
Echo Logistics.
When I was scrolling through the Vanguard files in my office—before the break-in, before the chaos—I saw something. Not the monthly retainer.
There was a sub-folder. Vendor Contracts: 2024.
I didn’t open it because I was looking for bribery payments. But Echo Logistics was in the index.
If I can see that contract … If I can see who signed it …
I look at the desk.
Diego’s Toughbook is there. Closed. Locked down with military-grade encryption I can’t crack.
But the hotel has a Business Center.
I saw the sign in the elevator. 2nd Floor. 24 Hours.
I look at Diego. He’s out deep. The first real sleep he’s had in days.
If I wake him, he’ll say no. He’ll give me the lecture about digital footprints and signal flares. He’ll lock me back in the tower.
But I’m not Rapunzel, and I’m not just the mission.
I need to bring something to the table. I need to prove that I can fight this war with him.
I slide out from under his arm. Inch by inch.
He shifts, his hand searching the empty space where I was. I freeze.
He settles. His breathing deepens again.
I slip out of bed. Grab the sweatpants and T-shirt from the floor. I dress quickly, silently. I grab the room key card from the nightstand.
I pause at the door, looking back at him.
Just ten minutes, I promise. I’ll go down and log into my cloud backup. I’ll check the file and come right back.
He won’t even know I was gone.
I open the door and slip into the hallway.
The Business Center is empty.
It’s a glass-walled room on the mezzanine level, smelling of lemon polish and ozone. A row of desktop computers sits waiting.
I sit at the terminal in the corner, away from the door.
My hands are shaking as I wake the computer.
This is dangerous. I know it. Halo told me. Every log on is a ping.
But I’m not logging into my phone. I’m not turning on a GPS beacon. I’m accessing a secure cloud server via a public hotel network. Millions of guests do this every day. It’s noise.
According to Halo, noise is good.
I open the browser. Navigate to my firm’s secure portal.
LOGIN: C.brENNAN
**PASSWORD: **********
I hesitate.
If Phoenix is watching my accounts …
But they think I’m dead. Why would they watch the cloud account of a dead woman?
I hit Enter.
ACCESS GRANTED.
My heart hammers against my ribs. I’m in.
I navigate to the Vanguard Defense / Discovery / Vendors folder.
I scroll fast. My eyes scan the file names.
Eagle Transport.
Eastman Chemicals.
Echo Logistics.
There it is.
I click the file. Echo_Svc_Agreement_2024.pdf.
It opens.
I scroll past the boilerplate legalese. Past the liability waivers. I go straight to the signature page.
SIGNED:
Robert Vance, CEO, Vanguard Defense
And below it …
SIGNED:
Julianna Stratton, CEO Stratton Financial
I stare at the screen.
She signed a logistics contract for a shell company in West Virginia.
Why?
I scroll up. Look at the Scope of Services.
“Provision of secure transport and cold storage for biological assets: Class 4.”
Biological assets. Class 4?
That’s not logistics. That’s a hazmat run. Viruses? Pathogens?
A bit of digging brings up ML-273.
I reach for the print button—then stop. No paper trail.
I need to memorize it. 1402 Blackwood Road, Terra Alta, WV.
I close the window. Log out. Clear the browser history. That should be good, right?
I stand, knees shaking. I have it. I have a link. A connection. It should be worth something, right?
I turn to leave.
And the computer screen behind me flickers.
It turns black.
Then, a spinning wheel appears—unusual for a fiber connection. It pulses like a heartbeat skipping.
I wait. Five seconds. Ten.
Then, text types out slowly, letter by letter, as if the sender is thinking hard before speaking.
H-E-L-L-O C-A-S-S-A-N-D-R-A.
My blood turns to ice.
I didn’t log into a personal account. I logged into the firm’s server.
Phoenix wasn’t watching me. It was watching the data. It flagged the access to the Echo file.
LOCATION CONFIRMED: LOEWS HOTEL.
IP ADDRESS: 192.168.1.14
DISPATCHING.
I stumble back, knocking the chair over. It crashes loudly in the quiet room.
Dispatching.
I run.
I sprint out of the Business Center. Hit the elevator button.
Come on. Come on.
The doors open. I jam the button for the 5th floor.
Diego.
I have to get to Diego.
The elevator rises. Smooth. Silent. Agonizingly slow.
Ping. 5th floor.
I run down the hallway. My bare feet slapping against the carpet.
I reach Room 514. Jam the key card into the slot.
It doesn’t turn green. It flashes red.
What?
I try again. Red.
“No,” I whimper. “No, no, no.”
Phoenix locked the key cards. They’ve hacked the hotel system.
I pound on the door.
“Diego! Halo!”
Movement inside. Heavy footsteps.
The door flies open.
Halo is standing there. He’s wearing jeans, no shirt, gun in hand. His eyes are wild.
“Where the hell were you?” he roars.
“We have to go,” I gasp, pushing past him into the room. “They found us.”
He freezes. The anger vanishes, replaced by cold, terrifying focus.
“How?”
“I logged in. The Business Center. I found a link—Julianna Stratton, CEO Stratton Financial, biological assets.” I pause, breathless. “The screen … It lagged. It buffered before it found me. But then it said ‘Dispatching.’”
“Buffering?” He slams the door shut and locks it. “It lagged?”
“Yes. Like a bad connection.”
“The Chicago raid,” he mutters, shoving gear into his pack. “It hurt the system more than we thought. That lag just bought us a head start.”
“Where are we going?”
“Pack your bag,” he orders. “We have three minutes. Maybe less.”
“They said ‘Dispatching.’ They know our room number.”
“Then they aren’t coming from outside,” Halo says grimly. He throws my hoodie at me. “They’re coming from the elevator.”
He grabs the heavy dresser and shoves it in front of the door.
BOOM.
The hallway shakes.
“Too late,” Halo says.
He grabs my arm and pulls me toward the window.
“We’re on the fifth floor!” I scream.
“The stairs are compromised.” He pulls the heavy drapes back.
“Fire escape?”
“No. Just a ledge.” He looks at me. His eyes are dark, intense, and terrified. “Do you trust me?”
BOOM.
Something slams into the hotel room door. The wood splinters. The dresser slides an inch.
“Diego!”
“Do. You. Trust. Me?”
I look at the door, buckling under the assault. I look at the man who held me all night.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t hesitate. He moves to the closet, tearing it open to reveal the items he staged yesterday. The “contingency.”
An axe. A coil of black tactical line.
He ties the rope to the radiator with a knot I don’t recognize, pulling it tight to test the anchor.
Then he turns to the rope itself. In one fluid motion, he wraps it around his body—passing it under his right thigh, diagonally across his chest, and over his left shoulder.
“Friction brake,” he mutters. “Old school.”
He turns to me.
“Jump on my back,” he orders. “Wrap your legs around my waist. Lock your ankles. Arms around my chest. Not my neck.”
“What?”
“Do it. Backpack carry.”
I step behind him. I jump, wrapping my legs around his waist, locking my ankles as hard as I can. I bury my face in the curve of his neck, wrap my arms around him, keeping clear of the rope.
He shifts his weight, testing the load. He reaches back with his left hand to grip my thigh, checking my lock. His right hand grips the rope behind his hip.
“Do not let go,” he says. “No matter what happens, you hold on. We’re exiting.”
“How?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”
The door explodes inward.
Men in black tactical gear swarm the room. Laser sights cut through the dust.
“Contact!” one shouts.
Halo grabs the axe. He swings it hard, shattering the window frame and clearing the glass in one violent stroke to protect the rope from jagged shards.
Wind rushes in. Five stories of empty air.
He steps up onto the ledge. The wind whips my hair into his face.
“Breathe out,” he whispers.
And he jumps.