Chapter 29
Skye
By the time the decision was made to enter Saint Brigid's, dusk had settled over County Clare and the weather had turned hard enough to erase the last traces of softness from the landscape.
Rain moved sideways across the fields, striking the vehicles in brief silver sheets whenever the wind changed direction, while the low clouds made evening arrive faster than it should have.
Under ordinary circumstances I might have considered the weather miserable.
Tonight I was grateful for it. Bad visibility worked both ways, and the same rain making the northern slope slick beneath our boots also blurred long-distance sight lines from the property and reduced the chance that someone looking from Saint Brigid's would notice movement where there shouldn't have been any.
Hawkeye had remained on overwatch through the entire afternoon, reporting vehicles, staff changes, and every resident he could identify without moving close enough to compromise his position.
Vale had left the property almost an hour earlier and was being shadowed at a distance by Maverick's contacts rather than anyone directly connected to the club.
The two vans carrying residents had been followed separately, both eventually reaching Covenant-linked properties where additional surveillance teams took over.
Nobody had disappeared. That was the only reason Irish had agreed not to chase them personally, although I could still see the effort it took each time a radio update mentioned one of the vehicles.
He stood beside me beneath the cover of an abandoned agricultural shed while Trigger went through the final entry sequence, his attention fixed on the map spread across the bonnet of the SUV.
The others called him Irish without hesitation, but since the night at the farmhouse I had become increasingly aware of the different versions of the man standing beside me.
Irish was the one who could watch a road for hours and remember every vehicle that passed.
Callum was the name he had chosen when he rebuilt his life after leaving this place.
Rory belonged to the farmhouse, Brigid's stories, Finn's laughter, and a grief he had finally stopped treating as something he deserved.
Tonight he seemed to carry all three identities at once, and somehow that made him more dangerous rather than less.
"North wall first," Trigger said, tapping the plan. "Hawkeye confirms no exterior movement within the last twenty minutes. Raze and Storm stay on extraction. Maverick holds secondary route. Irish and I take the tunnel. Skye stays between us once we're inside."
I raised an eyebrow.
Trigger looked at me.
"Operationally."
"Good clarification."
Raze snorted from somewhere behind us.
Irish didn't smile, but his hand brushed mine beneath the edge of the map, brief enough that nobody else would have noticed.
I did.
The touch was not reassurance exactly. We had passed the point where either of us pretended one person could guarantee the other's safety.
It was acknowledgment. I was here because I had chosen to be, and he was beside me because he had finally learned that protecting someone did not require erasing their place in the decision.
Trigger continued. "If the tunnel is blocked, we back out. No improvising through unknown walls."
Everyone looked at me.
I folded my arms. "Why is everybody looking at me?"
"Because you consider architecture a tactical suggestion," Raze said.
"I have never once—"
Irish turned his head slowly.
I stopped.
"Fine. There have been occasions."
"Several," he said.
"Those buildings deserved it."
Storm laughed under her breath.
Trigger waited until the amusement faded.
"Primary objective is residents. Secondary is records if we can secure them without slowing extraction.
Harrow knows we're here somewhere. Vale knows Croft House was exposed.
Assume anything left inside Saint Brigid's is either bait or something they haven't had time to move. "
That last possibility stayed with me as we approached the north slope.
Eamon had been right about the old retaining wall.
The access point would have been almost impossible to recognize if nobody knew where to look, hidden beneath brambles, collapsed earth, and decades of weathering that made the later masonry appear older than it actually was.
Hawkeye had marked the location with a discreet infrared beacon visible only through Trigger's optics, and even then it took me several minutes to match what I saw against Declan's plan.
"This section," I whispered.
Irish crouched beside me.
"You sure?"
"The stone changes here."
Trigger studied the wall.
I pointed toward the mortar. "Older lime work on both sides, later cement between. Eamon's father probably rebuilt the visible retaining surface without filling the original arch."
Raze's voice came quietly through the radio. "Need tools?"
"Mechanical only."
His sigh carried through the earpiece. "You take all the joy out of things."
Irish murmured, "She's consistent."
I glanced toward him. "You like that."
"Aye."
The answer came so naturally that I looked at him longer than I should have.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
Then Trigger shifted beside us and the moment disappeared back into the operation.
It took eleven minutes to expose the stone arch and another six to clear enough compacted fill for one person to pass.
Cold air moved through the opening almost immediately, carrying the unmistakable smell of damp stone and enclosed space.
I crawled closer and shone a low beam inside.
The tunnel descended beneath the slope exactly as Brigid had described, its barrel-vaulted ceiling built from rough stone and its floor newer than the walls around it.
"Concrete," I whispered.
Trigger crouched beside me. "Recent?"
"Not new, but much newer than the tunnel. Maybe twenty years. They reused the passage instead of abandoning it."
Irish's expression hardened.
Around the same time Declan had been asking questions.
Trigger went first.
Irish followed.
I entered after him, with Raze several paces behind until the route narrowed enough that only the primary team could move comfortably.
The tunnel was colder than the night outside, moisture running along the stones and gathering in small channels beside the floor.
Modern electrical conduit followed one wall, disappearing deeper beneath the property, while a ventilation line had been suspended along the opposite side.
That was the first confirmation.
The second came when we found the camera.
It sat inside an old stone recess that might once have held a lamp, compact enough to disappear unless someone looked directly at it.
Irish spotted it before I did.
His hand came up.
We stopped.
Cipher's voice came quietly through the comms. "Give me ten."
We waited in the dark.
I could hear Irish breathing beside me and the faint scrape of Trigger's sleeve against stone ahead.
Then Cipher said, "Looping."
The camera light blinked once.
"Move."
The tunnel rose gradually before reaching a reinforced door positioned where Declan's plan showed the original infirmary service entrance. Unlike Croft House, there was no attempt to disguise the security here. Modern keypad. Magnetic lock. Reinforced hinges.
This section of Saint Brigid's had never been intended for visitors.
Cipher opened the lock remotely through a maintenance connection he'd found in the property's network.
Trigger eased the door inward.
Warm air reached us when the door opened, carrying voices from somewhere farther inside—not conversation, but the low, synchronized cadence of prayer.
A dozen voices, perhaps more, repeating the same words in low unison somewhere beyond the corridor.
Irish looked toward me.
I had heard controlled religious recitation before in recordings from Order compounds, but hearing it inside an old building beneath County Clare made something cold move beneath my skin.
Trigger signaled forward.
The corridor beyond was narrow and windowless, painted cream above a dark vinyl floor. Old stone arches had been boxed in behind modern walls, reducing a historic infirmary passage into something that felt intentionally anonymous. Doors lined both sides. Every one had an external lock.
My stomach tightened.
It was the same system we had already seen elsewhere, transplanted into a different country without changing any of its habits.
We reached the first occupied room.
A woman in her sixties sat beside the bed holding a small prayer book with both hands. She looked up when I entered, fear flashing across her face before she saw Irish and Trigger behind me.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Skye."
Her gaze moved toward my clothes, then back to my face.
"Are you from the Foundation?"
"No."
That answer frightened her more.
I stopped several feet away.
"We're getting people out if they want to leave."
She stared at me.
"Leave where?"
"Wherever you choose once you're somewhere safe enough to make the decision."
Confusion crossed her expression.
"They said we're being transferred."
"Do you want to be transferred?"
Her eyes filled almost immediately.
"No."
"Then you don't have to go with them."
She looked toward the door.
Then toward Irish.
He remained outside the room.
His hands were visible.
His voice was quiet.
"You don't have to trust us. You only have to decide whether staying here is what you want."
The woman studied him for several seconds.
"What happens if I leave?"
"You get somewhere the doors lock from your side."
That did it.
She covered her mouth with one hand.
I stepped closer only when she nodded.
"Can I help you stand?"
"Yes."
By the time Storm met us at the tunnel entrance, we had six adults ready to leave.
The seventh refused.
Not because she wanted to stay, but because her daughter was somewhere else inside the building.
"They moved her three days ago," she told me, gripping my wrist with enough force to hurt. "Said she was old enough for placement."