Chapter 14 Wren
FOURTEEN
Wren
The helicopter ride is a sensory overload of noise, vibration, and the metallic smell of blood.
Kade sits beside me, strapped into a jump seat. Pale, sweat beading on his forehead, his left arm immobilized against his chest in a temporary sling. His spine is straight. His eyes are alert. He's hurt, and he is refusing to show it.
I'm huddled next to him in the foil shock blanket someone threw over me. My hands are shaking—not fear, the crash. The adrenaline that sustained me for three days is draining away, leaving me hollow and cold.
"He's stable."
The man across from us—the one Kade called Frost—is watching me.
He doesn't look like a savior. He looks like a weapon that's been used often and hard.
Mid-thirties, dark eyes scanning the cabin with restless discipline, a permanent scowl set into heavily stubbled jaw.
His hands rest on his rifle, scarred across the knuckles.
"He's lost a lot of blood," Frost continues, his voice rough and calm under the rotor noise. "But Bishop is too stubborn to die. He'll be fine. You, on the other hand, look like you went twelve rounds with a reaper."
I look down at myself. Sweater ruined, stiff with dried mud and blood. Jeans torn. Hands black with gun oil and the iron dust from the warmer packet.
"I feel like it."
Frost leans forward, a tattoo that looks like coordinates peeking out from his right sleeve. "Flint told me what happened in the ravine. The chemical warmer. The shotgun."
"I didn't have a choice."
"There's always a choice," he corrects. "Most civilians freeze. You engaged." A small, sharp nod. "Good work."
Coming from a man who looks like he hasn't smiled since the Bush administration, the words make me straighten up.
"Did you get it?" My throat is raw. "The upload?"
Frost taps the tablet strapped to his thigh.
"That's the thing about your dead man's switch—we didn't have to intercept anything.
Your transmission fired on schedule. The moment your authenticated device was destroyed, the cancellation window closed permanently.
The packet went out exactly as you programmed it, to all five recipients, staggered fifteen minutes apart.
" He holds up the tablet. "We were monitoring the federal intake channels.
The moment the first packet hit the FBI, we knew. "
"I built it to fire without me."
"You built it," Frost says, "before you knew you'd need to.
That's the difference between a plan and luck.
What you did was a plan." He sets the tablet down.
"We have names, bank accounts, server locations.
Black Helix's entire West Coast node is exposed.
By morning, federal agencies in three countries are kicking down doors. "
"So it's over?"
"Will be." He looks at Kade, then back at me. "Give it a few days. But you're safe."
Safe. The word feels foreign in my mouth.
I reach out, trembling, and take Kade's hand. He squeezes back—grip surprisingly strong despite everything.
"We're crossing the perimeter," a female voice announces over comms.
"Angel's taking us in," Frost murmurs, checking his watch. "ETA two mikes."
I look out the window as the helicopter banks. Below us, the Pacific Coast Highway is a ribbon of headlights cutting through the black of the ocean. Then we turn toward the hills, and I stop breathing.
I expected a safe house. Maybe a building.
This is a fortress.
Sprawled across thousands of acres of secluded land is a complex that rivals a military base, lit up like a city in the wilderness. A massive structure of glass and steel glows like a beacon in the dark. Beside it: a squat, reinforced concrete building bathed in harsh security floodlights.
Dominating the center is a structure the size of a football field. Through the expansive windows, I catch glimpses of a gym—mats across the center floor, a running track circling the perimeter, a climbing wall rising into the rafters like an artificial cliff face.
To the east, industrial work lights shine down on the steel skeleton of new construction, cranes and machinery casting long shadows. Further back, tucked into the hills, soft yellow lights mark housing units.
Angel sets the bird down on a tarmac marked with a large red cross. The moment the skids settle, the side doors slide open.
"Let's move."
Kade unbuckles his harness, sways when he stands, and waves off Flint's offered arm. He walks to the door under his own power.
I scramble out after him, my legs tangling in the foil blanket. Kade catches me with his good arm, steadying me on the tarmac.
"I got you." Rough with pain, steady.
"I should be holding you up."
"Not today."
We move toward the building, flanked by the team. Flint on my left, massive and reassuring. Frost on my right, still scanning the perimeter like we haven't left the mountain. Behind us, Hawk moves with the unhurried ease of a predator who is never off-duty.
The group waiting by the medical bay doors stops me short.
A woman in scrubs storms out to meet us. Brown hair in a messy bun, hands on her hips, looking less like a doctor and more like a furious older sister catching her brothers breaking curfew.
"I swear," she shouts over the dying rotors, "if you boys ruin my weekend one more time, I'm going to charge by the stitch."
Frost steps off the skid, unmoved. "It's technically still Friday, Doc."
"Don't you start with me, Harrison." She points a finger at his chest. "Or I'm using the dull needles on you next time.
" The glare swings to Kade, and the anger evaporates into weary, exasperated affection.
"And look at you. You look like something my cat dragged in. And my cat drags in dead things."
"Good to see you too, Doc Summers." Kade grins through the pain.
"What's the damage this time?" She moves into his space, checking his pupils with practiced speed. "And if you say 'it's fine,' I will sedate you right here on the asphalt."
"Arm's a mess," Flint rumbles helpfully. "Leg's carved up, too."
Skye throws her hands up. "The leg? Again? Bishop, I just fixed that leg after the Rio job. Do you have any idea how hard it is to reconstruct a hamstring?"
"I was trying to save you the trouble." Kade wheezes. "But the bad guy insisted."
"I hate you. I hate all of you." She's already tucking herself under his good side, taking his weight from me. "You're all trying to give me gray hair before I'm forty."
"You love us." Hawk smirks from the back, slinging his rifle case over his shoulder.
"I tolerate you because the insurance checks clear," she shoots back without pausing.
"And because someone has to make sure you idiots don't bleed out on my nice clean tarmac.
Now move it. Trauma One is prepped. Bishop, you're mine.
Calloway—" Her expression softens. "I want you in Triage for a full workup. "
"I'm okay."
"Honey, you're covered in mud and holding up a two-hundred-pound operator." Deadpan. "You're getting a workup. I run a dictatorship here, not a democracy."
Frost leans down and murmurs in my ear. "Doc Summers runs the show. Don't let the size fool you—she's terrifying."
"I heard that, Harrison."
Before we can move, a blur of motion cuts across the tarmac. A woman with a pixie cut dyed a shimmering rainbow of colors vibrates into the circle. T-shirt reading I READ YOUR EMAILS. Tablet in hand.
"Is this her?" She bounces on her toes, eyes wide and lit up. "Are you Wren? Did you write the mirroring script?"
"I... yes?"
"Oh my God, it's beautiful!" She looks like she wants to hug me. "I'm Mitzy. I run Tech. The way you piggybacked their own authentication token? Chef's kiss! You have to come and see the lab. I have so many questions. We could use someone who thinks like you—"
"Mitzy!" Doc Summers steps between us. "Let me patch up the bleeders before you snatch the goods, okay?"
"Whatever." Mitzy pouts, rolls her eyes, then winks at me. "Find me later. Seriously. We have better toys than the NSA."
I'm still processing the rainbow hacker and the terrifying doctor when a shadow falls over us.
A long shadow.
Standing near the doors is the biggest human being I have ever seen.
Pushing seven feet, built like granite, with shocking white hair and silver eyes that look like they've witnessed the beginning and end of things.
He looks less like a man and more like a Norse god who took a wrong turn at Valhalla.
"Who is that?" I whisper to Kade.
"Forest." Kade leans heavier on me now. "He founded Guardian HRS with Doc Summers."
Forest nods as we approach—a small gesture, but Flint and Frost both straighten their spines.
"Good to have you back, Bishop." His voice is deep enough to vibrate in the pavement. Those silver eyes move to me. "And you, Miss Calloway. Welcome to Guardian HRS."
"Less talk. More movement." Doc Summers claps her hands. "Trauma One is prepped. Bishop, you're first. Calloway, Triage."
Kade is ushered away by the medical team. I try to follow, but Doc Summers steers me gently toward a different room.
"He's in good hands, honey. I'm going to fix him up like he's brand new. You let us do our job so he can get back to doing his."
In the triage room, a nurse checks me over. Bruised shoulder, minor cuts, dehydration. They clean me up and hand me soft gray sweats with the Guardian logo on the leg. They start an IV for fluids.
I can't rest. The adrenaline is gone, replaced by bone-deep exhaustion, but my mind won't close.
"Where is he?"
"Recovery," the nurse says. "He's out of surgery. Doc Summers stitched the artery herself."
"I need to see him."
"Miss Calloway—"
"Let her in."
Frost is in the doorway. He's shed his tactical vest and a black t-shirt stretches across his frame. Two steaming paper cups in hand—a logo on the side that says The Guardian Grind.
The nurse sighs, but nods. "Five minutes. Then he sleeps."
"Here." Frost hands me one of the cups. He jerks his chin and leads me down a quiet hallway to a private room.
Inside, the lights are dimmed. Kade is in bed, left arm heavily bandaged and immobilized, monitors beeping a steady cadence. Pale. Peaceful.
I pull a chair to the bedside and sit. I take his right hand in both of mine. His skin is warm.
"He's going to be out for a few hours," Frost says from the doorway. "Morphine."
"I'll wait."
"We figured." He takes a sip of his coffee. "CJ and Sam were debriefing us. They're impressed. Not just with the intel."
"Mitzy seemed happy," I say, running my thumb over Kade's knuckles.
"Mitzy is in love." Deadpan. "She's already pitching Sam to hire you. Says your code is 'poetry.'"
I look at Kade's sleeping face. "I just did what I had to do."
"Bishop told us about the tunnel." Frost's voice drops, losing some of its edge. "He said you refused to leave him."
"He told me to run. I told him to shut up."
A short, rough sound that might be a laugh. "Good. He needs that. Bishop is compartmentalized. He carries the weight of the world and never lets anyone help him carry it."
"He's not carrying it alone anymore."
"I see that." Frost pushes off the doorframe. "You kept him alive when he was bleeding out in a hole in the ground. In this house, that makes you family."
He turns to leave.
"Frost?"
He pauses, looking back. The scowl softens just a fraction. "Yeah?"
"Thank you. For coming for us."
"We always come for our own." Simple. Final. "Get some sleep. You look like hell."
He closes the door softly.
I curl up in the chair, resting my head on the mattress beside Kade's hip. The heart monitor is a lullaby. The rise and fall of his chest is the only reality that matters.
I close my eyes.
For the first time in days, I don't see shadows. I don't see threats.
I see a fortress. A giant with silver eyes. A pixie hacker with better toys than the NSA. A doctor who bosses around commandos and calls them idiots with unmistakable love.
And I see a future I'd give anything to be a part of.