Peak
"They're gone," Warden finally muttered.
He slowly pushed himself up from the floor, every muscle protesting from where he'd thrown himself over Maeve after the shooting started.
His gaze immediately found her. "You sure that you’re okay?
" Maeve was already checking herself, methodical despite the adrenaline.
She flexed her fingers, rolled one shoulder, and ran a hand along her side.
"Yeah,” she whispered.
"You sure?"
She met his eyes. "I'm sure." Peak allowed himself to breathe.
He crossed to the broken window, staying low beneath the frame. The parking lot sat empty. Rain washed away tire tracks almost as quickly as they formed. They'd known exactly how long to stay—long enough to send a message, but not long enough to get caught.
Peak studied the angle of the bullet holes around the room. One through the window. Three through the wall. Two buried in the dresser, and he frowned. "Warden."
"What?" he asked.
"Come look at this." The Enforcer joined him, and Peak pointed toward the wall above the bed.
"You were right—they weren't shooting to kill.
" Warden followed his line of sight. The rounds had grouped high—too high to be lethal.
Any trained shooter aiming for center mass would've stitched bullets straight through the mattress.
Instead, every shot had been placed to drive them away from the room.
Maeve stepped beside them. "They wanted us to run."
Peak nodded. "Exactly."
Warden scratched at his beard. "So Mercer calls, Captain disappears, they threaten a trade, and then somebody shoots up the motel." He looked between them.
"They're herding us,” Maeve said again. "They want us emotional so that we can’t think about our next move," Maeve said quietly. "They want us to react without thinking."
Peak looked at her. "Because emotional people make mistakes."
She gave a grim nod. "I've made enough of those."
"No." Peak's voice came out sharper than he intended, and Maeve looked at him. "You've made one mistake."
"What was that?" she asked.
"You've spent eighteen months believing everything is your fault." Silence settled between them. Even Warden stayed quiet. Peak walked over to the dresser and picked up the tiny evidence bag Captain had left behind. The coded strip inside caught the beam of his flashlight. "Tide Before Dawn."
Maeve joined him. "Wren wrote that."
"I think so too,” Peak agreed.
Warden folded his arms over his chest. “How is that gonna lead us to your sister?” he asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Peak grumbled. He turned the strip over in his hand. “Wait.”
"What is it?" Maeve asked.
"I've been looking at this wrong."
Maeve frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I assumed the message was for us."
"It is,” she insisted.
"Maybe." He held it closer to the light. "But what if the message wasn't meant to tell us where to go?"
Maeve's eyes narrowed. "You think it's a key."
"I think it's instructions,” Peak said.
She took the evidence bag from him. "Tide Before Dawn," She whispered the words several times and then stopped. "Oh."
Peak immediately recognized the look. She'd seen something. "What?"
"Wren hated metaphors."
He blinked. “So," he said with a shrug.
"If she wanted to tell me something—” Maeve smiled despite herself. "She'd hide it in something literal."
Peak leaned closer. "Go on."
"Tide." She looked at him. "Not water. Data is the crawler. Peak's eyebrows shot up. She became more animated with every word. "Wren called data movement 'the tide.'"
"You never mentioned that before,” Peak said.
"Because I forgot,” she said.
"No—” She shook her head. "I buried it."
Peak felt excitement replacing exhaustion. "So 'Tide Before Dawn' means—"
Maeve looked him straight in the eye. "Intercept the transfer."
The room went silent, and Warden frowned. "English, please."
Peak answered. "They're moving something."
Maeve nodded. "Or someone." Her voice dropped. "She’s warning us."
Peak looked back at the coded strip. "If Wren left this, then she knew a transfer was coming."
"But she didn't know when." Maeve finished the thought.
"So she left instructions instead of a date.
" Peak's mind raced. If she was right, there was going to be a transfer at the Virginia station. Everything was clicking into place—the trafficking routes, shipping manifests, his motorcycle shop, and the docks. Everything connected through movement. It didn’t have anything to do with locations. It was about movement.
He grabbed his backpack, and Maeve looked surprised. "What are you doing?"
"I need a tablet,” Peak said.
"You brought one?" Warden asked.
He smiled faintly. "I like to keep my options open."
Warden groaned. "Please stop saying that." Peak ignored him. Within seconds, the tablet powered on and he opened a mapping program.
"No internet." Maeve sat beside him on the floor. “They can trace that.”
"We don't need it,” he said.
She pointed toward the coastline. "Show me every commercial dock within fifty miles."
Peak zoomed in. "There, and there." She pointed to another. "That one is too exposed, and this one has no rail access."
Peak smiled. "You've done this before."
"I've chased them for eighteen months,” she reminded. Warden watched the two of them work, but neither noticed. Peak zoomed in more, and Maeve rejected locations almost immediately.
Until she froze. "That's it." Peak looked closely at the abandoned seafood processing plant. It was perfect—privately owned, direct water access, old railroad tracks, warehouse space, and three roads leading out.
Maeve tapped the screen. "Look who owns it." The name had been transferred through three shell companies before ending with one corporate holding group. Bayview Logistics.
Warden swore. "Dr. Voss."
Peak nodded. "Or somebody working with her."
Maeve leaned back against the bed. "We finally found something real.
" Peak looked at her. She looked exhausted.
Dark circles rested beneath her eyes, and her hair was still damp from the storm.
A tiny cut marked her forearm where flying glass had caught her.
Without thinking, he reached over and brushed a shard of glass from her sleeve.
She looked up, and their eyes met. For just a second, the war disappeared.
All of it faded beneath the simple relief that they were both still alive.
Warden cleared his throat loudly. "So—” Both of them looked over at him, and the Enforcer's mouth twitched. "You two gonna keep staring at each other, or are we gonna save our president?"
Heat crept into Maeve's cheeks, and Peak smirked. "We can do both."
Warden rolled his eyes. "I've officially become the third wheel in the apocalypse." Despite everything that had happened, Maeve laughed, and Peak realized then that he'd do just about anything to hear it again.
His phone vibrated. It wasn’t the burner this time, but his own. He frowned. "I pulled the battery."
"So did I," Maeve said. Peak slowly looked down and found that the screen was lit anyway.
Three words appeared in bright white letters.
YOU'RE TOO LATE. Before either of them could react, the screen changed again.
A live video feed filled the display. Captain sat tied to a metal chair beneath harsh fluorescent lights—bruised, bleeding, but very much alive.
He looked directly into the camera, and then said one word that made every hair on the back of Peak's neck stand up. "Run." The video cut to black.
Run. The word echoed through the motel room long after the screen went black.
Peak stared at the dead display, his pulse pounding in his ears.
Captain hadn't looked afraid, and that bothered him more than the bruises.
His Prez had been beaten and restrained.
He probably knew he wasn't getting out on his own, yet the only thing he'd said was one word. Not help me. Not find me. Just—run.
Warden snatched the phone from Peak's hand. "What the hell was that?"
Peak shook his head. "I don't know."
Maeve moved closer. "Play it again."
"I can't." He tapped the screen, but nothing happened. The phone had gone completely dead. There was no battery indicator, no lock screen—nothing except a dark screen.
Maeve frowned. "That wasn't a video."
Peak looked at her. "What?"
"It was a livestream." She folded her arms over her chest, already thinking three steps ahead. She shook her head. "It wasn't recorded. They wanted us to see Captain in real time."
Warden cursed. "So they know where we are."
Peak nodded. "They know we're watching." Silence settled over the room.
Rain continued pouring through the shattered window.
Peak grabbed one of the motel towels and shoved it against the broken glass to keep the water from soaking everything.
His mind refused to slow down. Captain never wasted words, and if he used the word “Run,” there was a reason.
Maeve walked over beside him. "You've got that look."
Peak glanced sideways. "What look?"
"The one where you're solving something."
"I don't have a look,” Peak insisted.
"You absolutely have a look. I’ve only known you for two days now, and I’ve seen that look over a dozen times already.”
Warden snorted. "He does have a look." Peak ignored both of them. He replayed the video in his head, and something felt off.
He turned toward Warden. "When Captain gets serious, does he ever waste movement?"
The Enforcer frowned. "What?"
"Answer the question,” Peak growled.
"No,” Warden said. "If he scratches his beard, then he means to. "If he folds his arms, he means to."
Peak nodded slowly. "So why'd he lean left?"
Maeve looked at him. "He what?"
Peak crouched and pulled his tablet closer. "Right before he said 'run,’ he shifted."
Maeve closed her eyes, as though trying to visualize it. Then, her eyes snapped open. "He wasn't shifting."
Peak smiled. "No, he was showing us something." He opened a sketch program on the tablet, quickly drawing the room from memory.
"What was on the left?"
Maeve knelt beside him. "There was—” She stopped. "Oh."