Chapter 21 #4
Remedy pulled me away from the monitor and toward the medical van as radio traffic erupted around us.
“Western team engaged.”
“Guard down.”
“Tunnel doors open.”
“Mace reports wires.”
“Chapel team moving.”
I climbed into the van because there was nowhere else my presence could help. Remedy secured the rear doors but left one open enough for us to hear the radios. He checked the trauma kits again, every movement precise despite the fear in his eyes.
I held the yellow bear against my chest.
The rescue had begun.
Somewhere beneath the ground, Ruth waited in darkness while men moved through tunnels built to erase people.
This time, she knew someone had answered.
This time, she knew I had come back.
And no matter what waited beyond those doors, I would be there when she emerged.
The first scream reached us through the radio before the gunfire stopped.
It was not Ruth.
I knew that immediately, though I could not have explained how.
Perhaps I had carried the sound of her voice too long to mistake it, or perhaps terror simply made the mind cling to every distinction capable of preserving hope.
The scream belonged to a man, sharp with pain and cut off by the crash of something heavy striking concrete.
A burst of static followed, then Mace’s voice came through clipped and controlled.
“Western guard down. Tunnel entrance compromised but stable.”
Remedy stood beside the open rear doors of the medical van with one hand pressed to the radio at his shoulder.
His expression revealed nothing except concentration, yet I had learned enough about him to see fear in the way his jaw remained locked and his shoulders refused to relax between transmissions.
“Any injuries?” he asked.
“Steel took a graze along the upper arm. Still moving.”
Remedy reached automatically for the trauma bag.
I caught his wrist before he stepped down from the van.
“You said you were staying.”
“If Steel’s bleeding—”
“A graze.”
“He may not know how deep it is.”
Another transmission interrupted us.
“Hold medical,” Toxic ordered. “We’re not clear.”
Remedy stopped, though every part of him still leaned toward the trees.
I released his wrist slowly.
He looked down at my hand before meeting my eyes.
“I hate waiting,” he said.
“So do I.”
“It feels like failing.”
The admission surprised me, though perhaps it should not have.
Remedy understood action. He knew how to close wounds, stop bleeding, and create order when panic stripped everyone else of certainty.
Waiting asked him to trust other people with lives he could not reach, and that helplessness pressed against the same places where I carried my guilt for Ruth.
“We’re not failing,” I said. “They need the van ready more than they need you running toward gunfire.”
His mouth tightened. “You sound like me.”
“I’ve been told I’m a good student.”
The faintest hint of a smile appeared before another burst of radio traffic erased it.
“Western corridor clear.”
“Chapel stairwell blocked.”
“Movement below.”
“Two hostiles heading east.”
Cipher’s voice came through the speaker inside the equipment van beside us, relaying positions from the last internal map cached before Malachi cut the feed.
Every update sounded detached from the lives beneath it, reduced to coordinates, corridors, and directional calls because emotion had no place inside a rescue unfolding by seconds.
I held Charlie’s yellow bear against my chest until the soft fur bent beneath my fingers.
Ruth had heard me.
That truth became the only thing keeping panic from swallowing everything else.
She had heard the knock, recognized the pattern, and placed her hand against the wall beneath the camera.
For one moment, the years between us had collapsed.
She was no longer the child I had left behind or the young woman trapped inside Malachi’s video.
She was Ruth, still counting in darkness, still answering.
“I told her I wasn’t leaving without her,” I whispered.
Remedy’s gaze shifted toward me. “You won’t.”
“What if they move her?”
“Knight and Gage are covering the north route. Toxic has the chapel. Mace and Steel hold the tunnel.”
“What if there’s another exit?”
“Then Cipher finds it.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice while the radios continued around us.
“But we built the plan around what we know, and every person out there understands what happens if Ruth disappears deeper into that property. They are not treating this like one frightened woman against the Order. They are treating it like family.”
The word reached through me with enough force to slow my breathing.
Family.
Ruth had once been the closest thing I possessed to a sister.
We shared scraps of thread, whispered dreams through walls, and promised each other that someday there would be a place beyond locked doors where nobody measured our worth by obedience.
I had escaped before I could keep that promise, yet everyone waiting around the staging area now carried it as though it had always belonged to them too.
A radio cracked sharply.
“Found the charges.”
Mace.
Remedy stepped toward the open door. “Location?”
“Western tunnel. Two wired supports and a pressure trigger near the inner gate.”
My stomach dropped.
“Can you disarm them?” Toxic asked.
“Already working.”
Steel’s voice followed, breathless but steady. “Two guards down. Third retreated toward the central corridor.”
“Your arm?” Remedy demanded.
“I’m fine.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means stop parenting me through the radio.”
Even in the middle of danger, the familiar exchange steadied something inside all of us.
Mace returned. “I need quiet.”
Every voice disappeared.
Seconds stretched into something almost physical.
Remedy moved through the van checking equipment he had already checked, his hands opening compartments, touching sealed packages, and returning each item to the exact place it had been.
I understood the motion. It was the same instinct that made me smooth folded clothing or count children before leaving a room.
When fear offered no control, the body created small rituals and pretended order could be built from repetition.
I set the yellow bear on the treatment table and reached for his hand.
Remedy looked down.
“You’ll need both hands when they come back,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then let me hold one now.”
His fingers closed around mine.
We stood that way while Mace worked somewhere beneath the ridge, separated from us by stone, concrete, and every terrible possibility our minds could invent.
Finally, the radio clicked.
“First charge isolated.”
A breath moved through the staging area.
“Second is tied to the door sensor,” Mace continued. “If we open it before I bridge the circuit, the tunnel drops.”
“How long?” Toxic asked.
“Five minutes if nobody distracts me. Twenty if Steel keeps bleeding on my tools.”
“I’m not bleeding on your tools.”
“You’re bleeding near them. Same thing.”
Remedy closed his eyes briefly.
“He’s stable,” I whispered.
“You can’t know that.”
“No.” I squeezed his hand. “But you taught me not to let fear turn possibilities into facts.”
His eyes opened.
For several seconds, he simply looked at me.
Then he nodded.
The radio went quiet again.
A new sound reached us from the direction of Restoration, distant but unmistakable.
A bell.
One slow toll rolled across the trees, followed by another, deep enough that I felt it more than heard it. Every memory inside me recoiled at once.
“No,” I whispered.
Remedy turned toward me. “What is it?”
“The judgment bell.”
The words barely emerged.
At the compound, bells announced meals, prayers, work rotations, and punishments.
The judgment bell had been different. It sounded only when an elder wanted everyone gathered to witness someone being made into an example.
Three tolls meant confession. Five meant exile. Continuous ringing meant pursuit.
Another toll followed.
Then another.
I counted without meaning to.
One.
Two.
Three.
A pause.
The bell began again.
Faster.
Continuous.
“They’re moving her,” I said.
Cipher heard through the open radio channel. “Why?”
“That signal means someone is escaping or being transported.”
Toxic’s command came immediately. “All teams intercept east corridor. Knight, north exit. Gage, ventilation access. Mace, status.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“We may not have thirty.”
“You definitely won’t if the tunnel collapses.”
The bell continued ringing.
My body remembered children being dragged from dormitories, women forced against walls, men shouting orders while everyone else learned to stand still. I could almost smell lamp oil and damp wool. Almost hear Ruth’s frightened breathing behind the punishment-room wall.
Remedy stepped into my line of sight.
“Stay here.”
“I am here.”
“What do you hear?”
“The bell.”
“What else?”
“Your voice.”
“What can you feel?”
I looked down at our joined hands. “You.”
“Where are you?”
“The staging area.”
“Who’s with you?”
“You. Cipher. The brothers.”
“Ruth?”
The answer caught in my throat.
“Inside.”
“For now.”
The words were not a promise. They were a direction.
For now.
Not forever.
The bell stopped.
Silence rushed in behind it.
Then Knight’s voice cut across the radio.
“North hatch open. Two hostiles exiting with a female.”
My knees nearly failed.
“Visual on Ruth?” Toxic demanded.
“Dark hair. Yellow bracelet.”
“That’s her,” I said.
Remedy’s grip tightened.
Gunfire erupted through the radio.
Not distant now.
Sharp.
Several shots.
Someone shouted.
Then nothing.
The silence that followed was worse than the sound.
“Knight,” Toxic called.
No answer.
“Gage.”
Static.
“Knight, report.”
A burst of interference scratched through the speaker.
Then Gage’s voice returned, strained but audible. “One hostile down. Second moving east with Ruth.”
“Knight?”
“Hit. Shoulder. Conscious.”
Remedy moved before anyone could stop him.
I caught the back of his jacket.
“You can’t go yet.”
“He’s injured.”
“The route isn’t clear.”
“He needs a medic.”