Chapter 21 #5
“He needs you alive when they bring him out.”
Anger and fear flashed across his face, but he stopped because the truth mattered more than instinct.
Toxic’s voice returned. “Gage, stay with Knight. East team intercepts. Remedy, hold until extraction.”
Remedy’s chest rose sharply beneath controlled breaths.
I kept one hand against his jacket.
He covered it with his.
“I know,” he said, though the words sounded like something he needed to hear as much as I did.
More radio traffic followed.
“Toxic moving east.”
“Steel leaving tunnel.”
“Mace still on charge.”
“Do not abandon the tunnel,” Toxic ordered.
“She’s outside,” Mace replied.
“And if she’s forced back inside, we need the entrance.”
A curse came through the line, then reluctant agreement.
I stared toward the trees as though my eyes could cross the miles between us.
Ruth was above ground.
That should have felt like victory.
Instead, she was moving east with an armed man while Knight bled somewhere near the northern hatch.
“Who is with her?” I asked.
Cipher studied the cached photographs and personnel files. “Possibly the younger man from the foundation chamber.”
“The one who punished people.”
“Yes.”
A cold certainty settled inside me.
“He’ll hurt her before he lets them take her.”
Remedy looked toward me. “How do you know?”
“Because Malachi chooses. Men like that prove loyalty by finishing the punishment even when everything else is lost.”
The radio cracked.
“Toxic has visual.”
We both turned toward the speaker.
“Ruth is on foot. Hostile behind her. Weapon at her back.”
My breath stopped.
“Range?” Steel asked.
“Too close for a clean shot.”
“Can she hear you?”
“Unknown.”
I stepped toward Cipher’s microphone.
“Patch me through.”
His hands froze. “To what?”
“The field radios.”
“That risks exposing the channel.”
“Patch me through.”
Remedy’s face tightened, but he did not stop me.
Cipher looked toward Toxic’s tracking signal, then switched frequencies. “You’ll transmit to every team.”
“Do it.”
The microphone light turned green.
I leaned close enough that my lips nearly touched it.
“Ruth.”
Static answered.
“Ruth, if you can hear me, do not look back.”
Remedy stood beside me, silent and rigid.
“You remember what five knocks meant,” I continued. “Someday.”
No response came.
I closed my eyes and pictured her at eleven years old, cheek pressed against cold concrete, listening for proof another person had survived the night.
“Someday is now.”
A sharp sound came through one of the field radios.
Not a gunshot.
A cry.
Then Ruth’s voice, faint but unmistakable.
“Sunshine?”
Every person at the staging point stopped moving.
“I’m here,” I said.
The man behind her shouted something we could not make out.
Ruth began breathing too quickly.
“Listen to me,” I continued. “When I count to three, drop.”
Remedy looked at me.
Cipher shook his head sharply. “We don’t know the shooter’s angle.”
“Toxic does.”
I heard movement through the radio, boots against wet ground, branches breaking.
The hostile shouted again.
Ruth whimpered.
“Sunshine,” she said, and this time my name sounded like the child she had once been.
“I’m here.”
“What if—”
“No. Listen to me. Three knocks. Pause. Two.”
Her breath caught.
“I’m still here,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
My vision blurred.
“And so are you.”
Toxic’s voice came low over the command channel. “I have the angle.”
I kept speaking before fear could reach Ruth.
“One.”
The man shouted for her to stop.
“Two.”
A gun cocked.
“Three.”
A body struck the ground.
One shot cracked through the radio.
Then another.
Silence.
I gripped the microphone so tightly my fingers hurt.
“Ruth?”
No answer.
“Ruth!”
Static surged.
Then Steel’s voice came through.
“Hostile down.”
I stopped breathing.
“Toxic with Ruth.”
The world tilted.
Remedy’s arm closed around my waist before I realized I was falling.
“Is she alive?” I demanded.
A pause followed.
Too long.
Far too long.
Then Toxic answered.
“She’s alive.”
A sound broke from me that might have been a sob or a laugh. I pressed both hands over my mouth while tears blurred the equipment van, the maps, and every face turned toward the speaker.
“She’s conscious,” Toxic continued. “Gunshot missed. She’s got bruising, possible wrist fracture, and she’s exhausted.”
Remedy had already transformed beside me. Fear became action. He grabbed the trauma bags, opened the treatment table, and began issuing instructions to the drivers.
“Extraction route?”
“Northwest trail,” Gage answered. “Knight needs medical too.”
“I’m moving.”
Toxic’s voice sharpened. “Route is secure. Come.”
This time, nobody stopped him.
Remedy turned toward me only long enough to take my face between his hands.
“You stay with Cipher until I clear the site.”
“No.”
“Sunshine—”
“I am not entering the property. I’ll go as far as the secure extraction point.”
His eyes searched mine.
I understood the terror there because the same feeling lived inside me. Ruth was alive, but until I saw her, some part of me would remain pressed against a wall waiting for the answering knock.
“I need to be there when she comes out,” I said.
Remedy’s jaw tightened.
Then he nodded once.
“You stay behind me.”
“I stay beside the van.”
“Behind me until I know the area is clear.”
The distinction mattered less than reaching Ruth.
“Fine.”