Riot (Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists Short Reads #5)

Chapter 1 The Cage

ONE

The Cage

EVIE

The cabin smells wrong.

Not dangerous-wrong. Not blood or smoke or anything a reasonable person would flag. Just... off. Pine-Sol over something older. Coffee that's been sitting too long. The particular staleness of a place that's been closed up, used only when someone needs to disappear.

Or be disappeared.

Stop it. I press my palms flat against the rough wool blanket and count the knots in the pine ceiling.

Fourteen over the bed. I've counted them six times since they brought me here.

Thirty-seven in the main room. The kitchen has water damage in the corner that blooms like a Rorschach test—I've decided it looks like a rabbit. A rabbit with one ear.

This is what five days of isolation does. Turns a kindergarten teacher into the kind of person who sees shapes in water stains.

Instead of looking back at the ceiling, I reach under the mattress.

My fingers find the heavy, blunt-edged metal spatula I managed to slip from the kitchen drawer when Travis was distracted by his phone on day two.

It’s cold against my skin. It isn’t much of a weapon, but the weight of it in my palm is a grounding cord.

It’s the only thing in this room that belongs to me.

Five days since Rosie's birthday party. Since the judge went down in the backyard, two bullets, and I was behind the planter with frosting on my fingers and a scream locked in my throat.

Five days of doing everything right.

I came forward. I gave my statement. I described the two men—the shooter's height, his partner's limp, the way they moved like they'd done this before.

I remembered the license plate. I trusted the FBI because that's what you do when you're a good person and you've witnessed something terrible.

You trust the system. You let them protect you.

Agent Derek said safe house. He said temporary. He said my testimony would put away the people who killed Judge Castellano, and until then, I needed to stay out of sight.

He didn't say I'd lose my phone.

He didn't say I couldn't call Sera, couldn't tell her I was okay, couldn't hear Rosie's voice even once.

They're being careful, I told myself the first night. They know what they're doing.

Now it's day five, and Derek's eyes have gone flat, and Travis keeps checking the window like he's waiting for something. Every instinct I've spent twenty-nine years learning to ignore is screaming that I'm not in a safe house.

I'm in a cage.

The floorboards creak in the main room. Travis, pacing. He walks the perimeter like a dog that knows something's coming. Derek is quieter. He sits at the kitchen table with his laptop.

I pad toward the kitchen, hoping for a glass of water, and catch a flash of bright color on Derek's monitor. It’s a news notification, the kind that lingers until you swipe it away.

SENATOR HARMON LEADS IN LATEST POLLS. Underneath, a photo of a man with silver-temple hair and a smile that looks like it was etched into marble.

He’s standing in front of a law enforcement gala.

Derek’s hand moves, swiping the alert into oblivion with a grunt, but the image sticks. The Senator. The man who talks about "restoring order" on the six o'clock news.

"You're imagining things." That's Daniel's voice, even now. "You always do this. Make something out of nothing."

But Daniel was wrong about a lot of things. Daniel was wrong about me.

I move to the sink and fill a glass, my eyes tracking the reflection in the window. The oversized Sacramento State sweatshirt I've been sleeping in hits mid-thigh—not mine, something they had here. I try not to think about who wore it before me or why they left it behind.

The door to my room doesn't lock from the inside. I discovered that on day two.

I school my expression; put on my armor. Soft. Easy. The sunny girl who doesn't need anything, doesn't suspect anything, wouldn't dream of being difficult. Twenty-nine years of practice make the mask automatic.

"Morning." My voice comes out sleep-rough but pleasant. "Any coffee left?"

Travis stops mid-pace. His hand twitches toward his hip—toward the gun—before settling. "It's four in the morning."

"Couldn't sleep." I move toward the kitchen, keeping my body language loose. Unthreatening. "Bad dreams."

Derek doesn't look up from his laptop. "Go back to bed, Ms. Sinclair."

Ms. Sinclair. The first two days, I was Evie. Now I'm Ms. Sinclair, and his voice has that edge.

I pour coffee I don't want. "Any word on how long? My school year ends next week. The kids will be wondering where I am."

Nothing.

"I know Sera must be worried. If I could just—"

"No outside contact." Derek's fingers keep moving on the keyboard. "You know the protocol."

"Right." I wrap my hands around the mug. The warmth is almost painful. "I just thought, since it's been almost a week—"

"Soon."

That word. He's said it fourteen times. I've been counting.

Here's the test. The one that's been building since day three when I asked to see some identification and Derek's jaw went tight before he smiled.

"Agent Moreau said he'd check in by day four." I sip the coffee. Bitter and burnt. "Has he called? I'd feel better hearing from him directly."

The silence stretches.

Travis glances at Derek.

Derek's fingers stop moving.

It's less than a second. A fraction of a fraction. But I've spent twelve years watching five-year-olds—reading their faces when they lie about who drew on the wall, who took the last cracker, who hit first.

Children are terrible liars. These men are better, but not good enough.

"Agent Moreau is handling things on his end." Derek's voice is perfectly even. "He'll be in touch when there's something to report."

They don't know.

They don't know that I caught Moreau's name from an overheard call on day one. That he's my only lifeline to the actual FBI, the only agent I met before Derek and Travis took over. They don't know I've been holding that name like a card in my pocket, waiting.

And now I know something.

Either Moreau hasn't called when he said he would, which means something's wrong with him. Or Moreau has called, and they're lying about it.

Both options end the same way.

I'm not being protected. I'm being held.

"I'll try to get some more sleep." My voice doesn't waver. The mask is perfect—years of practice, years of being the agreeable daughter, the teacher who never makes waves. "Let me know if you hear anything?"

Derek grunts.

I take my coffee back to the bedroom and close the door with a soft click.

I don't look at the ceiling knots. Instead, I walk to the window. I’ve tried it casually before, but now I put my shoulder into the frame, testing the resistance. It isn't just painted shut; there’s a screw driven through the sash into the frame at the very top, hidden by a layer of grime.

This isn't a safety measure for wildlife. It's a seal.

I sink onto the bed, mug cooling in my hands, and let the mask slip. My heart is pounding so hard that my vision pulses at the edges. My hands want to shake, so I grip the metal spatula beneath the mattress until the tremor becomes pressure instead of movement.

The ghost of Daniel’s disapproval tries to rise, a familiar whisper about being paranoid, but I cut it off. I don't need his permission to survive.

I trust my gut.

I watch the door, the sealed window, and the water stain rabbit with its one ear. I stop asking questions.

I start watching.