Chapter 3 The Extraction
THREE
The Extraction
EVIE
Sleep doesn't come.
I lie in the dark and listen to the cabin breathe—Travis's pacing, the creak of floorboards, the wind pushing against windows that won't open.
My mind runs calculations it has no business running.
Distance to the door. Distance to the treeline.
Whether I could make it through the painted shut window if I broke the glass.
Whether I could survive in the mountains alone, with men who have guns, training, and every reason to make sure I never testify.
You're being dramatic. Daniel's voice is smooth and reasonable. You always do this. Take something small and spin it into a catastrophe.
But Daniel said that about a lot of things. Said it when I told him his business partner looked at me wrong. Said it when I found the texts on his phone. Said it when I finally, finally trusted my gut and left.
Daniel was wrong.
These men are going to kill me.
The certainty settles into my bones. Not panic—something colder, cleaner. The way the world snaps into focus when you're two hundred feet up a rock face, and your handhold crumbles. You don't have time for fear.
You assess, adapt, act.
Or you fall.
I slide out of bed and pull on my jeans.
They're the same ones I was wearing when they brought me here—dark wash, broken in, flexible enough to move in.
I've climbed in these jeans. I've scrambled up approaches, down-climbed sketchy descents, and trusted them not to bind when I needed to high-step onto a ledge.
I pull on my fleece—nothing special, just a gray quarter-zip I've had for years—and check myself in the plastic mirror. Practical. Ready. The kind of outfit that says I might need to run at any moment without screaming I’m going to run.
I've been sleeping in my clothes since day three. Just in case. Just in case of something I couldn't name but my body knows is coming.
The clock on the nightstand reads 5:47. Dawn is coming. The light outside the painted-shut window has shifted from black to the deep blue that means the sun is thinking about rising.
In the main room, Travis stops pacing.
"We've got movement on the access road."
Derek's voice, sharp: "How far out?"
"Half mile. Single vehicle, no headlights."
Silence. The click of a safety being disengaged.
My heart hammers against my ribs. Someone's coming. The thought should terrify me—more cartel, maybe, more men with guns and orders—but something else cuts through the fear. Something that feels almost like hope.
If Derek and Travis are scared, maybe the person coming isn't on their side.
I press my back against the wall beside the door. If it opens, I'll be behind it. A few seconds of confusion, maybe. Enough to run.
Run where? Daniel's voice again. You don't even know what's happening.
Footsteps in the main room. Both of them moving now, positions shifting. Travis at the window. Derek near the front door.
Glass breaking. Not my window—somewhere else, the back of the cabin. A muffled thump. A sound I don't recognize until I do.
A body hitting the floor.
"Travis!" Derek's voice cracks.
No response.
More sounds—fast, efficient, the kind of movement that doesn't waste anything. A scuffle. A grunt of pain that isn't a word. Then nothing.
Nothing for three seconds. Four. Five.
The floorboards creak outside my door.
I stop breathing.
The door swings open—not kicked, just pushed, steady and controlled—and a man steps through.
He's not what I expect.
I don't know what I expect. Cartel soldiers, maybe, all tattoos and dead eyes? Or FBI tactical teams with battering rams and shouted orders?
Not this—a lean figure in dark clothing, pistol held low, face half-shadowed in the pre-dawn gray. Tall. Broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips. The kind of build that says he uses his body for things more demanding than gym selfies.
A scar cuts through his left eyebrow, pale against tan skin.
It should make him look dangerous. It does.
But his eyes find me instantly, and they aren't the flat, robotic voids Derek and Travis have been wearing for five days.
They are sharp. Alive. They burn with a focused kinetic energy that makes the air in the room feel thin.
Where Derek was a cold, stagnant weight, this man is a storm in a tactical vest. There's a mobility to his mouth that suggests he smiles more than he scowls.
My pulse does something inconvenient.
I'm pressed against the wall like that's going to save me, five-foot-six of kindergarten teacher in hiking boots and fleece. He’s got a gun, training, and the kind of easy stillness that says he's done this before.
But he doesn't shoot.
He doesn't even raise the weapon.
Instead, he smiles—a quick, crooked thing that transforms his face completely. The danger doesn't disappear, but it shifts. Becomes something else. Something that makes my stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
"Hi, sweetheart. I'm the good guy."
His voice is a low rasp, roughened by whatever he just did to the men in my living room. It shouldn't sound like that. Like honey and gravel. Like something I want to hear again. It carries a weight Derek’s never had—an absolute, unshakeable authority that isn't just a protocol. It’s a command.
Focus. Armed stranger. Possible threat. Stop noticing his voice.
His voice is lighter than it should be.
Casual. Like he breaks into kill sites before breakfast on a regular basis, and this is just another Tuesday.
"The—" My voice comes out rusty, unused. "The agents—"
"Taking a nap." He scans the room as he talks, cataloging threats, exits, and details. "They'll wake up with headaches and a lot of explaining to do. Well. Travis will. Derek's going to need a hospital." His eyes land on me again, sharp and assessing. "You're Evangeline Sinclair."
Not a question. He knows who I am.
"Who are you?"
"Riot. Guardian HRS." He says it like it should mean something. It doesn't. "The short version is that Agent Moreau is dead, the guys in your living room work for the people who killed him, and we've got about four minutes before their friends show up wondering why they missed their check-in."
The news of Moreau hits hard. My breath hitches, a sharp, cold spike of grief and terror driving into my lungs. Moreau. My only real lifeline, the only person in the system who looked at me like a human being instead of a tactical problem. Dead.
It isn’t just a blow; it’s a gut-punch of confirmation that the floor has officially dropped out from beneath my feet.
"I don't—how do I know you're—"
"You don't." He holsters the pistol—a deliberate choice, hands visible, less threatening. "You've got no reason to trust me. I'm a stranger with a gun who just dropped your protection detail. For all you know, I'm worse than they are."
"Are you?"
That crooked smile again. "Sweetheart, I'm a lot of things, but worse than men who get paid to murder kindergarten teachers isn't one of them.
" He takes a step back, giving me space.
"Here's what I know: you've been in this cabin for five days.
The men guarding you stopped pretending to be friendly around day three.
You've been counting ceiling knots and figuring out escape routes because you already know something's wrong. "
My breath catches.
"You're smart. You're scared. And right now, every instinct you've got is screaming that you can't trust anyone.
" He holds my gaze, and underneath the easy charm, there's something else.
Something steady. "But your instincts also got you through five days in a kill site without tipping off the guys holding you.
So maybe trust your instincts one more time. "
Four minutes. Maybe less now.
I think about Derek's flat eyes. Travis checking the window like he was waiting for an order. The way they stopped calling me Evie on day three.
I think about Agent Moreau, who seemed kind, who promised me this would be over soon. Dead now. Staged suicide.
I think about Sera and Rosie, who don't know where I am, who probably think I'm dead already.
And I think about Daniel—Daniel who told me I was paranoid, dramatic, too much—and how the only time I've ever been wrong is when I didn't listen to myself.
The stranger called Riot is watching me. Patient. Not rushing, even though every second costs us.
You don't know him. Daniel's voice, one last time. You can't trust someone you don't know.
But Daniel was wrong about everything.
"Okay," I hear myself say.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I'll go with you."
Something shifts in his expression—relief, maybe, or respect. His gaze drops to my boots, my jeans, my fleece, and I feel it like a physical touch. A slow assessment that catalogs everything: what I'm wearing, how I'm standing, whether I'm going to be a liability or an asset.
I should feel objectified. Instead, I feel seen. Like he's actually looking at me, not through me.
One eyebrow lifts. The scarred one. It shouldn't be attractive.
"You're dressed."
"I've been dressed since day three."
The other eyebrow joins the first. "Smart."
"I'm a kindergarten teacher. We plan ahead."
That almost-laugh again, bitten off before it can fully form.
"Stay behind me. Move when I move, stop when I stop. If I go down, you run east—into the mountains, away from the road. Don't stop for anything."
"If you go down—"
"I won't." The grin flashes, quick and sharp. "But if I do, you keep going. That's not negotiable."
He doesn't wait for my agreement. We're moving—through the bedroom doorway, into the main room, past the shapes on the floor that I don't let myself look at. The front door is open, pre-dawn light spilling across the threshold.
Riot clears the porch in one smooth motion, weapon up, scanning. I follow close enough to feel the coiled-spring readiness in every line of his body. The air outside is cold—mountain cold, sharp enough to sting my cheeks—and my boots hit the wooden steps with solid, sure thuds.