Chapter 16 Purge Sirens and Unsaid Want #2
Ava jerked her wrist free just enough to make the point. “Then stop treating me like I’m fragile.”
Roman’s throat worked. The argument was spinning faster than the drones. His discipline - his cold, hard control - was cracking around the edges, and he hated himself for it because the cracks gave the facility a place to pry.
Ava leaned toward him, eyes bright with that fearless insistence that had drawn him in from the beginning. “If the evidence is corrupted, we need the backup source. Right now. Before the purge completes the cycle.”
Roman exhaled once through his nose. “And where is that backup?”
Ava hesitated. The question struck too close to something she didn’t want to admit. Her gaze slid away, toward the service door mesh, as if the answer might be written on the steel.
“I don’t know yet,” she said, the words clipped. “But I know the pattern. They didn’t just destroy. They replaced. They degraded enough to stall filing without erasing everything.”
Roman stared at her. “Replaced with what?”
Ava swallowed. “Fragments. Copies. Enough to mislead. Enough to get us killed while they wait for the next step.”
A drone’s lens flared with a red scan beam that swept across the pillar. Dust shivered from the concrete.
Roman moved before he could think. He pulled Ava up and pressed her against the wall, gun angled toward the drone as he fired a short burst at its lens housing - an ugly, controlled shot that shattered glass and sent sharp metallic fragments rattling down like hail.
The drone tumbled, sparks spraying. It hit the floor with a scream of tortured metal and went dark.
Ava gasped, then immediately reached for Roman’s jacket, her fingers catching the edge of the folder as if she could hold it together by force. “It’s damaged.”
“I know.” Roman tightened his hold on her elbow, steering her toward the emergency door. “That’s why we’re moving.”
“And if it’s too damaged to use?” Ava asked, voice shaking just enough to betray her. “If the fragments can’t prove what I need?”
Roman’s chest tightened. He didn’t want to answer that.
Because the answer was the reason his protective overreach had teeth.
Because if the evidence failed, Ava would have to face what came next - public disclosure without proof, a court record that could be twisted, her own life turned into a headline used to warn others not to dig.
He saw her fear in the angle of her shoulders. In the way she kept swallowing like she could force courage down her throat.
“Then we find the backup,” Roman said. It wasn’t a promise he could guarantee. It was the only rope he could throw her before the facility cut the line.
Ava’s eyes locked with his. For a second, the argument fell away and something quieter moved between them - need, trust, and the ache of wanting when survival demanded distance.
Then the purge drones shifted again, their remaining units recalculating. A second scan beam swept over the bay and caught Ava’s movement.
Ava stiffened. “Roman - ”
He heard it before she did: the soft, mechanical click of a targeting system engaging, the kind that didn’t need to announce itself. The sound of a sniper line building in the facility’s bones.
Roman’s head snapped toward the far ceiling - toward the maintenance catwalk above the parking bay. A narrow slit in the concrete paneling darkened as a weapon rotated to align.
Ava saw his face and went pale. “They have - ”
“Down.” Roman shoved her to the floor hard enough to bruise, his body following, gun lifting into a tight two-handed aim. He fired at the slit, muzzle flash strobing the bay for a heartbeat.
Astonishingly, the shot didn’t break the system. The weapon shifted - still tracking, still hunting.
Ava’s breath hitched. Her eyes were on the ceiling slit, not on him. “That’s not a drone.”
Roman felt the difference in the air - heat, pressure, the certainty of a line drawn from somewhere high and hidden. “No.”
A round punched through the concrete beside Roman’s shoulder, stone exploding into sharp grit that peppered his cheek. Pain flared, hot and immediate, and his world narrowed to Ava’s body on the floor and the distance between them and the emergency door.
Roman grabbed Ava’s jacket collar and dragged her toward the mesh-caged service door, ignoring the ache in his arm. The emergency door’s keypad sat behind a tamper-proof cover. He slammed his knuckles against it, hard, then glanced at Ava.
“Your seal,” he said. “Use it.”
Ava blinked rapidly, confusion slicing through her fear. “My seal is on the folder.”
Roman’s jaw clenched. “Then get it out. Now.”
Ava’s hand flew to his jacket, yanking the folder free with a speed that looked like anger. The stamp caught the light again - scratched, the seal’s edge warped by heat. Her fingers moved over it like a lawyer reading a document under stress.
“I can’t open it like this,” she snapped. “It’s not just corrupted. It’s been - ” She cut off, eyes widening. “Roman, the flash drive - ”
His stomach dropped when she pulled the drive from the folder’s inner pocket.
It wasn’t whole.
A line of blackened plastic ran through the casing, and tiny fragments of metal clung to her fingertips like shrapnel. The evidence, once a single file, now reduced to corrupted fragments that might not survive a transfer.
Ava stared at the damaged drive like it had betrayed her personally.
Roman’s protective instinct surged so violent it felt like anger at the universe itself. “Don’t - ”
“I have to check,” Ava said, voice breaking. “If they degraded it, they did it to make sure it couldn’t be used. But that means there’s something else. A second copy. A - ”
The sniper line shifted again above them, the air tightening with the promise of another shot.
Roman grabbed Ava’s face, forcing her eyes to his. “Look at me.”
Ava’s lashes fluttered. “Roman - ”
“Breathe.” His voice was rougher than he wanted. “You’re not going to fall apart on me. Not here.”
Her mouth trembled. “I can’t file with this.”
Roman’s gaze flicked to the emergency door keypad behind the mesh. The keypad wasn’t for a code. It was for a sealed authentication stamp - Ava’s private seal.
But the drive was damaged. The evidence was fragments. Their plan was crumbling in real time.
And the facility didn’t care about their romance or their arguments. It cared about schedules and purges and who was left alive when the burn cycle finished.
Roman pressed his forehead briefly to Ava’s, a contact too intimate for the threat crawling overhead. “Then we don’t file it yet.”
Ava’s eyes searched his, furious and hopeful and terrified all at once. “What do we do instead?”
Roman’s attention snapped upward as another bullet ripped through the concrete behind them - close enough that the air smelled like hot dust.
He grabbed Ava’s hand and shoved her toward the mesh-caged door. “We get out,” he said, voice iron. “And we start hunting the backup source before it disappears too.”
Ava squeezed the damaged drive so hard her knuckles went white. “You can’t keep me from using what I have.”
“I’m not keeping you from anything,” Roman growled. “I’m keeping you alive long enough to use it.”
The emergency door keypad flashed red when Ava pressed her private seal against it - an angry, immediate refusal.
Roman froze.
Ava stared at the screen, horror dawning in her features. “It says - ” She swallowed. “Authentication denied.”
The purge drones above them whined, and the sniper line went silent for half a heartbeat - like a predator savoring the moment before the next strike.
Then the mesh-caged door’s lock mechanism clicked again, but it wasn’t unlocking.
It was sealing harder. Like the facility had just decided Ava and Roman weren’t leaving at all.
END OF CURRENT OUTPUT READY FOR CONTINUE