Chapter 13 Ronan
Ronan
Location: Level Three
Thirty Seconds Before Blast Door Seals
Roscov steps into the corridor like he owns it.
Like he isn’t a dead man walking.
He holds no weapon — which makes him more dangerous, not less. Men like him don’t need guns. They weaponize everything else: fear, pain, memories you can’t scrub out no matter how hard you try.
He tilts his head, studying me with the lazy curiosity of a scientist observing a violent creature behind glass.
“Ronan Pierce,” he says smoothly, “you’re bleeding. And you look tired. I imagine she is too.”
Lena tenses beside me. I feel it — the tremor that runs through her body, the instinct to pull deeper into the shadows. I shift my stance just enough to shield her completely.
“You have three seconds to walk away,” I tell him.
He smiles. “Or?”
“Or I put a bullet between your eyes.”
His smile widens. “You won’t risk her.”
“Try me.”
For a split second, something flickers in his eyes — recognition. The understanding that I’m not bluffing. That today might finally be the day he dies.
But then he glances toward Lena, and he recovers.
“You know,” he muses, “she never broke. We tried everything. Starvation. Sleep deprivation. Isolation. Even the serum trials. And she still—”
My rifle fires before he finishes the sentence.
The round hits the wall inches from his head. He freezes.
“You’re done talking,” I growl.
The comm crackles harshly.
“Ronan! Doors seal in twenty seconds—MOVE!”
I take a step back, pulling Lena with me.
Roscov takes a step forward.
He’s testing the space, testing me, calculating whether he can reach her before I kill him.
He can’t.
But psychopaths don’t always do math well.
“Did you know,” he says softly, “that the last thing she whispered before we transported her was your name?”
Lena’s breath catches.
My vision goes red.
I don’t remember pulling the trigger.
I barely register the recoil.
But Roscov dives behind the metal frame of Chamber Nine an instant before the shot lands. The bullet slams into steel, sparking violently.
He laughs — a hollow, echoing sound that ricochets through the corridor.
“Not today, Pierce!”
He disappears into the chamber, sealing the inner door behind him.
I start forward—
Lena grabs my arm. Hard.
“Ronan, no! That’s what he wants!”
She’s right.
But every cell in my body screams to chase him.
“We have to go,” she gasps. “Please—please. He isn’t worth losing me.”
Those words hit deeper than any bullet.
I turn fully to her. Her chest is heaving, her eyes desperate, her fingers digging into my sleeve like I’m the only solid thing left in her world.
Blast-door warnings blare around us.
Ten seconds.
I cup the side of her face — gently, even though my hands are still shaking with rage.
“I’m not losing you,” I breathe.
Then I pull her into a run.
We sprint down the hall — pain, exhaustion, fear all forgotten as adrenaline takes over. The blast door ahead is groaning, inching downward from the ceiling.
Eight seconds.
“Faster!” I urge, lifting her when she stumbles, carrying half her weight as we race across the concrete.
Six seconds.
She pushes herself harder, even as her legs threaten to give out.
Four seconds.
The blast door is waist-height now.
No time.
No margin.
No choice.
I scoop her fully into my arms.
“Hold on.”
She wraps her arms around my neck — trusting me completely.
I dive.
The steel scrapes my shoulder as we slide beneath it, landing hard on the other side just as the door slams shut behind us with a bone-rattling BOOM.
Silence.
Then Lena’s breath hitches against my neck.
I ease us both upright, brushing hair out of her face. “You okay?”
She nods — a small, shaky movement that guts me more than anything Roscov said.
“You saved me,” she whispers.
“No,” I say, brushing my thumb over the bruise on her cheek. “You survived. I’m just getting you out.”
Her lips part — like she’s about to say something else — but shouting echoes from the stairwell ahead.
“Pierce! Lena!”
River’s voice. Beckett’s. The others.
Lena’s eyes fill with relief.
I help her stand, keeping her tucked against my side, and lead her toward the team.
But as we reach the stairwell, she pauses and looks back once — at the sealed blast door, at the nightmare she almost didn’t escape.
“Ronan… what if he comes after us?”
I meet her gaze, my voice soft but absolute:
“Then he learns what a mistake it was to touch you.”
Her eyes stay on mine.
Something shifts between us — not relief, not safety… something deeper. A tether pulling tight.
Then I take her hand, and together we climb toward extraction.
Toward daylight.
Toward freedom.
Toward whatever comes next.