23. Caleb
CALEB
Itackle Evie behind a reinforced support column.
Rounds tear through the space where we were standing.
Concrete fragments fill the air.
“Stay with me.”
“I wasn’t planning to leave.”
Even under fire, she answers back.
Good.
Fear freezes people.
Anger keeps Evie moving.
Rook fires twice.
Two rifles go silent.
“Shark, left corridor.”
“I’m on it.”
“Falcon, right.”
Falcon disappears through a maintenance doorway before Rook finishes the order.
Cobra drops behind an equipment cabinet and reaches for his pack.
Evie looks over. “Please tell me those aren’t explosives.”
“They’re small.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“They aren’t supposed to be.”
Rook points toward the ceiling. “No structural charges. We’re forty feet underground.”
Cobra sighs. “You never let me have any fun.”
A burst of automatic fire cuts across the hallway.
The Inner Guard isn’t rushing.
One team fires while another advances.
Disciplined.
Measured.
Former operators.
Fathom raises his voice over the gunfire.
“Three minutes, forty seconds.”
“You need a terminal,” I say.
“I see one twenty yards ahead.”
Twenty yards of open corridor.
The Inner Guard controls both ends.
Evie studies the firing pattern.
“They pause every six seconds.”
I look at her.
“What?”
“The left team fires for three seconds. The right begins before the left stops. But every third rotation, there’s a pause when both teams reload.”
I listen.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Silence.
She’s right.
“You read battlefields,” I say.
A faint smile touches her mouth. “I’m learning.”
“Rook, give us smoke on the next rotation.”
He relays the order.
Cobra pulls two canisters from his vest.
“Finally.”
The Inner Guard begins another cycle.
Left.
Right.
Left.
“Now,” Evie says.
Cobra throws both canisters.
Smoke erupts through the corridor.
The enemy continues firing, but their rounds cut through positions we’ve already abandoned.
“They have thermal,” Fathom warns.
“So do we,” Rook answers.
I switch optics.
Heat signatures glow through the smoke.
Rook and Shark disable the left team.
Falcon hits the right flank from the maintenance doorway.
I move beside Evie, placing myself between her and the nearest firing position.
She notices.
“Caleb.”
“Later.”
“You promised to consider ducking.”
“I considered it.”
“And?”
“No.”
We move.
Fathom reaches the terminal and connects his tablet.
The countdown reads two minutes, fifty-eight seconds.
“Get me thirty seconds.”
A maintenance hatch bursts open behind us.
Three guards enter.
Evie drops to one knee before I can turn.
She fires twice.
The first round strikes one man’s shoulder, spinning him away. The second hits the weapon carried by the guard behind him.
Shark stops the third.
The side corridor falls quiet.
I look at Evie.
She reloads.
“I told you I could handle myself.”
“I know.”
“You finally stopped arguing.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Warmth flickers in her eyes.
Then a bullet strikes the column beside my neck.
Concrete cuts through my collar.
Evie grabs me.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s usually true.”
She presses a piece of gauze against the cut.
“Now?”
“Hold still.”
Gunfire continues around us.
She ignores it.
I don’t know whether to be impressed or furious.
Probably both.
Fathom’s voice rises from the terminal.
“I’m inside.”
The countdown reads one minute, forty-four seconds.
“Can you stop it?” Rook asks.
“Trying.”
Lines of code race across the tablet.
The timer reaches one minute.
Then forty-five seconds.
Thirty.
“Fathom.”
“I know.”
Twenty seconds.
Evie’s hand finds mine.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Fathom drives an override key into the terminal.
The lights go out.
Every screen dies.
The timer freezes.
Three seconds.
For one breath, the entire bunker is silent.
Then emergency lighting floods the corridor in red.
A calm, older voice emerges through hidden speakers.
“Impressive.”
Mac goes pale.
“Who is that?” Evie asks.
The voice continues.
“Caleb McDougal. Evelyn Hart. Shadow Division.”
It knows all of us.
But when it says Evie’s name, the tone changes.
“Your fathers tried to warn you.”
My blood turns cold.
Fathers.
Not father.
The First Circle knew hers too.