49. Caleb
CALEB
“Mac!”
Victor fires.
Mac throws himself sideways.
The round cuts through his jacket.
Rook shoots Victor’s weapon from his hand before I can raise mine.
Mac scrambles behind a fallen tree.
Victor steps into the open.
For the first time, he sees all of us waiting.
Shadow Division stands between him and the evidence.
The mountain trembles beneath his boots.
He doesn’t look away from Mac.
“So much sacrifice,” he says. “For paper.”
Evie moves beside me.
“They’re names.”
Victor finally looks at her.
“Families. Lives. Every person your Circle murdered or threatened because they refused to obey.”
“You are insignificant.”
“So are dictators. They all fall eventually.”
Victor’s face hardens.
His hand moves toward the knife on his vest.
I catch Evie’s arm and pull her behind the tree with me.
“You enjoy making dangerous men angry.”
“They should hear the truth.”
“I’m not arguing.”
She looks at me. “That may be a first.”
Gunfire erupts from the emergency tunnel.
Eight Inner Guard operators spill onto the mountainside.
Not twenty.
Not an endless army.
The last men still loyal enough to die beside Victor.
Maverick and Rogue move left.
Reef takes the high ground.
Shark and Falcon establish overlapping fields of fire.
The First Circle operators spread toward the evidence case.
Cobra picks it up.
“I’ll carry this.”
Fathom stares at him. “That is the most valuable object on the mountain.”
“Which is why no one else gets to touch it.”
I return fire.
One operator falls.
Another surrenders after Shark destroys his weapon.
A third keeps shooting until Rogue puts him down.
The Inner Guard fought like a machine inside the bunker.
Out here, separated from the walls and systems they knew, they’re simply trained men facing a team that knows one another better.
Evie crouches beside me.
“Our first date is going to have a terrible story attached to it.”
I laugh despite the gunfire.
“It will be quieter.”
“It had better be.”
She removes the Chairman’s journal from her jacket and holds it toward me.
“If something happens—”
I push it back.
“Nothing is happening to you.”
Her eyes hold mine.
“No.”
Complete certainty fills the word.
“Nothing is happening to either of us.”
For the first time, I believe her.
Across the clearing, Mac drops his empty rifle.
Victor draws his knife.
“You cannot escape what you are,” Victor says.
Mac takes the field knife Rook offers him.
“I already have.”
“You belong to the First Circle.”
“I belonged to fear.”
Mac steps away from the fallen tree.
“Not anymore.”
Victor advances.
Rook catches Mac’s arm. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Mac looks at him.
“I know.”
The answer is everything.
Victor lunges.
Mac deflects the first strike.
Rook intercepts the second.
They don’t fight as two separate men.
They move together.
Mac knows Victor’s training.
Rook reads his movements.
Victor is stronger than either of them.
He isn’t stronger than both.
The ground cracks beneath their feet.
A section of the slope drops away.
Victor stumbles, then regains his balance.
Above us, the damaged ridgeline begins to move.
Rocks break loose.
Trees tilt toward the valley.
Rook looks up.
“Everybody off the slope!”
The mountain is coming down.
And Victor Kane is standing directly beneath it.