Chapter 27
The moment Todd’s arms closed around her, months of restraint shattered.
His embrace was warm, solid, and infinitely precious after days of pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
Sadie pressed her face against the hollow of his throat, breathing in the familiar scent of his skin beneath tactical gear, and for the first time since arriving at Serenity Dunes, she felt truly safe.
I’ve wanted to do this for so long, she thought, her arms tightening around his neck as if she could anchor herself to his strength. Every team meeting, every casual encounter in the bunkhouse, every moment when she had to pretend she was only interested in friendship.
The drugs coursing through her system made her emotions feel simultaneously muffled and intensely sharp, like experiencing the world through water while being hypersensitive to every sensation.
But Todd’s embrace cut through the pharmaceutical fog, telling her body it was held by someone who would die before letting harm come to her.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against her hair, his voice rough with emotions that seemed to match her own desperate relief. “I’m here now. I’ve got you.”
She pulled back reluctantly, knowing that every second of delay increased their chances of discovery. Focus. Just focus on the mission and ignore how much my body wants to sleep… or throw up… or curl up with him.
He pulled a small packet from one of the pockets in his cargo pants and handed it to her. “Here are the earpieces for the comms device.” He waited until she had them in place, and then he handed her gloves, a face mask, another bag containing the computer drives needed, and last, a gun.
Her hands shook slightly, and he assisted her with the holster. Once she was ready, she leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” she replied.
The administrative building loomed before them, its windows dark and silent. Somewhere inside those walls lay the evidence that could expose Dr. Selinski’s operation and allow them to discover what happened to Natalia and Melinda. And God knows how many others.
They approached the rear entrance, and Sadie wished she could say that her movements with Todd were choreographed, but while he moved with certainty and caution, she worried she would hold him back.
His tactical experience complemented her analytical skills.
While he could follow Casper’s directions if she was unable to perform, the mission would go faster if she could use her cyber expertise to unlock the digital secrets they needed.
Thank God his physical presence provided security because she wasn’t sure she could multitask the way she normally worked.
The lock yielded to Todd’s electronic picks with barely a whisper of sound, the door swinging open to reveal a corridor illuminated only by emergency lighting.
The spa’s public areas, covered in flowing fabrics and warm tiles and wood, carried over to the leader’s workspace.
Cream and red floor tiles with tan walls covered in Southwestern tapestries continued the Serenity Dunes’s carefully manufactured tranquility.
“Casper, we’re inside,” Todd whispered into his comms device, his voice barely audible even to Sadie standing inches away.
“Copy that.” The familiar reply came through their earpieces. “Security feeds are stable, but I’m showing some motion sensors in the east wing. Maintenance staff, most likely, but stay alert.”
Sadie’s compromised nervous system processed the information with frustrating sluggishness, her brain requiring extra seconds to translate Casper’s words into actionable intelligence.
The delay terrified her more than any physical threat.
Without her analytical capabilities, she was deadweight rather than an asset. Don’t think about it. Just move.
The corridor stretched before them, marked with brass name plates indicating the Serenity Dunes’s inner circle. Dr. Selinski’s office occupied the corner position, with Dr. Patel’s adjacent space sharing what appeared to be a common wall.
“We can cover more ground if we split up,” Sadie suggested, though the words felt thick and clumsy on her tongue. “You take Selinski’s office, and I’ll handle Patel’s systems.”
Todd’s response was immediate and nonnegotiable. “No. We stay together.”
She could see the protective fury in his eyes and the way his jaw clenched with barely contained emotion.
He’d watched the evidence of pharmaceutical manipulation in her unsteady movements and slurred speech, and obviously, the thought of leaving her alone, even for minutes, clearly violated every protective instinct he possessed.
“Todd, we have limited time—”
“We have limited time, and I’m not losing more of it because I let you wander off alone while you’re compromised,” he replied, his voice carrying the authority of someone who’d made command decisions in life-and-death situations.
He stepped closer, lifting his gloved hand to cup her cheek. “We do this together or not at all.”
The finality in his tone was mixed with the emotion in his words.
Truthfully, Sadie felt relief at not having to navigate the mission alone.
Her coordination was wobbly, her reaction time slower than her usually sharp mind, and her ability to process multiple streams of information simultaneously felt unreliable. She nodded. “Got it.”
They approached Dr. Selinski’s office first, the nameplate gleaming in the hall lighting.
Todd made quick work of the door, and they slipped into his large office.
A wooden desk was placed in front of a large window, with the blinds drawn.
His desk was neat, with papers stacked, and his laptop sat perfectly aligned in the middle of the space.
A matching credenza sat behind the desk, underneath the window.
The walls were covered with framed desert scene prints and his medical university diploma.
The top of the credenza was covered in standing framed photographs of him with numerous others, smiling photo ops at conferences, and accepting awards.
But what caught Sadie’s attention was the door connecting to the adjacent office.
It was a modification that hadn’t appeared on any building plans they’d studied.
“That’s new,” she observed, pointing toward the connecting entrance.
“Dr. Patel’s office. They must have added the door after the original construction. ”
The implications were significant. Shared access suggested collaboration that went beyond professional courtesy—a level of coordination that indicated both of them knew exactly what was going on in the clinic, and it wasn’t an individual endeavor.
“I’ll check Patel’s systems while you handle Selinski’s,” Sadie said, already moving toward the connecting door.
This way, they could work faster while not being separated from each other.
Her cyber skills remained functional despite the fog, and accessing multiple computer systems simultaneously would maximize intelligence gathering.
Todd’s hand caught her arm, his grip gentle but insistent. “Sadie, if you start to lose your ability to—”
“I’ll call for you immediately,” she promised, understanding his fears even as she chafed against the protective restrictions. “I can still function, Todd. I promise I won’t fuck this up.”
He held her gaze, then nodded. His lips, while still tight, quirked upward slightly. “I know… You never fuck anything up.”
“Neither do you,” she said, drowning in his eyes.
“I did once, but that fuckup is over now.”
She smiled, desperately hoping she knew what that meant for them, but with no time to explore the declaration further, she simply nodded.
Turning, she moved through the connecting door into Dr. Patel’s domain, which was decorated similarly, with desert-scene paintings and diplomas. Sadie settled into the expensive chair behind the desk and opened the laptop. Breathe. Focus.
The computer’s security was sophisticated but not impenetrable, particularly for someone with her background. Her fingers moved across the keys with muscle memory that overpowered her current state, each keystroke seeming to sharpen her mind.
The first encrypted folder contained what appeared to be guest profiles, but the clinical language and numerical designations revealed their true nature. These weren’t just spa clients… they were test subjects, cataloged and monitored like laboratory animals.
Subject 15 - Baseline established. Dosage increased to Level 3.
Subject 23 - Optimal response to transdermal delivery. Recommend continuation.
Subject 28 - Adverse reaction to compound mixture. Consider alternative protocols.
She exhaled slowly as she stared at the way the clinic reduced wealthy women seeking rejuvenation to an unauthorized pharmaceutical experiment. But it was the next file that made her blood turn to ice water.
Subject 32 - Adverse Response - Recommend Rebalancing Transfer.
The clinical notes beneath it described someone with severe nausea, disorientation, and cognitive impairment.
Recommend Rebalancing Transfer? The euphemistic language couldn’t disguise that someone had become a liability that needed to be eliminated.
Sadie’s hands shook as she scrolled through additional files, each one representing a woman who’d trusted Serenity Dunes with her health and safety.
Most showed “successful” completion of experimental protocols, their departures carefully orchestrated to appear normal.
But a few, dating back over a year, carried the same ominous designation of Rebalancing Transfer.
Was one of these Melinda? Or possibly Natalia? Or me?