Chapter 5 - THE ESCAPE FROM FRANKLINDirector Hayes did not like the plan.
That made sense, because the plan was terrible.
It involved moving a medically fragile Navy SEAL out of a federal hospital during an active security threat, trusting a one-eyed former master chief who was officially dead, and sending Lily Parker—the rookie nurse everyone had mocked that morning—into a city full of people who might want her buried for the second time.
But the alternative was waiting.
And waiting had nearly killed Caleb.
“We have proper channels,” Hayes said.
Vale snorted. “Proper channels are how Voss found him.”
“He needs medical supervision.”
Lily lifted a supply bag. “He’ll have it.”
“He has a chest tube.”
“I know.”
“You are not a trauma transport team.”
“No,” Lily said. “I’m the nurse who kept him alive when everyone else called it anxiety.”
That ended the argument for five seconds.
Caleb signed from the bed.
I can walk.
Lily glared at him. “You absolutely cannot.”
I have walked with worse.
“Congratulations. You’re still not doing it tonight.”
Vale chuckled. “She always this bossy?”
Caleb looked at him.
Worse.
Lily chose not to ask how Caleb knew that.
Hayes paced once, then stopped. “I can delay internal reporting for twenty minutes. After that, the system logs will show the patient moved.”
“Twenty minutes is enough,” Vale said.
“It is not approval,” Hayes warned.
“No,” Lily said quietly. “It’s mercy.”
Hayes looked at her for a long moment.
Then she handed Lily a badge.
It was not a nurse badge.
It was a temporary administrative clearance badge.
“Service elevator B. Basement corridor. Laundry exit. There’s an old ambulance bay camera that fails when it rains.”
“It’s not raining,” Vale said.
Hayes walked to the window and pulled the blinds apart.
Thunder rolled outside.
Rain struck the glass in hard silver lines.
“It is now.”
The move happened in silence.
Lily disconnected only what could be safely disconnected and secured everything else. Oxygen tank. Dressing supplies. Portable pulse ox. Emergency meds. Chest tube equipment. She explained each motion to Caleb before doing it, signing as she worked.
He watched her hands.
Not with suspicion now.
With something more dangerous.
Trust.
Vale obtained a wheelchair from somewhere he refused to explain. Hayes cleared the corridor. The officers outside Room 12 turned away at exactly the right moment.
Trevor was gone.
That worried Lily more than if he had been there.
They made it to the service elevator without being stopped.
Inside the elevator, the lights flickered as it descended.
Caleb’s breathing hitched.
Lily crouched in front of him, checking the oxygen line.
“Look at me.”
His eyes locked on hers.
She signed.
Not trapped. Moving down. Exit soon.
His shoulders loosened slightly.
Vale watched them both.
“You were always good with the ones who couldn’t say where it hurt.”
Lily did not look at him. “Don’t talk like you know me.”
“I know who pulled three civilians through a drainage tunnel while bleeding from the arm.”
“That person is dead.”
“Sure,” Vale said. “And I’m the Easter Bunny.”
The elevator doors opened.
The basement smelled of bleach, wet concrete, and old steam pipes.
They moved fast.
Too fast for Caleb’s condition, not fast enough for the danger.
At the laundry exit, Lily heard footsteps behind them.
Vale heard them too.
He lifted one finger.
Stop.
The hallway ahead was empty.
The hallway behind was not.
A shadow moved across the wall.
Then Trevor Blake stepped into view.
He held both hands up.
“Don’t shoot me,” he said quickly.
Vale sighed. “I wasn’t planning to. Now I’m considering it.”
Trevor looked soaked in sweat. His perfect hair had collapsed. His face was pale.
“I know where Mara went,” he said.
Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Why should we care?”
“Because she didn’t go home. She went to meet Concincaid.”
Caleb’s eyes sharpened.
Trevor swallowed hard. “I followed them.”
“You followed them,” Lily repeated.
“Yes.”
“After helping set this up?”
“I didn’t know it was an assassination attempt!”
Vale stepped closer. “You knew enough to record a veteran without consent.”
Trevor flinched. “I thought it was career insurance. That’s all. I’m an idiot, not a murderer.”
Lily wanted to hate him cleanly.
It would have been easier.
“Where are they?” she asked.
Trevor handed her a scrap of paper. “Parking structure across from Union Station. Level four.”
Lily’s blood went cold.
Union Station.
Locker 417.
“They know about the drive,” she said.
Caleb signed, angry.
How?
Trevor shook his head. “I don’t know. But Concincaid kept saying the old woman wants the key.”
Vale’s face darkened.
“Old woman?”
Trevor nodded. “White hand. Silver hair. She was in his car.”
For a moment, even the rain seemed to go quiet.
Then the laundry exit door opened from the outside.
A hospital security guard stepped in.
Except it was not a guard.
Lily saw the white hand first.
Burned pale. Scarred smooth.
Elena Voss stood in the doorway, rain behind her, smiling like six years had been nothing more than a closed curtain.
“Hello, Sparrow.”
Caleb tried to rise.
Lily pushed him back.
Vale stepped forward with the cane.
“Voss.”
Her eyes moved to him. “Jonah. Still pretending you matter?”
“Still pretending you’re human?”
She smiled wider.
In her left hand, she held a pistol with a suppressor.
In her right, the white one, she held a small black remote.
“Locker 417 is already being opened,” she said. “But I wanted to see her face when she understood.”
Lily’s throat went dry.
“Understood what?”
Voss looked at Caleb.
“That he was never the target.”
Then she looked back at Lily.
“You were.”
May you like
The basement lights went out.
This time, Lily moved first.
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