“Three minutes.”
Boyd’s voice comes through the wood. Low. Resonant. It vibrates through the doorframe and into my sternum.
“I’m making eggs. Don’t make me come get you.”
The threat,Don’t make me come get you, moves through me like a current.
It should sound like a warning.
God help me, it sounds like a promise.
I shove the paper back into my pocket, deep, jamming it down as if I can hide the truth along with it.
I turn on the faucet, splashing freezing water on my face. It shocks the system. It numbs the heat in my skin. It wakes me up.
I am Iris Kincaid. Attending physician at Denver General. I save lives. I fix what is broken. I do not lust after heavy-handed Federal Marshals who look at me like I’m a complication to be managed.
And right now, the only life I have to save is my own.
I shut off the water. I dry my face with a plush, white towel smelling of nothing.
I look at the door.
On the other side is the cage. On the other side is the wolf.
I unlock the latch.
And I step back out.
6
Perimeter Check
BOYD
Dinner is a mostly silent affair,tactical necessity rather than social engagement. We exchange small talk to fill the vacuum of the room: calories consumed, water drunk, the basic maintenance of the biological machine.
She picks at the food, her movements efficient but weary. She’s running on fumes, the adrenaline of the extraction finally burning off, leaving behind the ash of exhaustion.
I call it a day at 2100 hours and order her to bed. It isn’t a suggestion.
She goes without argument, disappearing down the long, dark hallway like a ghost fading into the architecture.
I remain in the den.
I lie on the leather couch and listen to the wind howling against the ballistic glass. I rest my hand on the Glock 19 on the floor beside me. Safe-house weapon, not my primary. Muscle memory pulls my hand to the polymer grip even in rest.
The house settles around me. Steel contracts in the cold. Concrete shifts. Every creak registers as a potential breach. Every shifting shadow cast by the clouds moving over the moonearns a second, hard look. I track the vectors. I calculate the probabilities.
But the real threat isn’t outside in the storm.
It’s down the hall.
The house is all concrete and glass, beautiful brutal materials chosen for their resilience, not their warmth. They carry sound with perfect, unforgiving fidelity.
The shower turns on first.
Water hits tile in a steady, rhythmic drumming. The sound vibrates through the floorboards, traveling up the steel frame of the couch and into my spine.
