Page 70 of Dose

“Copy,” Nikolai says. “Theon stays with the medical team. West corridor is no longer considered secure.”

That is an order I can live with.

The next forty-three minutes bear little resemblance to the timing sheet. We reclear the wing, change the route, and keep moving.

Isla verifies the remaining lots with the guard’s blood cleaned from her hands. Raphael’s clinicians seal the cold cases and attach each one to a transport manifest. Marcus restores the west feed and finds the blind room behind cold storage where the guard waited out the sweep. Damon changes the evacuation route. Darius brings the final group through the loading bay while Lucien walks backward in front of them, talking to a boy who will not lift his eyes from the floor.

No one runs. The children were trained not to. They move in lines because lines are what they know.

We use that until we can teach them something else.

At the service exit, Isla checks each medication case against the transport number. Sixty-three children leave Phoenix in six groups, accompanied by clinicians from Raphael’s recovery network. The youngest is carried. The oldest keeps looking over her shoulder as though someone will call them all back.

No one does.

The facility remains standing behind us. Its people are restrained, its cameras looped, its records copied. Evidence packets are already moving through channels that cannot be traced to the children or to us. Burning the place would be satisfying. Leaving its owners to discover an empty dormitory is more useful.

At the desert airstrip, dawn is beginning to thin the dark. The six transports divide toward three recovery sites, all inside the United States. Each clinical lead confirms the number of children, the records, and the medication before leaving.

Sixty-three out.

Sixty-three alive.

Only when the last vehicle clears the gate do I believe the count.

The shaking starts after takeoff.

My hands held steady through the breach, the corridor, the sight of blood on Isla’s glove. Now, with the aircraft climbing and Phoenix shrinking beneath us, they file their complaint.

I lock them together between my knees. Isla notices before I can hide it. Of course she does.

She removes her gloves and takes my right hand between both of hers.

“Delayed stress response,” she murmurs.

“Thank you, Specialist.”

“I thought you’d appreciate the diagnosis.”

“You’re not qualified to diagnose me.”

“Raphael?”

Across the aisle, Raphael does not open his eyes. “I am asleep.”

Her mouth twitches. She presses her thumbs into my palm until my fingers loosen.

“You waited for the order,” she says.

“By less than a second.”

“Still counts.”

“I considered breaking through the wall.”

“That would have taken longer.”

“I know.”