Page 16 of Echo: Burn
The flat refusal catches me off guard. "Excuse me?"
"I said no." She doesn't raise her voice, doesn't need to. "I'm not leaving."
"Doc...”
"Dr. Hart," she corrects, and there's warning in it. "I'm not your subordinate, Kane. I'm not part of your team. Which means I don't take orders from you."
Stryker makes a sound that might be a strangled laugh. Rourke's grin is pure appreciation. Even Mercer looks impressed.
I ignore them all. "You understand what Protocol Seven means? They won't stop. They'll keep coming until you're dead."
"Then I'll keep shooting them." She says it like she's discussing the weather. "I killed three men tonight. I can kill more if that's what it takes to stay alive."
"This isn't about bravery...”
"No, it's about survival. And I'm done surviving by running." She steps closer, and I catch that scent again—hospital soap and something underneath that's purely her. "You came for me tonight. You didn't have to. You could've let the Committee clean up their mess and stayed hidden on your mountain. But you didn't. Why?"
The question lands like a punch. Because she's right—I could've stayed clear. Should have stayed clear. Getting involved was tactically stupid, strategically dangerous, and personally complicated in ways I'm not ready to examine.
"Because it was the right thing to do," I say finally.
"Exactly." Her voice softens. "And staying here, helping you find that cache and expose whatever the Committee's hiding, that's the right thing for me to do. I'm not running from this. I'm running toward it."
"You could die."
"I could die in Mexico too. Or Canada. Or wherever you think is safe." She holds my gaze. "At least here, I die fighting for something that matters. For people who need protecting. For exposing monsters who build weapons designed to kill thousands."
Stubborn courage. That's what this is. The kind that gets people killed but also the kind that wins wars. I've seen it before—in teammates who charged into fire when the smart play was retreat, in civilians who stood their ground against impossible odds, in fighters who refused to quit even when quitting made sense.
I've never seen it look quite like this.
"You're making a mistake," I say, but there's no heat in it anymore.
"Probably." She almost smiles. "But it's my mistake to make."
The silence stretches while I fight the urge to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into that stubborn head. Or pull her close and kiss her until she understands that this isn't about control, it's about keeping her alive long enough to realize she deserves better than dying on a mountain for people she barely knows.
I do neither.
"Fine." The word comes out rougher than intended. "You stay. But you follow orders in the field. You don't take unnecessary risks. And if I say you go, you go. Non-negotiable."
"Negotiable," she counters. "I'll follow tactical orders. I'll minimize risk where reasonable. And if you say I go, I'll consider it. That's the best you're getting."
Stryker's definitely laughing now. Rourke looks like Christmas came early. Even Tommy's grinning behind his screens.
"Deal," I say, because fighting her on this is pointless, and we both know it.
"Good." She extends her hand. "Then let's talk about how we find that cache."
Her grip is warm, steady, confident—the handshake of someone who’d been taught how. We hold the contact a beat longer than professional before she pulls away and turns to Tommy.
"Show me everything you have on Odin's training. If he can detect nerve agent precursors, he can track them back to their source. We just need to figure out where to start."
She moves to the console, already asking questions, already thinking three steps ahead. The team follows her lead, pulled into her orbit like she's always been part of this operation.
I stay where I am, observing how naturally she fits into spaces I never meant to let anyone fill.
This is a mistake. Every instinct I've honed over twenty years of operations tells me sending her away is the smart play. The safe play. The play that keeps her alive.
