Page 26 of Echo: Burn
"Neither do I." She doesn't move. "Not since Jack. Not for six years. Every time I close my eyes, I see his hands. I feel his fingers on my throat. I wake up reaching for a gun that's never there."
The confession is raw. Honest. Makes me want to find her ex and put a bullet through his skull. But that's not what she needs from me.
"You're safe here," I say, and immediately hate myself for the lie.
"No, I'm not. None of us are." She steps closer, close enough that I can smell the gun oil and cold mountain air on her clothes. "But I'd rather be here, fighting beside people who see me as something more than a victim, than safe and alone somewhere wondering when the monsters will find me."
I should step back. Maintain professional distance. Keep her alive by keeping her at arm's length.
I don't step back.
My hand comes up to cup her face, thumb tracing the line of her jaw where bruises have finally faded from that first encounter with the Committee. Her skin is warm despite the cold, soft despite the hard woman she's had to become.
"This is a bad idea," I tell her.
"Probably." She barely whispers it. "But I'm tired of good ideas that leave me alone."
The distance between us disappears to inches. Then less. I can feel her breath on my lips, can see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes, can smell the faint scent of disinfectant soap that clings to her despite everything.
My encrypted comm chooses that exact moment to shriek an alert.
I pull back, cursing the timing and hating the relief I feel at the interruption. Willa's expression shifts—disappointment mixed with understanding. She knows what just happened. What almost happened.
What can't happen.
I activate the comm. "Kane."
Tommy doesn't waste time on preamble. "Boss, I just intercepted Committee communications. Encrypted, but I cracked it. You need to hear this."
"Play it."
The recording is cold, clinical, and absolutely clear:
"Cleaner is in play. Full sanitization authorized. All assets, all witnesses, all connections. Seventy-two hours to completion. No exceptions. No survivors."
The line goes dead.
Seventy-two hours. Three days to eliminate everyone on Protocol Seven's list. Three days before the Committee erases us like we never existed.
I look at Willa. She understands what this means. This isn't just about her anymore. This isn't just about the dog or the chemical weapons or any single piece of the conspiracy.
This is about survival.
"We do it tomorrow," I say.
"It is tomorrow." She straightens, already shifting into operational mode. "We don’t have a choice. What time?"
"Dawn. We'll brief in a few of hours at 0500." I'm already running scenarios, calculating angles, identifying failure points. Seventy-two hours to win a war we didn't start against an enemy that owns everything from local law enforcement to federal agencies.
The cleaner's in play. That means we're not hunting anymore.
We're being hunted.
7
WILLA
Idon't sleep.
