Page 55 of Echo: Burn
"How many now?" I ask.
"Twelve confirmed. Could be more jamming our sensors." His hands work the keyboards. "Kane, Stryker, Mercer—you've got twelve tangos converging on your position. Recommend immediate extraction."
Kane's response comes through tense but controlled. "Negative. We extract now, we lead them straight back to base. We're going to ground. Switching to dark protocol."
The comms go completely silent. Even the static disappears.
"What's dark protocol?" I ask.
"Radio silence. No comms, no electronics that can be tracked. They'll operate on pre-established contingencies until they can safely re-establish contact." Tommy's jaw tightens. "Could be thirty minutes. Could be three hours."
Three hours. Three hours of not knowing if Kane's alive or dead. If the Committee found them. If I'm about to lose the first person in six years who made me feel something other than afraid.
I can't do this. Can't stand here watching screens and waiting for bad news.
"I need air," I say.
"Bad idea." Tommy doesn't look away from his monitors. "You should stay in the secured areas."
"I'm going to the cavern. The one Kane showed me. I'll stay inside the base perimeter."
He considers it, then nods once. "Take a radio. If I call, you come back immediately."
I grab a handheld radio from the equipment rack and head into the tunnels. My boots echo on stone as I navigate the corridors by memory. Left at the first junction, right at the second, down the long passage that slopes gradually deeper into the mountain.
The cavern door is where I remember it. I punch in the code Kane taught me and slip inside.
The underground lake stretches out in absolute darkness, only visible where emergency lights reflect off the still water. It's cold here, the kind of cold that seeps into your bones, but it's also peaceful. Quiet. A place where I can think without screens showing me threats I can't fight.
I sit on the smooth stone at the water's edge and try to process everything I've learned in the past hour.
Kane's not just a man hiding from the Committee. He's part of something bigger. A team. A brotherhood. Men who've been betrayed by their own government and are fighting back the only way they know how.
Forty-seven confirmed kills in two years. Over a hundred probable. And they're trying to add me to that list because I saved a dog.
The absurdity of it would be funny if it wasn't so terrifying.
My father died keeping secrets about Yemen. About chemical weapons. About operations that weren't supposed to exist. Andnow his daughter is caught in the same web, marked for death by the same organization that probably contributed to his heart attack.
If he were here, what would he say? Run? Fight?
I already know the answer. Dad didn't raise me to run from threats. He raised me to face them head-on, to stand my ground, to protect what matters.
And Kane matters.
I've known him for less than a week, but he matters. The way he came for me in that blizzard when he didn't have to. The way he looks at my scars and sees someone worth protecting instead of someone damaged. The way he claims me like I'm something precious instead of something broken.
I'm not running. Not from the Committee. Not from Kessler. Not from whatever war Kane's been fighting.
The radio crackles. Tommy's voice, urgent: "Willa, you need to get back here. Now."
My heart stops. "What happened? Is Kane...”
"Just get back here."
I'm running before he finishes speaking. The corridors blur past. My boots slip on stone but I don't slow down. The operations center door is open when I arrive, and I stumble through it expecting the worst.
Kane's alive.
