Page 121 of The Last Call Home
We don’t fucking know.
The plan is barely holding—stitched with adrenaline and desperation.Intercept before they reach the docks.Extract her before she’s loaded onto a boat we won’t be able to track once it cuts across open water.Every second ticks louder than the last.
Malerick and I are in the helicopter now, side by side, helmets on, voices patched through a shared channel, the rotor blades slicing above us with rhythmic, deafening precision.The sky is black, the horizon bleeding faintly with the threat of sunrise, and we are hurtling toward Eastmoor Bay with a fury that could tear the clouds apart.
I clench my fists just to stop the tremor.Useless.
Fuck, what if we’re too late?
What if they panic during the chase and decide she’s not worth the risk?What if they take it out on her just to buy time?What if we find her—broken or already beyond our reach?
I try not to let it show, but Malerick knows.He always knows.He’s watching the screens in front of him, scanning the feed, tracking vehicle paths and thermal reads, but I see the way his jaw clenches, the way his fingers twitch against his thigh.
And then—without saying a word—he reaches across the space between us and takes my hand.
His grip is firm, grounding me in ways I didn’t know I needed.It’s as if he’s holding the pieces of me together when I can’t do it myself.
“We’ll find her,” he says, voice quiet in my headset, but it slices through the noise like it was meant for the marrow of me.“We’ll find her before they can break her.”
I nod, but it’s a brittle thing.
Because the guilt is already building deep in my soul, screaming in the back of my skull that we should’ve seen this coming, that we should’ve fought harder to keep her tethered, that every moment we let her go off on her own was another moment lost.
Malerick’s grip tightens.
“It’s not our fault,” he says again, more firmly this time, like he knows I need the repetition.Like he knows I won’t stop blaming myself unless he keeps saying it, until it carves its way past the guilt.
“It’s not our fault, Cass,” he says.“You hear me?This isn’t on us.”
I nod again, but this time my throat catches.
Because it doesn’t matter how many weapons we’re carrying, or how good our intel is, or how fast we fly—without her, we’re not whole.
She’s not just ours to protect.
She’s ours.
And if we lose her?—
No, I can’t let myself think that.
Malerick is still holding my hand.“She’s going to be fine.Remember, they need to keep her in one piece, or the boss will be upset.”
That’s true.
They mentioned it more than once.Careful.That was the word.Like she’s fragile.Precious.Something too valuable to damage, not out of mercy but possession.
“Gil figured out the bracelet,” Malerick says, his voice cutting through my focus, grounding me just enough to register the shift in his tone.“It’s coordinates.A bank.Safe number included.That’s where they’re heading—somewhere in San Francisco to retrieve what’s inside.”
I blink, and only then do I realize I haven’t checked a single message since we took off.My phone’s been vibrating against my thigh, dozens of alerts waiting to be acknowledged.But I haven’t looked at any of them.I’ve just been staring at the feed—watching the screen, following the thermal pings and the dots of movement that represent vehicles we can’t yet touch.
We’ve got three potential leads.Three paths.If they’re trying to split up and lose us in the confusion, it’s not going to work—not this time.We might not know which vehicle she’s in, but we know exactly where they’re going.
The flight feels longer than it should.Not because of distance but because every minute spent in the air feels like we’re gambling seconds we can’t afford to lose.
But when Eastmoor Bay finally appears beneath us, the monitor on the dash confirms what we’d hoped: the lead cars are still at least an hour out.
They’re not here yet.
