Page 89 of Beyond Protection

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Countdown: 6 days. Everyone close to you makes you more vulnerable. I can keep you safer alone. —V.K.

I handed it to Eamon.

He read it. Handed it to Michael.

Michael's hands shook. "She's threatening them."

"Not threatening." Eamon's voice had gone flat. "Calculating. Documenting everyone in his circle. Assessing who she'll need to neutralize."

"Jesus Christ." Alex's voice cracked. "She's planning to go through us."

"Not if we go through her first." Michael started the engine. "Police. Tonight. Full report, full disclosure, every message, every photo. We get ahead of this."

I looked out the window. Raindrops still clung to the glass. The parking lot stretched toward the street—orange light, shadows between cars.

Gray coat at the lot's edge. Walking fast, head down.

I tracked her until she disappeared.

Another near the terminal. Another by the street.

Everywhere I turned, she was there.

Or she wasn't. It was a world of ghosts.

Six days left.

Michael pulled out. Tires hissed on wet pavement.

In the distance, fireworks erupted—someone else's Christmas celebration. Bursts of red and gold above black water.

The explosions bathed the interior in flashes of red light.

For a second, everyone's face looked like a photograph. Frozen. Documented.

Then the darkness returned.

All of us, marked in red.

All of us, part of her plan.

The drive back to Ma's house took twenty minutes. No one spoke.

Eamon folded his hands in his lap. Perfectly still. Too still.

"Stop," I said. My voice was rough.

He looked at me. "What?"

"Thinking. Stop thinking."

"That's my job."

"Your job is to keep me safe. Not to martyr yourself because you think you failed once."

"He's right." Michael's voice from the front. "We're in this together. All of us."

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