Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
And if she hasn’t? If she isn’t safe? If Julia knows who she really is, if Julia is hunting her—
I answer the call.
No holographic screen comes up, which is curious. It’s just a call.
“We need you at a facility.” Julia’s voice is crisp and professional, like nothing happened, like she didn’t just use me to commit murder. “I’m sending coordinates.”
“What facility?”
“You’ll see when you arrive.”
“Wait, Julia—”
The line goes dead.
I pull up the coordinates on my watch. New Jersey, industrial district just across the Hudson. A location I’ve never seen in any Global Dynamix documentation, and I’ve seen most of them. It’s a black site, it has to be, and probably underground.
Don’t go, some part of me whispers. This is a trap.
But if there’s even a chance Mia is there—if they’ve found her, if they’ve taken her—
I’m in the air before I finish the thought.
The facility entrance is a service door behind a condemned meatpacking plant. It’s the perfect place for a post-apocalyptic stroll, all rusted signs, broken windows, and the smell of old blood soaked into concrete. I land in the alley, boots splashing in a puddle of something disgusting, and the door swings open before I can knock.
Two guards appear in tactical gear. No insignias, no names, faces like slabs of meat. They don’t speak, just gesture for me to follow.
Friendly as fuck. If this is how they treat America’s superhero, I’d hate to see how they treat anyone else.
We descend down a flight of concrete stairs first, then a freight elevator that groans and shudders as it drops. The numbers tick down on a panel that looks older than I am, the gears screeching. Five floors, then seven, then eight. The air gets colder, damper, as we drop, while the fluorescent lights buzz and flicker overhead.
When the elevator finally stops and the doors grind open, Julia and Marsh are waiting.
Well, that’s just fucking wrong. They’re rarely in the same place outside of the office unless there’s a camera pointed at them, the kind of public theater that keeps shareholders happy. Julia handles me. Marsh handles the money. Seeing them together down here, shoulder to shoulder in this concrete tomb, makes my gut clench.
Yeah, something is very fucking wrong.
“Nate.” Marsh steps forward with his hand extended, that politician’s smile plastered across his face. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
I don’t shake his hand. “What is this place?”
“A research facility,” Julia says. She’s watching me the way she always watches me—like I’m a specimen, something to be studied and measured. “One of several. You’ve never needed to know about it.”
“And now I do?”
“Now circumstances have changed.”
They turn and start walking and I follow. The corridor stretches ahead of us, pale green walls that looked like they were painted in the 1970s, lined with reinforced doors. Through narrow windows, I catch glimpses of what’s behind them: a room full of screens showing brain scans, waveforms pulsing like heartbeats; a surgical suite with robotic arms folded like sleeping spiders; a chamber with a chair in the center, wires and tubes trailing from it like veins ripped from a body.
I swear I’ve seen that chair before. In my nightmares, in the fragments that don’t feel like memories.
“Have you seen Mia?” I ask, because I have to ask.
Julia doesn’t break stride. “Why do you ask?”
“You sent me surveillance footage of her hotel room last night. You sent me that footage on purpose. You wanted me to…to…” I can’t make myself finish the sentence and I catch Marsh giving Julia a sidelong look.
“I sent you information I thought you’d want to know.” She glances at me over her shoulder. “What you did with that information was your choice.”
“My choice.” I want to laugh. I want to scream. “You wound me up and pointed me at an innocent man like a weapon.”
“Did I? Or did I simply show you the truth and let you respond according to your nature?”
Marsh clears his throat. “Perhaps we could discuss this somewhere more private—”
“Where is she?” I ask again.
“Come along now, Vanguard,” Julia says, snapping her fingers like I’m a fucking dog.
I stop walking.
They take a few more steps before they realize I’m not following, then turn back. Julia’s expression is carefully blank; Marsh looks annoyed, like I’m a child throwing a tantrum, although there’s a part of him that seems a little apprehensive.
Deep down, way deep down, he’s afraid of me.
“I’m not moving until someone tells me what the fuck is going on.”
“Nate—” Marsh warns.
“Red Hook,” I say.
Julia’s shoulders tighten. Just a fraction, just for a second, but I catch it.
“I know what happened there,” I continue. “I know you were there, Marsh, meeting with a human trafficker.”
My words bring silence. Marsh and Julia exchange a look—quick, loaded with meaning I can’t decipher.
“You’ve been busy,” Marsh says finally. “We knew you were there, of course. How else do you explain all those dead men? No one else could kill so many trained thugs in minutes flat, without being seen. The question was whether you’d bring it up.”