Chapter 62: Band-Aids

For a long second, she just stared, her face a canvas of shock and something else, something I couldn't dare to name. The sirens were getting closer.

Then, she laughed. A real, breathless laugh that was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. "You're insane, Jack Draven," she whispered.

She held out her left hand. "Of course, I will," she said. "Now put the goddamn ring on my finger before we get arrested."

I slid it on. It fit perfectly. A piece of the night, forged just for her. The sirens were almost on top of us. We grabbed our gear and disappeared into the shadows. As we ran, her hand found mine, and I could feel the hard, sharp edges of the ring press against my skin. It was a promise. Not of a normal life, but of a life lived together, in the storm.

Finch’s POV

The phone felt greasy in my sweating palm. I was in a motel room a hundred miles from Calico, a place that smelled of bleach and fear—mostly my fear. I’d seen the news alert. LOCAL SHERIFF ARRESTED IN FEDERAL CORRUPTION STING. I didn't wait to pack. I just ran.

The phone was picked up on the first ring. His voice was calm, therapeutic. It made my teeth ache.

"Doctor Finch. This is an unscheduled call."

"They got Brody," I stammered, pacing the threadbare carpet. "It was Draven and the girl, it had to be. They hit Thorne's convoy. Now this. They have the manifests. They must have everything."

"Calm yourself," Dr. Croft said, his voice hardening just enough to make the hair on my arms stand up. "Did they get you?"

"No, I'm clear. I got out. But the clinic, my records—"

"They are irrelevant," he cut in. "You have become a liability. Stay where you are. A wire will be sent to you. After that, you will disappear. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but what about Draven, Calico, and the Oracle—"

"Draven is no longer your concern," Croft said. The line went dead.

I stood there in the buzzing silence of the cheap room, a disposable piece in a game I was too stupid to have ever thought I was playing.

Dr. Croft’s POV

I ended the call and placed the receiver gently back in its cradle. Finch was a loose end, but a manageable one. I sighed, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window of my serene, soundproof office at the city lights below. I despise chaos. I picked up another phone, a sleek, encrypted satellite device, and dialed a number from memory. It was answered instantly.

"Thorne."

"Marcus," I said, my voice smooth as silk. "It seems our mutual associates in Calico have been compromised. The sheriff is gone. And our two little problems, the ones who disrupted your shipment, are responsible."

There was a low growl on the other end of the line.

"Your men are incompetent," I stated, not as an insult, but as a simple, undeniable fact. "They failed to contain the situation. Now it requires a more personal touch. This Jack Draven and his partner have become a direct threat to the Stones' interests, and by extension, to mine. I need you to handle it. Personally. No more teams. No more proxies. Just you. End it."

A long silence stretched across the line, filled with the promise of brutal violence.

"Consider it done," Marcus Thorne said, and the line went dead.

I smiled. I had prescribed the cure. Now, I would simply wait for the disease to be eradicated.