Chapter 16

The tension in the room was thick, the only sound the ragged breathing of three people who had barely escaped with their lives. The small, dimly lit safe house offered some semblance of security, but I knew better than to let my guard down.

Athena was the first to shake off the lingering adrenaline. She pushed off the table, rolling her shoulders before crossing the room toward Cloud. “Let me see your arm.”

Cloud grunted but didn’t protest as she crouched beside him, peeling back the blood-soaked fabric of his sleeve. The wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but he was losing too much blood.

“This is gonna hurt,” Athena warned, grabbing a med kit from the stash in the corner. She ripped open a packet of antiseptic and pressed it against his arm.

Cloud cursed under his breath but didn’t flinch. I knew the man had been through worse, but we needed him in fighting shape if we were going to make it out of this alive.

I tossed the encrypted drive onto the table and leaned in, resting my palms against the cold wood. “We need to crack this fast.”

Athena shot me a look. “And then what? We’re still being hunted. Reed gave us up, which means SynerTech knows we have it.”

I exhaled sharply. She wasn’t wrong. The helicopters, the snipers—they wouldn’t stop coming until they had what was on that drive. Or until we were dead.

Cloud, wincing as Athena wrapped his arm, nodded toward the drive. “That thing better be worth it.”

I picked it up and turned it over in my fingers. “Only one way to find out.”

I powered up the laptop we had stashed here earlier, a secure machine with no outside connection. Plugging in the drive, I waited as the encryption screen flickered to life. A wall of security protocols stood between us and whatever secrets SynerTech was hiding.

Athena leaned over my shoulder. “Can you get through it?”

I smirked. “Please. Give me ten minutes.”

The safe house fell into silence except for the occasional hiss of static from the radio and the clicking of keys under my fingers. Cloud groaned as Athena tightened the bandages around his arm. “Try not to kill me while you’re at it.”

Athena arched a brow. “No promises.”

Minutes passed. My fingers danced across the keyboard, bypassing layers of security. Whoever locked this thing down knew what they were doing, but I’d cracked harder systems before. A few more keystrokes and—

“We’re in.”

Athena and Cloud gathered around as the contents of the drive loaded onto the screen. Folders upon folders of classified data, financial records, and—

“Holy shit,” Athena breathed, pointing at one of the files. “Project Phoenix?”

I clicked it open. The screen flooded with blueprints, test results, and video logs. A research initiative, heavily funded by SynerTech, involving human experimentation and bio-enhancements. But that wasn’t what made my stomach drop.

It was the list of test subjects. Hundreds of names. Many marked as ‘terminated.’

Cloud cursed. “They were running illegal experiments. Killing people.”

Athena’s expression hardened. “And Reed was a part of this.”

“Not just Reed,” I muttered, scrolling further. My breath hitched when I saw the names attached to the funding approval. Government officials. Corporate leaders. People in power who were supposed to protect the public, not use them as lab rats.

“This is enough to bring SynerTech down,” Athena said, her voice tight with restrained fury.

Cloud scoffed. “If we can get it to the right people before they kill us.”

I closed the laptop and ran a hand through my hair. “We need an extraction plan. Now.”

Athena grabbed a map from the stash and spread it across the table. “There’s an old train yard on the outskirts. If we can get there, we can use the tunnels to get out of the city undetected.”

Cloud nodded. “And then?”

“We get this into the hands of someone who can do something with it.” I met Athena’s gaze. “Someone we can trust.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “I have a contact. But we’ll need to move fast.”

As if on cue, a distant rumble vibrated through the walls. Not thunder. Something worse.

Helicopters.

“They found us.”

Cloud struggled to his feet, grabbing his rifle. Athena was already strapping on her gear. I yanked the drive from the laptop and secured it in my vest.

A spotlight flashed through the boarded-up windows, sweeping the safe house like a searching eye. A voice echoed over a loudspeaker, distorted but clear.

“This is your only warning. Surrender now, and you might live.”

Athena glanced at me. “Not an option.”

I exhaled, gripping my weapon. “Then we fight.”

A crash of gunfire shattered the silence, and the night exploded into chaos.

The gunfire erupted like a storm, bullets tearing through the walls of the safe house. Splinters and shards of concrete rained down as we ducked behind cover. The helicopters hovered above, their searchlights sweeping through the broken windows like the unblinking eyes of a predator.

Athena was already moving. She flipped the table for cover and slid a fresh magazine into her pistol. "We need to move. Now!"

Cloud gritted his teeth, gripping his rifle despite his injured arm. "Front door's a death trap. We take the back."

I reached into my vest and pulled out a smoke grenade. "I'll cover us. Get ready."

With a flick of my wrist, I tossed the grenade toward the main entrance. A thick cloud of gray smoke billowed out, obscuring the enemy's line of sight. The moment it detonated, Athena kicked open the back door, leading the way into the alley.

A spotlight swung in our direction, and I heard the telltale whir of a drone approaching. "Go! Go!" I yelled, sprinting after Athena and Cloud.

Gunfire erupted behind us as SynerTech's forces swarmed the safe house. A drone zipped overhead, its cameras locking onto us.

Athena didn't hesitate. She raised her pistol and fired two precise shots. The drone sparked and spun out of control, crashing onto the pavement in a fiery burst.

We kept running, weaving through narrow alleyways and scaling a chain-link fence at the edge of the industrial district. The sound of boots and shouting voices echoed behind us, getting closer.

"Train yard’s just ahead!" Athena shouted, pointing to the rusted silhouette of an old railcar in the distance.

Cloud stumbled as his injured arm slowed him down. I grabbed his good arm, dragging him forward. "Almost there!"

The roar of an engine cut through the air. A black armored SUV screeched around the corner, blocking our path. The tinted windows rolled down, revealing armed operatives inside.

"Down!" I yelled, shoving Cloud behind a stack of shipping containers.

Athena fired first, taking out the driver before he could react. The SUV veered off course, slamming into a concrete barrier.

More gunmen emerged from the surrounding buildings, closing in from all sides. We were outnumbered, outgunned, and running out of time.

"We need an exit!" Cloud shouted, pressing a hand to his wound.

I scanned our surroundings. The train yard. The tunnels. It was our only chance.

"Over there!" I pointed to a rusted maintenance hatch set into the ground near the tracks.

Athena nodded, covering us with suppressing fire as I sprinted to the hatch and wrenched it open. A ladder led into darkness.

"Go! I'll hold them off!" Athena yelled.

"Not a chance," I shot back, pulling Cloud toward the opening. "We all go together."

Cloud climbed down first, wincing with every movement. I followed, covering Athena as she made the descent. Just as her boots hit the ground, an explosion rocked the yard above, sending debris raining into the tunnel.

The hatch slammed shut behind us. We were plunged into darkness, the only sound our ragged breathing.

Athena clicked on a flashlight, its beam illuminating the damp, abandoned tunnel stretching out ahead.

"Where does this lead?" Cloud asked, voice tight with pain.

"Far enough to lose them," Athena said. "We keep moving. No stopping."

I took a deep breath, adjusting the encrypted drive in my vest. SynerTech had thrown everything at us tonight. But we were still standing. Still fighting.

And we weren’t done yet.