Chapter 1 - When the Lights Died
Every fluorescent tube in Bay Four went black at once.
For half a second I heard nothing except the ragged rhythm of my own breathing and the frantic scuff of boots on concrete.
Then Master Chief Dominic Reyes closed his hand around mine.
"Don't move, Kate."
"I'm not exactly going anywhere."
He didn't smile.
In the darkness, a security officer ordered everyone to keep their hands visible, a command so absurd that nobody responded.
A red emergency fixture came alive above the loading door, revealing Garrett Voss pressed against a shelf and Travis Reed crouched as if he expected the ceiling to fall.
Dom leaned across me and shielded my face from the opening.
His radio crackled with overlapping reports: power failure, gate lockdown, a utility vehicle blocking the southern exit.
The blackout wasn't an accident.
It was a second attempt to control the scene.
"Lily," I whispered.
I pushed my phone against his palm, the photograph still open.
He looked once and sent a short message on a private channel to a trusted base security dispatcher.
He ordered an emergency welfare check at my mother's address, but kept the threat itself off the general radio.
"Somebody here is listening," he said.
I knew.
Someone had known about my left pocket and my evidence before I told anyone.
Someone had known Dom would respond to my four-word text.
And now somebody knew my daughter was the only thing capable of making me stop fighting.
A medic's light moved toward us in the dark.
"Commander, I need to stabilize your legs."
"Do it. But photograph my uniform before anybody touches the pockets."
The medic hesitated, then Dom took photographs himself.
Marcus Kane had torn the flap of my left pocket halfway off, but the carabiner remained trapped in the lining.
I heard metal scrape as Dom removed it with gloved fingers.
He sealed it in a fresh evidence pouch.
My phone buzzed again.
No photograph this time.
Just six words: YOU CAN STILL SAVE YOUR CHILD.
I showed Dom.
He looked toward the dark observation mezzanine above the warehouse floor.
"Kate, the person who knows all this isn't necessarily outside."
A faint blue rectangle flashed behind the mezzanine glass.
A phone screen.
Then it vanished.
Dom stood and called for security to secure the upper office.
The emergency doors slammed behind us.
May you like
Somewhere above my head, a lock clicked.
