Page 258 of Operation: Defiance

Junior varsity? Quarterback?

Asher’s never mentioned sports. Hiking, sure. Not football. Not high school football.

Junior Var⁠—

JV.

Julian Voss.

He’s still himself enough to tell me who was in the room. Voss is on site.

That single thought does what nothing else could. It steadies me.

GSD wants me afraid. Unstable. Manageable. Asher just sent me proof that they’re the ones running scared.

I’m sure he’s in pain. I’m sure he’s exhausted and injured and doesn’t know if he’ll make it out. But he’s not broken.

And neither am I.

I don’t reply right away. An immediate reply is its own kind of data—it tells them the video worked. That I’m reactive. That I can be rattled into moving before I’m ready.

I pour the coffee. Open a container of yogurt. Force myself to eat while the sky lightens a fraction outside the window.

And I think about Voss in the room with Asher.

By the time I finish the last sip of coffee, my hands are steady. I move to the laptop to draft my reply.

I watched the video.

Mr. Locke’s condition is noted. So is the message you intended it to send.

What I’ve released so far describes the program. What comes next describes what the program did to me, specifically, with documentation. My name. My voice. My body. That’s a different category of problem than foundational memos and quietly “retired” agents.

Release Mason Locke.

You’ve never dealt with someone who escaped your program before. Someone who didn’t break. Someone you sent to disposal but lost. I suggest you follow my lead on how this ends.

I don’t know if Voss will show Asher my message. Or if he’ll remember telling me that the minute I told him to follow my lead, he was all in. But I have to find some way to close the distance between us. To tell him I’m close. That wherever he is right now isn’t where this ends. For him or for us.

I need him to hold on a little longer.

I need him to know I’m coming.

Send.

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Asher

Everything hurts. A deep, dragging ache that’s settled into bone. There’s a low, constant roar under my skin that hasn’t let up in hours.

My back is one long line of heat, my knees throb with every tiny shift in weight, and my side pulses in a slow, steady rhythm, a reminder that the injury is still working against me.

I don’t know how long it’s been since the video. Hours.

The medic yanked the IV minutes after Voss left. Barely spent five seconds in the room. Three times since, nameless GSD guards have come in to reposition me. Pulling my arms fully straight across the table. Standing me up with my wrists cuffed at shoulder height. And this last time, forcing me to kneel on the floor, my heels pressed to the wall, wrists secured to the hasp two feet in front of me.

I collapsed within minutes. Didn’t matter. Now the guard watches from the corner, arms crossed. If I move—if I fall—he jerks me back onto my knees and snaps at me to stay still.