Page 63 of Operation: Defiance

Chapter Sixteen

Asher

Adjusting Raine carefully, I wonder how the hell I’m supposed to fight if the doors open to a welcoming committee. But we’re lucky, and the elevator spits us out at the back of the facility, nothing but cracked asphalt, pine trees, and silence around us.

For a black site, their security is abysmal. The main elevator was guarded by two armed men, but after that, almost nothing. Then again, the entire building is hiding in plain sight. The only sign it’s not completely abandoned is the thick razor wire at the top of the fence.

I modify my hold automatically as I move toward the parking lot, shifting Raine’s weight so her head doesn’t snap back and keeping pressure off the shoulder she’s been guarding since the second I walked into that room. She’s lighter than she should be.

Not fragile.

Depleted.

My car is the only one here. Either the contractors live on site or they bus them in on a schedule. I get Raine into the passenger seat and ease her back carefully. I don’t buckle her in. No restraints. Never again if I have anything to say about it.

Even unconscious, her body flinches when my hands pass too close.

“Okay,” I murmur, mostly to myself. “I’ve got you.”

I start the engine. Only then do I really look at her.

Grime streaks her skin in uneven shadows. Her complexion is sallow, stretched thin over bone. Hair dull and tangled where adhesive residue clings to her temples. Everything about her looks brittle. Her body’s been burning through reserves it didn’t have to spare.

Her hands are still trembling—not from fear, but aftershocks from pain stacked on deprivation stacked on exhaustion.

“All right,” I say softly. “We’re clear. You did good, Raine.”

No response. Not that I expected one.

I have to get her somewhere safe. Somewhere she can heal.

The safe house I prepped before heading here is over an hour away in the center of downtown Seattle. I stretch the drive to almost ninety minutes. Three different vehicles. The first switch is only ten miles from the facility, at a rest stop no one uses unless they’re desperate.

I slide one arm under her knees, the other behind her back, and lift carefully. She’s settled in the new vehicle, a dark blue sedan, in sixty seconds, still unconscious.

Forty minutes later, I pull behind a grocery store under flickering sodium lights. This time we transfer to a small SUV with plates I stole off a BMW this morning. She shudders once as I gather her close, then stills.

I alter my route just enough to make anyone following me doubt themselves.

I’ve built an entire career out of doubt.

While we’re moving, I keep one hand on the wheel and the other close to her knee. Not touching. Just there.

Close enough to feel if she stirs.

Close enough to pull back if she flinches.

She doesn’t do either.

By the time I pull off the freeway, her breathing has evened out. Still shallow, but consistent. The tremor fades into stillness that looks like sleep if you don’t know better.

I know better.

When I pull into the garage beneath the safe house, I kill the engine and wait a full ten seconds.

No footsteps. No voices. No surprises.

Good.