Chapter 3

The night-shift bell rang, and the lights across the compound shifted into a colder tone.

I rolled my cleaning cart out of the supply room. In the tub sat a disinfectant bucket, rags, and a bundle of trash bags. Around here, that loadout was so normal no one would spare it a second glance.

For three years I’d walked these routes every day, treated as “Eddie,” a janitor who did nothing but scrub floors.

Tonight, I was using that identity on purpose.

The holding block sat at the deepest end of the base behind an iron door, with a guard posted outside.

There were no cameras here. They probably figured a place like this didn’t need them—no one was getting out anyway.

Which made it perfect for me.

By their rules, janitors weren’t allowed in. But “cleaning blood” and “removing trash” were exceptions.

Grey Wolf didn’t like leaving traces. If there was blood on the floor or grime on the walls, they called someone to wipe it down—fast.

I pushed the cart up to the door. The guard glanced at me, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

“You again.” He sounded annoyed. “Why are you so eager today?”

I kept my eyes down and lifted the disinfectant bucket so he could see the label. My voice stayed flat. “They said the holding block needs to be disinfected. They don’t want the smell spreading.”

“Eddie, you really do go wherever it’s dirty.” He tapped the door with his key. “The guy inside puked up a lot of blood today. Lucky you.”

I parked the cart and nodded the way I always did—no eye contact, no argument.

He unlocked the door and led me in. The smell hit harder immediately. Disinfectant couldn’t cover blood and sweat.

Iron bars lined both sides of the corridor. Light poured down from above, bleaching faces pale.

In a few cells someone moaned under their breath. In others, there was no sound at all—sleep, or something worse.

I didn’t stop. I walked straight down the corridor.

The dark red smear from earlier reappeared here, broken in places, then continuing—until it ended at the last cell.

I pushed the cart to the door. The guard handed me the key and jerked his chin. “This one. Wipe it down and get out.”

I crouched and spread a trash bag on the floor, moving like I was focused on the job.

The guard left.

I opened the cell. A faint, shallow breath came from inside. When I looked up, I saw Ben Carter dumped in the corner, wrists and ankles cinched tight with plastic ties, his back against the wall, his head hanging.

His face was badly swollen, his mouth split, dried blood crusted along his chin.

The air carried a strong iron smell. I didn’t need to get close to know his mouth was full of blood.

I dipped a rag into the bucket, but my fingers slid quietly to my waistband.

A thin strip of metal was hidden there. I fed it into the gap of the plastic tie and drew it through with a light, controlled cut.

The tie snapped.

Ben’s wrist loosened. He tried to lift his head immediately. I pressed a hand to his shoulder—not hard, just enough to tell him to stay still.

I leaned in, keeping my voice low enough that only he could hear.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

A rough breath rolled out of his throat, like he was forcing himself to swallow blood. Two seconds later he nodded.

“How long can you hold?” I asked.

“Ten minutes… if you support me.” His voice was shredded, but he was still clear-headed.

I cut the ties at his ankles, then hooked his arm over my shoulder and pulled him up into a sitting position.

When his weight came down on me, I could feel the heat coming off him. The injuries were serious, but he didn’t make a sound.

Ben took a breath and finally met my eyes.

“After you went in undercover… the official story said you were dead,” he said. “They issued a KIA notice. Sealed your file. That way Grey Wolf wouldn’t suspect anything, and no one would keep asking where you went.”

He kept going.

“Then… Harris died.” When he said the name, his throat moved like he was forcing something down. “Assassinated. After that, the team’s line got rerouted. A lot of things broke. No one knew you’d gone in undercover—some of our own people didn’t even know.”

My hands paused for a fraction of a second.

Harris.

The man who’d handed me the mission. The man in the white room who’d clapped my shoulder and said, three months.

Something pressed into my chest and my breathing shortened.

I’d thought I was ready for bad news, but hearing “Harris is dead” still emptied my head for a beat.

I didn’t let it show. I tightened my grip, steadied Ben’s weight, and kept my voice low. “Keep going.”

Ben watched me, like he knew exactly what I was holding back, and didn’t waste time.

“I didn’t believe you were gone,” he said. “You had to be trapped somewhere inside a job. But I couldn’t find a mission number, couldn’t find any handoff records—like you were erased from the day you disappeared.”

He swallowed blood again and forced the rest out.

“Harris kept a work journal,” Ben said. “I went through what he left behind. It was vague, but I could piece it together: your memory was sealed, you were dropped inside Grey Wolf, the wake-up was scheduled for three months, and he wrote down the trigger phrase to break the hypnosis.”

“But after Harris died, the line snapped. No one came to wake you. I figured you were stuck. And if I wanted to reach you, there was only one way—I had to get inside.” He pulled at one corner of his mouth, almost laughing at himself. “So I made myself visible and let them take me. I acted like a fool who wandered into the wrong place. They dragged me into the base. That was the only way I could get close enough to whisper the phrase to you.”

When he finished, it was like the tension left him all at once. His forehead rested against my shoulder, breathing quick and shallow.

That wasn’t drama. His body was hitting its limit.

I shifted him up, adjusting his weight so he could move. “If you walk out like this, you’ll get spotted. I cleared space in the cart before I came in. In a minute you’re getting inside it. I’ll roll you out.”

Ben looked up and nodded, slow and strained.

I supported him toward the doorway, each step planted steady.

My mind was already running the route: out of the cell block, back to the supply room, claim I needed to dump dirty water, push the cart into maintenance, open the inspection hatch, drop into the waste tunnel, and exit at the shoreline outflow.

I’d studied that path for three years—screw tension, grate catch points. I could walk it blind.

We’d just reached the cart by the door when a sharp metallic click came from the corridor outside—like a key ring tapping a wall.

Then the iron door opened.

The guard leaned in, swept his eyes over the floor, then locked onto me and Ben. He didn’t draw his weapon. His first reaction was laughter—light, contemptuous.

“Well, look at that.” He dragged the words out. “Even useless Eddie thinks he can touch someone?”

He stepped inside and kicked without warning, the toe of his boot driving hard into my shin.

Pain flared. My body rocked, my shoulders dropping as if I was about to fold.

He saw me flinch and laughed louder. Then he reached down, grabbed Ben by the hair, and yanked him back toward the corner.

“Trying to carry him out?” he sneered. “You really think you’re something?”

Ben made a muffled sound as he was pulled, his body pitching forward. I caught him, kept him upright, and still didn’t strike back.

The guard raised his foot again, about to kick me a second time. The grin on his face hadn’t even faded.

I lifted my hand and closed my fingers around his wrist.

Bone shifted under my grip with a small, wrong click. The expression on his face finally changed—contempt to confusion, confusion to a flicker of fear that didn’t have time to fully form.