Chapter 5
The latch of the pantry door was jammed,
warped by the intense heat of the spreading fire.
I kicked it,
the splintering wood giving way with a cry of failure,
and pulled Ryan out.
He looked at the burning cottage,
his eyes wide with a terror that no nine-year-old should ever have to witness.
"Dad!"
he screamed,
his arms reaching for me,
his small hands grabbing at my bloodied vest.
"You're hurt!"
"I'm fine,"
I lied,
the words tasting like copper and ash.
"We have to go.
Now."
I didn't look back at the flames.
I didn't look at the bodies of the operators scattered in the snow like discarded dolls.
I grabbed my son,
tucked him under my arm,
and started running for the lobster boat.
The pier was icy,
the wind biting,
but the boat was our lifeline.
I fumbled for the keys,
my fingers numb,
my world narrowing to a pinprick of focused necessity.
The engine turned over,
the familiar,
rhythmic hum a sweet sound against the roar of the fire behind us.
We pulled away from the dock,
the distance between us and the burning cottage growing with every second.
The flames looked like a beacon in the night,
a funeral pyre for the life I had tried to build.
I steered the boat toward the open water,
away from the headland,
toward the deep,
unmapped sections of the coast.
Ryan sat on the floor of the cabin,
wrapped in a thick,
wool blanket,
his eyes fixed on the distant,
fading light.
He was quiet.
He was thinking.
He was a child of this new,
violent reality,
and I wondered,
with a terrifying,
hollow ache,
what would remain of his innocence after tonight.
"They're gone,
aren't they?"
he asked,
not looking at me.
"The people from the house?"
"Yes,"
I said.
"They're gone."
"Are they coming back?"
"No."
I hoped I wasn't lying.
But I knew better.
The network was vast,
and I had just declared war on a branch of it that had friends in every corner of the globe.
I pulled out the tablet Logan had given me,
the one I had tucked into the waterproof bag before the breach.
I had to know.
I had to know what they had been looking for,
what was so important they had burned my home to find it.
I cracked the encryption,
the code cascading across the screen in a blur of green and white.
It wasn't a bank account.
It wasn't a land registry.
It was a medical index.
A list of names,
genetics,
and blood types.
The names were all connected to a single,
obscure project from the seventies:
Project Chimera.
And at the very top of the list,
beside the newest entry,
was Ryan’s name.
My blood turned to ice.
They weren't hunting me because I was a rogue element.
They were hunting me because my son was an asset.
They had been watching him since he was born.
The entire custody battle,
the years of manipulation—it was all designed to isolate him,
to make him a specimen.
I gripped the steering wheel,
my knuckles white,
my fury boiling over into a cold,
honed resolve.
They thought they were hunting a shepherd.
They had no idea they had triggered a titan.
I opened the throttle,
the boat slicing through the dark Atlantic with a speed that matched the velocity of my hate.
May you like
We weren't hiding anymore.
We were hunting the hunters.
