Chapter 15 · Death Eighty-Four

The file was still playing when the door blew in.

Cole grabbed Ivy's wrist and yanked her behind the server rack as shrapnel tore through the room. The blast was close. Too close. His ears rang. Concrete dust choked the air. Through the smoke he saw three figures moving in the hallway, backlit by emergency strobes. They had body armor. They had thermals. They had maybe fifteen seconds before they cleared the doorway and put rounds into anything warm.

Ivy was breathing hard against his shoulder. Her pulse hammered under his thumb where he still held her wrist. She'd just watched the video. Young Cole. The contract. Her standing right there beside him in some med bay he didn't remember. Her face in the footage had been calm. Professional. Like she'd done this before.

She didn't look calm now.

"We move or we're dead," Cole said. His voice came out flat. He'd said it before. Loop sixty-one. Loop seventy-eight. Always the same room. Always the same door. Usually she didn't make it this far.

"That was me." Ivy's voice cracked. "In the video. I was there. I don't—Cole, I don't remember that."

"Later."

"No. Not later. Now.