Chapter 5

Kade’s still zip-tied from Gate One. Wrists bound, blood dried at the corner of his mouth where they slammed him down. He looks at me, eyes desperate.

"Maya, don't," he whispers. "Let me talk."

"Oh, you're gonna talk?" I snap. "Last time you talked we got flagged red and you took a knee to the spine."

The guard yanks my door open. Cold air and diesel stink hit me like a wall. The second gate is a different beast—concrete walls, blinding floodlights, and razor wire that actually looks maintained.

And then there's her. Walking toward us like she owns the air we breathe.

No cheap gray uniform. Black coat, collar up, hair pulled back tight. Early forties. Pretty in a way that makes your skin crawl.

"Papers," she says. No hello. No please.

I hold out the folder. My masterpiece. Two transit permits, medical exemptions, stamped and sealed so clean you could lick them. My hands are shaking. I can't stop them.

She doesn't even open the folder. She takes it, flips it once, and drops it straight into the burn barrel next to the checkpoint.

"Hey!" I lurch forward. The rifle guy steps in fast, barrel slamming into my chest. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Saving time," the woman says. The papers catch, curl, and blacken in seconds. "Those were good, Maya Reeves. Really good. But Gate One already pinged me. You vouched for a ghost. So these are ash now."

My stomach drops. The heat from the barrel hits my face, smelling of burnt ink and failure.

"You have no right—"

"I have every right," she cuts in. "Second Gate is mine. I am Commander Iris Vale. And you just burned your only clean exit."

Kade shifts, the zip ties biting into his wrists. "Iris."

She finally looks at him. Really looks. Her eyes narrow into slits.

"Kade Mercer," she says. "Or do you still go by Mercer? God. You look worse than the file photo."

"You know him?" My voice comes out too sharp. Too desperate.

"Know him?" Iris laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I trained him. Eight years ago, before he disappeared with a dead woman's files."

Kade's jaw tightens. "We don't have time for this."

"We have exactly as much time as I say we have." Iris steps closer. Close enough that I can smell coffee on her breath and a sharp, metallic perfume. "You forged your way here for him. Why?"

"None of your business."

"It is now." She leans in, her voice a dangerous drop. "Because he told you about the lab, didn't he? Said your mother's legacy is waiting? That she left something for you?"

My throat goes dry. "How do you—"

"Because I was there when she died," Iris says flatly.

The floodlight buzzes overhead. The burn barrel crackles. I can't breathe.

"Bullshit," I whisper.

"Sparrow," Iris says. "That was her callsign. Federal Medical Division, Class Four virologist. Codename Sparrow. She used it to sign every off-books transfer, every hidden sample. Only her team knew it."

The word hits me like a physical slap. *Sparrow.* My mom hated birds. But she signed her notes to me with a tiny sparrow in the corner when I was little. I thought it was a doodle. No one knew that. No one.

"Stop," Kade says, louder now. "Iris, don't do this."

"Why? She deserves to know who she's driving into a grave for," Iris snaps at him, then locks back onto me. "You're shaking, Maya."

"I'm not," I lie. My fists are clenched so tight my nails are drawing blood.

"You are," she says, her voice softening. It's worse this way. "You want to hear her, don't you? Her last words. I have them. Audio. Pulled from the lab's black box before it went dark."

I stare at her. "You're lying."

"Am I?" She pulls a small field drive from her coat pocket, holding it between two fingers like a piece of candy. "Thirty seconds. Her voice. Saying your name. Saying what she wanted you to do. You want it, or you want to keep pretending you don't care?"

Kade steps forward, ignoring the rifle. "Maya, don't take it. It's a lever. She does this. She—"

"Shut up," I tell him. My voice cracks. "Just shut up for one second."

He flinches. Actually flinches. For a second I feel guilty—then I feel angry that I feel guilty.

"What's the price?" I ask Iris. "Nothing's free in the zone. Especially not from you."

Iris smiles. It's not kind.

"Smart girl. Sparrow's girl, after all." She tucks the drive away. "Price is simple. You turn around. You leave him here with me. You walk back through Gate One with your pretty forgeries and I let you live. You get the audio. You get to know your mother didn't die for nothing."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I detain you both," she says. "You both go in the holding cell while I call it in. Federal remnant protocol says any unregistered contact with Lab Zero gets flagged to command. You know what that means? No more gates. No more lab. You never hear her voice."

The wind cuts through my jacket. The red mark on my wrist from Nox's blood contract throbs—hot, itchy, alive under my sleeve. I can feel Kade's eyes on me.

"Don't," Kade says, his voice right against my ear. He leans in, his zip-tied hands brushing my arm. His breath is warm against my temple, smelling of blood, sweat, and that cheap soap from the safehouse. "Maya, please. You don't owe her anything. You don't owe me anything. But if you leave me here, that audio is gone and the lab seals for good."

"You'd say that," I hiss back. "You need me to get you through. That's the whole deal."

"I need you to live," he says. "That's the deal now."

"Touching," Iris says, watching us like we're lab samples. "Forced proximity does wonders, doesn't it? You two look good together. All that tension."

"Screw you."

"I get that a lot." She takes a step closer, until the three of us are tight in a triangle by the burn barrel. The guards give her space. She's the alpha here. "So what's it gonna be, Maya? Blow your cover and stay with your ghost? Or hear your mother's last words and walk away clean?"

My chest is hammering. I think about the safehouse. Ten years of forging papers for other people to run, never for me. I think about the sparrow. I think about Kade breaking into my place and saying my mother's codename like he had a right to it.

"Play it," I say. "Right now. Let me hear it before I decide anything."

Iris tilts her head. "Not how it works."

"Then we have no deal," I say, and I grab Kade's zip-tied hands. My fingers are freezing; his are burning hot. "You want to detain us? Do it. But you're not splitting us up to make it easier for you."

Kade stares at me, eyes wide. Surprised. Something else, too. Something that makes my face get hot despite the wind.

"Interesting choice," Iris murmurs. She looks at our joined hands. "Sparrow was stubborn too. Got her killed."

"Don't talk about her like you knew her," I snap.

"I did know her," Iris says. Her voice goes flat and hard. "I held the door while she bled out because protocol said not to extract. So don't you tell me what I knew."

The air goes dead. Even the guards go still.

Kade's hands tighten around mine. "Iris—"

"You brought her daughter here, Kade," Iris cuts him off, her eyes locking onto mine, too close. "You brought Sparrow's daughter back to Lab Zero. You know what protocol he's turning on at the lab?"