Page 70 of Silence and Surrender

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Isabella

I had been punished. I’d managed to slip a paperclip from a stack of records during an authentication session. I’d worked the lock on my restraints while the guards changed shifts, making it halfway up the cellar stairs before they caught me. The Collector had been coldly furious. “Disobedience cannot be tolerated in valuable assets,” he’d said, voice as smooth and cultured as ever while he instructed the guards to strip me and hose me down with ice water. “No food. No water. No clothing. Lower the temperature in her cell.” His eyes had studied me clinically as I shivered violently on the concrete floor. “Next time, we remove body parts. Starting with those valuable fingers.” He’d traced a finger along my hand, mapping out exactly where the cuts would be. The other women had been forced to watch—a lesson in the cost of resistance.

My consciousness floated in and out with the drugs they kept giving us, reality fragmenting like a damaged canvas.

The alarm startled me from my fog—harsh and blaring through the cellar. Red emergency lights flashed, practically burning my eyes and making the cell bars look like they were bleeding. Guards shouted somewhere beyond my vision. Gunfire erupted, the sound echoing strangely through drug-clouded senses.

I curled tighter into the corner of my cell, the concrete floor abrading sores that never had a chance to heal. More gunfire. More shouting. The sound of bodies falling. Then heavy boots approaching, fast. Running.

The cell block door burst open with a crash that made me flinch deeper into my corner.

Then Colton was there.

At first, I thought he was another hallucination. I’d seen him so many times in my fractured dreams—sometimes in his tailored suit, sometimes in tactical gear, always too late to save me.

But this Colton was different. Blood on his face. Rage in his eyes. A gun in hands that had once held me so sweetly.

“Bella.” His voice sounded strange. Broken. Nothing like his usual commanding tones. “Oh god, Bella.”

I tried to focus on him, but the world kept sliding sideways. Everything hurt. Everything felt wrong. But Colton was here. Actually here.

“Can you hear me?” He reached for me, then stopped when I flinched. “Isabella, please. It’s me.”

Of course it was him. My Colton. The man who’d started training because he refused to be helpless.

“Real?” The word felt strange in my mouth. When had I last spoken? Days ago? Weeks? The drugs made everything uncertain.

“Real.” His voice cracked. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

More boots appeared in front of the cell. I tried to retreat further into the corner, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.

“Clear,” a familiar voice called. It sounded like Colton, but not. Cooper? His twin? “But we need to move. Now.”

Colton said something else to the men at the door. The words blurred together, everything distant except the desperate note in his voice. I watched through drug-clouded vision as Cooper worked on the cell lock, his movements precise and practiced.

The door swung open, and Colton was suddenly beside me, stripping off his tactical vest.

“Cover me,” he told someone over his shoulder, his focus entirely on me.

Hands reached for me. I knew I should fight. Should run. But I was so tired. So cold. So lost in the chemicals they’d pumped into me. And the hands…they were gentle.

“You’re safe with me,” Colton kept saying. His tactical vest was rough against my skin as he wrapped it around my naked body before lifting me. “You’re okay now. I’ve got you.”

Safe. Such a strange word. Like all the things that didn’t exist anymore.

More gunfire somewhere. More violence.

“Stay with me,” Colton’s voice rumbled through his chest as he carried me. “Please, Isabella. Stay with me.”

I wanted to tell him I’d never left. That I’d held onto thoughts of him through everything. That his memory had been the only thing keeping me sane in this nightmare.

But the words wouldn’t come.

The world fragmented again. Glimpses of corridors. The sound of gunfire. The smell of blood and metal and…sandalwood? We were moving through the facility, Stryker and Cooper clearing the way ahead of us.

“Almost there,” Stryker said from somewhere ahead. “Two minutes to exfil.”

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