Page 26 of Critical Mass
But believing it and knowing it for certain were two very different things.
Natalie closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slowly, steadily. She needed answers. Desperately. Every cell in her body screamed for clarity, for truth, for something solid to hold onto in this nightmare.
But she couldn’t demand those answers yet. Not while she was trapped in a helicopter, soaking wet and traumatized, flying toward some mysterious headquarters with people she didn’t know.
She needed to wait. To watch. To listen. To figure out who was telling the truth and who was lying.
And then, when she finally understood what was really happening, she’d decide what to do about her father.
Wait, she told herself.Just wait.
Even though waiting felt impossible when her entire world was falling apart around her.
The helicopter descended through the darkness, and Hudson saw the familiar outline of Blackout headquarters below. The main lodge was lit up like a beacon, the perimeter fence barely visible in the shadows, and an American flag—proudly illuminated with spotlights— snapped in the rotor wash.
Home. Or as close to home as he’d had for the past several years.
The skids touched down on the helipad with barely a jolt. The pilot killed the engine, and the rotors began their slow wind-down, the whomp-whomp-whomp fading to a hum.
Natalie stared out the window, her body language unreadable.
“Where are we?” she finally asked, her voice hoarse.
“Lantern Beach, North Carolina. Blackout headquarters.”
She turned to look at Hudson, and he saw her trying to process the name. “Lantern Beach? I’ve never been here, but I’ve heard about this island.”
Of course, she had. It was a popular tourist destination in the summer—a quaint beach town with good restaurants and a relatively unspoiled landscape compared to the more commercial parts of the Outer Banks.
What she didn’t know was that part of the island was owned by a private military contractor. At this point, their trust had been destroyed enough that she might mistake Blackout for mercenaries.
Hudson pulled off his headset as the blades stopped spinning.
“It’s a great little island,” Hudson said, trying for lightness and failing. “When danger isn’t chasing us.”
Natalie didn’t smile. Instead, she glanced around, taking in the details he’d long since stopped noticing.
He followed her gaze and saw the two-story lodge that served as their main operations center. The American flag flying proudly in bright spotlights. The tall fence surrounding the compound—chain-link topped with razor wire, designed to look like simple property boundaries but built to military specifications. Beyond it all, the calm waters of the Pamlico Sound reflected moonlight, peaceful and serene.
Nothing about the scene suggested the lethal capabilities housed within those walls.
“Are you ready?” Hudson unbuckled his harness.
Natalie’s eyes met his. “Ready for what?”
“To be debriefed. My boss is going to want to hear what happened at the marina—probably more. Probably about your father’s activities also.”
Doubt flashed across her face, along with fear she tried so hard to hide.
She was about to walk into an interrogation by people who viewed her as the enemy’s daughter—a potential intelligence asset at best and a security threat at worst.
She nodded anyway. “Okay.”
Heaviness pressed on Hudson’s chest at the resignation in her words.
He climbed out of the helicopter and offered her his hand. She stared at it a moment before accepting. He tried not to notice how her fingers trembled in his grip.
Whatever happened next, whatever truths came out in that debriefing, nothing would ever be the same between them again.
