Page 87 of Echo: Line
"Almost there," Stryker calls from the front. "Thirty seconds to safe house."
Those thirty seconds stretch into forever. Each heartbeat pushes more blood out of the holes in my shoulder. Willa's packing the wounds, stemming the flow, but there's so much already. The van floor is slick with it.
We stop. Doors open. More hands lifting me, carrying me inside. The safe house basement becomes an improvised surgical suite—bright lights, Willa scrubbing up, Sarah assisting. Tommy hovers in the background, laptop open, already analyzing the data I bled for.
"Pain medication," Willa says, prepping a syringe. "This is going to make you drowsy, but I need to work on that shoulder. Understand?"
I nod. Or try to. The movement makes the room spin.
The injection burns going in, then warmth spreads through my arm. The pain recedes to distant throbbing, replaced by a floaty sensation that makes thinking difficult.
"Keep talking to her," Willa orders, working on the entry wound. "Keep her with us, Alex."
"Delaney." His face appears in my line of sight. "Tell me about the download. What did you get?"
"Everything." The word comes out slurred. The medication is working fast. "Names. Operations. Financial records. Everything Tommy said we needed."
"That's good." His hand is still holding mine. "You made this possible."
"We did." The correction feels important even if my brain's getting fuzzy. "Not me. We."
He squeezes my hand. "We did."
"Did we win?" The question sounds childish even through the drug haze. "Did we beat them?"
"Not yet." Kane's voice, from somewhere beyond my limited vision. "But we have the ammunition now. Tommy's confirming it all."
"Data's clean," Tommy calls. "Names, operations, financial records—everything we need. Cross's intel was perfect. This is enough to burn the entire Committee structure."
"Time to burn them all down," Kane says. Weight in those words. Promise and threat combined.
"Do it right." I force the words out clearly despite the drugs pulling me under. "Make it public. Make it stick. Federal standards. Chain of custody. Everything documented."
"We will," Alex says. His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. Gentle. Grounding.
Willa finishes with the entry wound, moves to the exit. The sensation of her working on tissue I can't see is surreal—pressure without pain, tugging without agony. Whatever she injected is impressive.
"Shoulder's going to be stiff for weeks," she says. "No permanent damage but you're benched from active operations until this heals. Understand?"
"Benched?"
"Grounded. Sidelined. No combat operations."
"But—"
"No arguing." Alex's voice carries command authority. "You took a bullet. You're done until you heal."
"I can still?—"
"No." He leans closer, making sure I can see his face through the drug fog. "You did your part. You got the evidence. Now you heal while we finish this."
Kane appears beside him. "He's right. You've earned rest. Let us handle the next phase."
"Next phase?" I try to sit up. Willa pushes me back down with one hand.
"Stay still or I'm increasing your dosage."
"Next phase," Kane repeats. "We have the evidence. Now we expose it. Every news outlet, every journalist, every platform that'll run the story. We make it so public the Committee can't suppress it. We burn their entire structure down and make sure everyone knows why."
