Page 64 of If You Go
“I think so.” Is all she finally answers me.
“Okay Siren, I love you. Give the phone back now.”
“Now, Brenden,” is how Gavin begins. “Would you like to stay on the phone, or would you like me to send you a video. I am happy to do either.”
“No thanks. I will catch up with you later though, alright?” I end the conversation as if I was signing off with an old friend, hanging up before he can say another word.
The call ends, and for a moment, the whole room is silent, the kind of silence that hums.
My hand is still tight around the phone. Everyone’s looking at me, waiting for the cue I can’t give fast enough.
The air feels like it’s thick with electricity, every breath too hot, too shallow.
Corver’s voice breaks it. “Arnie’s in position. He says he can kill the power in three minutes.”
Three minutes. That’s nothing. That’s everything.
“Tell him to do it,” I say, my voice low, but it cuts through the room like a blade.
Josh grabs his gear. Gunnar’s already moving toward the door. Stefan checks his weapon with a calmness that makes me wonder if anything ever rattles him. Me? I’m already halfway gone in my head. The distance between me and Surry is a living thing now, clawing at my insides.
Corver’s laptop screen glows, reflecting off his glasses he placed on his nose a while ago, as numbers flicker down. “Two minutes,” he says.
I pace the narrow space between the map table and the door. Every sound feels amplified; the scrape of Velcro, the metallic snap of magazines locking into place, boots on concrete. It’s the rhythm of preparation, and it’s the only thing keeping me from losing my damn mind.
“Thirty seconds,” Corver murmurs. He doesn’t look up.
The industrial block holding the target warehouse goes black, one floor at a time. The hum of power dies, replaced by a sudden, living quiet, the kind that carries danger.
“That’s our cue,” Gunnar says, voice a growl.
“Move!” I bark, and the room explodes into motion.
Doors slam open. Engines turn over, muffled under black tarps and night. Stefan’s convoy splits, two SUVs heading west, one south. Corver stays behind, headset on, eyes darting across camera feeds as the power cuts ripple through the grid. We leave him the final sedan in case he needs to move.
We’re flying through city streets before I even realize my hands are shaking. The headlights are off once we are two blocks away. The city feels hollow. Just our tires, the wet slap of rain that started forty-five minutes ago, and the faint echo of distant sirens.
“Two minutes out,” Josh says from the passenger seat.
“Stay low,” I reply. “We breach fast, clear faster.”
When the warehouse comes into view, it looks like a carcass against the skyline–brown, broken, ribs of rusted metal and shattered glass. I can feel the tension rolling through the car, sharp and electric. Stefan’s men are already fanning out through the shadows, ghostlike in their gear.
Corver’s voice crackles through the comms. “Snipers down. You’re clear for entry.”
That’s all I need.
“Go.”
We hit the doors like a thunderclap. Boots, voices, the deafening crash of impact and the echo of gunfire that follows.
And then it’s chaos.
Shouting. Smoke. Flashlights cutting through dust and debris. The air feels too tight to breathe. Every step forward is instinct, not thought. A prayer turned into motion.
I can’t see her. Not yet. But she’s here.
I know it.
