Page 48 of Anchor
For a beat, he couldn’t move. His fist closed against the table, hard enough to rattle a pen across the glass.She said it out loud.
“Say that again,” he ordered.
“She named it. She made it personal.”
Reid shut his eyes once, a flash of her face last night in his apartment, her voice when she’d first told him the truth about Emberline. And now she’d carried that truth into a room of students. A room where any one of them could’ve been wired. Where Vos’s people could be listening in real time.
“Then Vos has it now.” The words were stone in his throat.
Bluebird didn’t argue. She knew it too. “Does she realize? Does she think she was only teaching?”
“They’re always listening,” Reid bit out. He forced his voice to stay calm, because panic would only get her killed faster. “Don’t let her out of your sight. Pull her the second class ends.”
“Copy,” Bluebird replied.
“Bluebird…” Reid’s hand clenched the phone. “She doesn’t get to walk alone anymore.”
The line cut, but the tension didn’t. He dropped the phone on the table, braced his hands on the edge, and bent his head for a breath that didn’t fill his lungs.Claire. Beautiful, brilliant, reckless Claire.She’d just lit a beacon on herself the size of the Ford School.
Reid straightened. The schematics in front of him blurred, irrelevant. Training schedules and equipment checklists, none of them mattered now. He needed eyes on her, a shadow team moving with her every step, and an extraction plan that could flip in under thirty seconds if someone decided to move.
She’d made herself impossible to ignore. And now it was on him to make sure she didn’t vanish for it.
SIXTEEN
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN – FORD SCHOOL, ROOM 416 – 1150 HOURS
The lecture hall emptied in fragments with students muttering, laptops shutting, the shuffle of backpacks. Claire stacked her notes with calm fingers, ignoring the odd looks and the way a few students lingered like they weren’t sure what they’d just been handed.
She’d said Emberline. Out loud. Not in a whispered confession. Not in the dark. In daylight. Before witnesses. The words still tasted sharp on her tongue. Part of her felt relief. She released the load on her back.
The room was quiet except for the hum of air vents as she slid her laptop into her bag. She wasn’t ten feet from the podium when Bluebird appeared, leaning against the front row desk, arms folded, posture deceptively casual.
“You’re with me.” She was already checking sightlines.
Claire frowned. “Lecture’s over. I don’t need?—”
“Yes, you do.” Bluebird cut her a sharp look. “You put a bullseye on yourself. And Anchor knows it.”
Claire’s pulse tripped.
Bluebird moved her along the hall with an ease that wasn’t asking permission. “We don’t linger. Car’s on standby.”
Something tightened in Claire’s chest. She glanced behind her, half-expecting to see shadows moving. “They were only students. It wasn’t?—”
“It was Emberline,” Bluebird said. “That wasn’t a lecture. That was a broadcast. You don’t get to walk alone anymore.”
Claire swallowed. The sharpness in Bluebird’s tone wasn’t cruelty. It was protective.
Claire lived her whole life under her mother’s control, and now, though it was her fault, another circle was closing. Yet, in the back of her mind, one name steadied her.Reid.
Bluebird’s stride was deceptively easy, but urgency pulsed in every step. They threaded through the hall, her eyes flicking across doorways, glass reflections, and stairwells.
Claire tried to keep pace, her bag tugging at her shoulder. Her pulse thudded too loud in her ears. “You’re treating me like I’m?—”
“A target,” Bluebird said flatly. “Because you are.”
Reid’s SUVtore down South University Avenue, engine growling, lights cutting through early-afternoon glare. His hand locked on the wheel, the other on the dash-mounted comm. Bluebird’s words replayed in his head, hammer strikes every time:She named Emberline. Showed imagery. Made it personal.
