“I’m waiting.” Peter’s voice rolled through the room like thunder rumbling before the storm.

  Everyone had gone silent the second he stepped into the waiting room. Patrick and Tyler had joined them a couple of minutes earlier, and now went still, as if trying to disappear into the walls. Peter hadn’t said a word until now—just stood there and looked each of them in the eye in turn. Waiting for someone to explain everything that had gone wrong in the past hour.

  His eyes settled on Jane, but only for a second. He looked away the moment he saw her smudged face and red eyes. His face, however… Even back in the summer, when Eugene had attacked headquarters, Peter didn’t look so shaken. Jane could only shrink back into the chair, away from the cold rage filling his eyes.

  Ryan cleared his throat at her side, but Skull stepped forward, drawing Peter’s attention. “The Commandos shot Pain. She and Marco were following one of the jeeps.”

  “How?” Peter forced this one word out with obvious effort.

  “They suspected that the jeep might be in one of the warehouses,” Skull said. “So they left Dave and Chad in the van to watch it and kept searching. The van was parked out of sight. They would’ve been fine, if the driver hadn’t run out.”

  “What driver?”

  “The van driver. They’d found the van at the airport lot. He was gagged and tied up in the van.”

  Peter’s icy glare turned on Jane and Chad. “You took a civilian with you for a ride?”

  “He was knocked out,” Skull interfered again, before Jane could come up with anything. “They couldn’t leave him like that in the cold. I think the Commandos were going to hide until Marco and Pain left but then got spooked and bolted, guns a-blazing.”

  Jane could see Peter struggle with his anger as Skull stopped speaking. She knew all the things he was thinking about, everything they’d done wrong, everything that could’ve been done to avoid this. He nodded to himself, the muscles in his jaw twitching. She guessed he was too out of it to yell or argue at the moment.

  Instead, he strode right to the infirmary door.

  She shot up to her feet, grabbing Chad’s arm when she saw he was still staring off into space, oblivious of everything around him. Her eyes searched for her sister as she stepped into the infirmary. Peter halted, Jane nearly bumping into him, and a second later she saw why.

  Even knowing that Pain was still alive, that there was hope, the amount of blood everywhere… Jane swallowed down the acid in her throat. She shouldn’t feel like this; she was used to blood, to bloodbath, but this was her sister’s. If Jane’s stomach wasn’t empty, she would’ve spilled its contents right onto the floor.

  At her side, Chad drew a thin breath.

  She turned around, white noise filling her ears. She needed a moment, just a second to breathe, some distraction. Her palms were sticky with sweat and blood, and she headed to the sink in the corner, pulling Chad along.

  “How’s she doing?” she heard Peter ask in a strangled voice.

  “Critical but stable,” Doc replied. “Gotta do some tests before I can tell you more.”

  “What happened to your hair?”

  Jane blocked out their voices, running the tap. The cold water sent a rush through her veins, unpleasant but sobering. She pumped some soap into her palm and turned to Chad. “Hey, let’s get you cleaned up.”

  He didn’t seem to hear her, his eyes glued to Pain even if it meant turning his head like an owl.

  Jane clasped one of his hands with her cold fingers. He didn’t even flinch.

  She didn’t know how to snap him out of his shock, and if it mattered at the moment. It took her a minute to get all of the dried blood—Pain’s blood—off his hands, but the mundane task helped her clear her head and look at the scene without the emotions clouding her mind.

  Handing a paper towel to Chad, she dried off her hands and turned to look at Pain once more.

  The tubes that had connected her to Marco and Dave were gone, only one still coming out of her chest, sucking out the extra air and blood. But they hadn’t even taken off her gear.

  “You didn’t operate?” Jane blurted. “How is this possible?”

  “Was the damage bad?” Peter asked almost at the same time. “Her lungs?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Doc said. “But she’s healing.”

  “What?” Peter looked dazed.

  Doc drew a deep breath. “I’ll explain later,” he said to Peter, before turning to Jane. “And you—you can ask him.” He jutted his chin at Chad. Doc’s head tilted to the side, his eyes studying Chad’s glassy gaze. “Whenever he snaps out of whatever this is, anyway.” He returned to Pain and the wet cloth that Tiffany handed him.

  Jane could only stare, thinking she must look exactly like Chad at the moment, while Doc and Tiffany cleaned Pain of blood and prepared a bed for her.

  “Her head?” Jane asked, noticing a white bandage on Pain’s temple.

  “Just a scratch,” Doc said with a wave of his hand. “One of the bullets must’ve grazed her. Lucky, huh?”

  Jane swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yeah,” she breathed. “Lucky.” A warm hand wrapped around hers, and she squeezed it, not needing to look to know whose it was.

  Marco and Dave joined them, keeping as much distance between each other as possible. Having made sure Pain was all right, Marco came up to Chad and peered into his eyes.

  His palm cracked against Chad’s cheek, making Jane flinch.

  Chad shook his head, his eyes gaining focus, and glared at Marco. “What’s that for?”

  “Oh, look,” Marco sneered. “It speaks.” He walked out, not waiting for the others.

  Chad looked at Pain once more, this time with clear eyes, until Tiffany stared at them. Her delicate eyebrows rose, hinting it was about time they gave her and Pain some privacy so she could clean her up.

  “Come on.” Jane elbowed Chad, just as Doc led Peter to the nurses’ room.

  She leaned into Ryan when he wrapped his arm around her, exhaustion weighing down her steps. Stuck in a strange place between wanting to pass out until morning and not knowing how to sleep after what had happened, she only moved one foot after the other, until she realized it was just her and Ryan on the fourth floor.

  She looked up at his face as he opened the door for her. “Stay with me tonight,” she said. The moment the words rolled off her tongue, her chest heaved, and tears sprang to her eyes.

  Ryan’s arms were around her in a heartbeat. “All right. It’s all right,” he whispered, pulling her into the room.

  She collapsed against him, knowing they could hear her wailing down on the second floor but unable to stop it. And although no one had ever held her tighter in her entire life, it was still not enough to keep her from falling apart right there and then.

  Chapter 28

  Dave walked into the office waiting room, finding Skull dozing at his desk, his big head propped on his even bigger hand.

  He halted, unsure what to do. He’d woken at the break of dawn, the few hours of troubled sleep making him feel even crappier than before, and realized he wouldn’t be able to sleep again. Instead, he’d taken a cold shower, put on jeans and an old hoodie, and headed to the infirmary to check up on Pain. But there was also the matter of finding out the latest news on the Commandos, so he’d swung by the waiting room. Waiting, indeed, he thought as he stood there, contemplating if waking up Skull would put his life in any immediate danger.

  “I can hear you breathing,” the giant grumbled, cracking one eye open. Dave breathed out. “Did you want something?”

  Dave came up to the desk, grabbing a chair and turning it backward before he sat down. “I was wondering if you got anything new on the Commandos. We were gone for two days, and then last night…” he trailed off, a memory of being knocked off his feet while Chad screamed filling his head. “With everything that’s happened, you must have something, right?”

  Skull opened the other eye and rubbed his face, suppressing a yawn. Contemplating. Not sure if Dave deserved to know.

  His chest swelled with a deep sigh. “You should talk to Peter,” was all he said.

  “Peter?” Dave pointed at the office. “Is he…?”

  “He’s in there. No one sleeps in this building anymore.”

  “Okay.” Dave got up, putting the chair back in its place by the wall. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.” Skull’s dark eyes glimmered with something akin to irony, and Dave wondered if he was imagining things, or if he had actually learned to read the man’s reactions.

  When he bothered to react to things, anyway.

  Peter was in his chair when Dave came in, battling with his laptop. “Goddammit,” he muttered, scowling. He glanced up at Dave, and back at the screen, hitting a button multiple times.

  “What’s up?” Dave asked, coming up to him.

  “I don’t know. It just froze, look.” Peter spun the laptop, his hands flying up helplessly.

  Dave looked at it for a second before hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del. “One of the apps has crashed is all. Here, just restart that one.” He turned the laptop back around.

  “Thank God.” Peter looked up at him, now that the problem was solved. “Can’t sleep? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here this early.”

  “Yeah. Was going to check on Pain and Chad, but I thought maybe you had some update on the Commandos.”

  Peter’s gaze clouded at the sound of Pain’s name, and he swallowed, leaning back in his chair. He didn’t look mad anymore—just tired.

  “We got them on camera last night,” Peter said at last.

  Dave’s heart beat faster. “Really? Faces and all?”

  “Yes. I should probably bring you up to speed on this, so… Wait.” Peter pushed a button on his phone, speed-dialing a number. “Doc, you up?”

  “It’s Tiffany,” a woman said. “He’s asleep.”

  “Is anyone down there with Pain?”

  “Marco and Chad.”

  “Tell them I need them in my office,” Peter said.

  “All right.”

  Peter ended the call, turning back to Dave. Apparently, Dave was the last to wake up no matter how early he did it.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Pain?”

  “She’s okay. I checked already,” Peter answered.

  “Okay?”

  “Well, the same. Nothing we can do at the moment, just wait.”

  Dave nodded. He pulled a chair out and sat to wait for the others.

  Peter got back to whatever he’d been doing before Dave came in, while Dave stared at his interlaced fingers, trying not to think about the previous night. About what Marco had said.

  “Hey, we left our bags on the plane,” Dave started, but Peter cut him off with a raised finger. He pointed at the corner behind Dave.

  Turning around, Dave saw their bags in a heap on the floor. “Thanks.”

  The door opened a second later. Marco locked eyes with Dave for a heartbeat, before grabbing a chair across the table, and Chad sat next to Dave. He was wearing a black sweatsuit and looked somewhat better than before, so Dave guessed he’d gotten some sleep. But his eyes still seemed a bit glassy.

  Peter looked at Marco. “Ryan?”

  “He’s with Jane,” Marco answered. “They haven’t come down yet, so it’s just us.”

  “Good. She should get some rest.” Peter tapped a few buttons on his laptop, frowned at the screen for a second, then turned it around for them to see. “This was taken last night, right before you landed.”

  The three of them peered at the screen. It turned greenish, like a video from a night-vision camera, and got a few shades lighter, revealing a wide street and a car whose headlights had lightened up the picture. A big, square black car—a jeep.

  Dave held his breath as he watched another vehicle pull up from the other direction, a passenger door opening to allow two men out. They were wearing black, like the Commandos, but no masks. And even though the quality of the image wasn’t the best, he would easily recognize them in a crowd.

  The other jeep, however…

  “Holy shit,” Marco said, stretching his neck even more. “Is that Victoria?”

  Peter must have nodded, but Dave didn’t dare to look away from the screen.

  Her back was to the camera, but it was obviously a woman, small, and with a dark ponytail. A man walked at her side, this one wearing a mask, and they spoke briefly to the other two before returning to their car.

  Two seconds—that’s how long it took them to turn around and walk a few paces before climbing in the back seat. But it was enough time for Dave to see her face and memorize it.

  The doors closed, and the jeeps disappeared.

  Peter spun the laptop back around. “We can’t know for sure if that’s Victoria, of course. But we’re assuming it’s her for now. Rooney’s running her picture through all databases right now, including the FBI. We’ll find her. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “And the other two?” Dave asked, his throat dry.

  “We’re searching for them, too. But Victoria’s our priority, since finding out about her background could give us some idea of the Commandos’ end goal. If it’s personal, whatever it is they’re trying to achieve.”

  “Why is only one of them wearing a mask?” Marco asked.

  “I suppose he’s the only one who cares about anonymity. The others must be on the wrong side of the law already, so they just don’t bother and don’t care.”

  Marco nodded and scratched his jaw.

  “This is the first time we got something on them. Something we can use,” Dave said.

  One corner of Peter’s mouth lifted in a sad smile. “Not the first. The first was the dog cams. It was just glimpses and stills, but we got enough data to analyze the Commandos’ routes so we could set up good cameras, like this one,” he said, pointing at the laptop. He looked Dave in the eyes. “Victoria got careless just once, and we got her. So it really was a good idea. It worked. It’ll all be over soon.”

  “Over how?” Dave asked, unclear where they stood on the whole Commandos situation. They had to be punished somehow for everything they’d done. “Say, we find this woman, then what?”

  “We’ll be able to track her back to the lab, hopefully. If she’s using a legit phone, that is. We’ll bring her in, then take the lab and get our people out, and the others… If they don’t want to cooperate, they’ll answer for their crimes like all humans do. We’ve got more than enough evidence, and the police will be happy to have all this served on a platter. It’s not the first time.”

  Dave was speechless. He’d waited for this, craved a breakthrough, something that would bring them closer to solving this problem. Some kind of closure, for him, for Elena. But now, hearing this…

  He kept his face in check as he said, “I see. That makes sense.” His voice came out low but calm, even though he hated this solution. “Anything else?”

  Peter shook his head and looked at the others. “Grab your stuff there in the corner when you go.”

  They left the office, taking their bags, plus the girls’ and Ryan’s, and Dave paused when they stepped out into the hall. “You going back to the infirmary?” he asked Chad.

  “Yes.” Chad avoided looking him in the eyes, his face expressionless.

  “I’ll go with you. Just gimme a sec,” Dave said, lifting his bag.

  Chad nodded, and Dave ran back to his room and swung the bag through the door. “You hungry? Wanna grab some coffee on our way?” Dave said as he joined Chad again.

  “No.”

  “You sure? You gotta eat something eventually, you know.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Dave opened his mouth to protest, only to snap it back shut. It dawned on him that just a few days ago, Chad had felt exactly like this, nagging at Dave to eat something, to stop drinking, to get out of his room or let him in.

  He swallowed hard, realizing just how pointless it was. That if not for Pain and what happened the previous night, plus the weekend at Albert’s, he probably would have still been the same. In fact, the dark cloud that had swallowed him whole after Elena’s death was still there, lurking just around the corner.

  Dave pushed it away and followed Chad into the elevator. “Okay then,” he said quietly, pushing the second floor button.

  They did get coffee, after all, Dave insisting they stop at the vending machines. He grabbed a few protein bars, too, and followed Chad through the waiting room and into the infirmary. Marco wasn’t there, and Dave silently thanked the heavens for not having to face him again.

  Pain lay in bed, covered up to her chest, looking pale and vulnerable without any makeup on. The machines at her side beeped and pinged every other second, and Tiffany stood next to them, writing something on a clipboard.

  “How is she?” Dave asked, coming up to Pain’s bed. “Peter said she’s okay?”

  Tiffany turned to him, eyebrow arched. Her face looked drawn, shadows under her eyes. “I wouldn’t call a coma okay, but her vitals are good.”

  “Coma?” Dave’s stomach flipped. “Peter didn’t say anything about a coma.”

  “And what did you think this was?” The nurse put the clipboard on the nightstand and folded her arms on her chest. “Did you expect—”

  “Tiffany,” Doc interrupted her, entering the room. He walked past Dave, leaving a trail of aftershave in his wake. “I thought you were sleeping. You need to get some rest.”

  Her shining blue eyes locked with his, and she opened her mouth, as if to protest, but he stepped closer and put a hand on her waist—maybe a bit too close—and she nodded, dropping her gaze.

  “I’ll be back in six hours,” she said, walking to the exit.

  “No need. It’s Anna’s shift today,” Doc replied. “You did very well last night.”

  She paused to look at him, and left with a nod.

  Doc turned to Dave, pulling on a fake smile. “So nice of you to stop by and annoy my nurses like that.”

  Dave winced. “I just wanted to know how Pain was doing. I understand she’s stressed after the long night. A word or two would’ve been enough.”

  Doc flicked his wrist, dismissing Dave’s response as he disappeared in the nurses’ room.