Chapter 14 - What Grief Made of Me
The smoke wasn't lethal.
Sedative aerosol.
Shaw needed us alive long enough to find the missing drives.
Marcus sealed the vent with his jacket.
Cole’s tactical team worked from outside.
Raymond panicked.
Victoria, monitoring remotely, screamed through comms.
My mother began coughing.
And my daughter kicked.
Hard.
I placed both hands over my stomach.
For months, everyone had made decisions “to protect me.”
Marcus.
Mom.
Dad.
The Army.
Even Shaw, in her own monstrous logic, claimed national security justified everything.
I was finished being protected without consent.
The vault had an analog fire release.
Old building.
Mechanical override.
Marcus couldn't reach it because the access gap was narrow.
I could.
Pregnant belly and all.
“Elena, no.”
I looked at him.
“Do not make another decision for me.”
He stopped.
I crawled beneath the shelving.
Found the release.
Pulled.
The door disengaged.
Cole’s team breached from outside.
Gunfire erupted down the corridor.
Shaw fled toward the lower archive.
I followed with Marcus.
We found her standing beside an incineration chamber.
Three missing drives lay beside her.
So did a photograph.
Aaron.
Alive after the date Mom believed she had seen his body.
Another lie waiting.
Shaw smiled.
“You all made such wonderful sacrifices for family.”
“Step away.”
“You still don't understand.”
She kicked one drive toward me.
“Read it.”
Marcus shouted:
“Elena, don't.”
I picked it up.
The file contained Marcus’s original mission authorization.
Signed by Rebecca Shaw.
And another officer.
Major Marcus Ward.
My husband had not merely been ordered into Meridian.
Years earlier, before we married, Marcus had worked within the program.
He knew Shaw.
He knew my brother’s case.
He knew my family.
Before he ever met me.
I turned.
Marcus looked destroyed.
“Tell me that's fake.”
He couldn't.
Shaw laughed.
“Ask him why he was introduced to you.”
My heart broke differently this time.
“Marcus?”
His eyes filled.
“My original assignment was you.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“To determine whether Aaron had contacted his little sister.”
I stared at the man I had loved for twelve years.
“Our first date?”
“Real.”
“Our marriage?”
“Real.”
“Was meeting me real?”
He whispered:
“No.”
The betrayal was almost elegant in its cruelty.
Then Shaw reached for the incinerator.
Marcus tackled her before she could destroy the drives.
Cole’s team rushed in.
They arrested her.
Everyone should have felt relieved.
I felt nothing.
Because while Shaw was being handcuffed, I opened another file.
And discovered Marcus’s assignment had officially ended eleven years ago.
Before our wedding.
May you like
He could have told me anytime after that.
He simply never did.
