Page 19 of Hunted to Be Mine

A thunderous blast rocked the room. The reinforced glass viewing window rattled in its frame as my pen skidded across my notes. Alarms shrieked to life, piercing and urgent, as the overhead lights cut out and crimson emergency beacons washed the room in red.

“What the hell?” I pushed back from the table.

Another detonation vibrated through the floor—deeper in the facility this time. The concrete beneath us hummed, metal groaning somewhere far below. Specter was already up; the patient was gone, the operative back. His body tensed as he scanned the room, checking exits with a stillness before violence.

“They’re here.” He said nothing else, his face gone to stone.

“Who’s here?” I stood, reaching for my tablet.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he caught my upper arm. “Stay behind me. Move low.”

“Wait…” I tried to pull back. “The security protocols…”

“Won’t help if they’ve already breached this level.” His eyes locked on mine for a split second, and I caught something I’d never seen in him before, a flash of fear, gone fast. “Trust me or die. Simple choice.”

Another blast rocked the corridor, closer this time, the concussion shoving us both forward.

Specter slid to the door, pressed his ear against it, then eased it open an inch. The corridor outside was chaos: gray smoke hung in thick clouds, emergency lights cutting through the haze in strobing flashes. The distinctive pop-pop-pop of gunfire rattled from somewhere ahead, punctuated by shouted commands.

“Keep your head down. Stay on my six.” He glanced back at me. “If I go down, run toward the central security hub, not the exits. They’ll have those covered.”

“They who?” I kept pace, but he was already moving.

We slipped into the corridor, hunched low. The smoke stung my throat, acrid and chemical. Three SENTINEL operatives ran past, tactical gear gleaming in the emergency lights, weapons drawn. None even glanced our way, focused on whatever threat lay ahead.

“This way.” Specter moved, guiding me in the opposite direction.

I followed closely, keeping his shoulder within reach. “We’re going deeper in,” I said, keeping to his shadow.

“Trust me.”

We crept forward through the thickening smoke. Muzzle flashes strobed from an intersecting hallway: quick bursts of white light followed by the thunder of automatic weapons. Specter’s left arm extended back toward me, blocking me in place behind his larger frame.

The shouting grew louder, SENTINEL operatives barking orders I couldn’t understand through the noise of alarms and gunfire. Each step we took deeper into the smoke felt like moving through a nightmare. My clinical mind tried to catalog what was happening: attack patterns, entry points, tactical objectives, but my thoughts kept stuttering.

Specter moved like he’d trained for this hallway, navigating the smoke-filled corridor by instinct. His body telegraphed each decision a split second before he made it, the slight shift of weight before changing direction, the tensing of muscles before pulling me down lower.

“Wait.” His forearm hit my chest, barring me.

We froze as boots thundered past our position. Three figures in tactical gear swept through the intersection ahead, theirfaces obscured by masks. Not SENTINEL uniforms. These were sleeker, darker, built for stealth rather than overwhelming force.

“Oblivion,” I whispered, close to his shoulder.

He went still beneath my hand. “Yes.”

Cold hit hard. “They’re here for you.”

“Not just me.” He looked at me through the red haze, steady. “Remember that woman I almost remembered? Dark hair? I think… I think she might be important. To both of us.”

Before I could process that, gunfire erupted from the hallway ahead. Specter grabbed my hand and yanked me toward a maintenance alcove as bullets punched into the wall where we’d been standing.

“Stay close,” he said, voice clipped. “And whatever happens next, remember, I need you alive. You’re the only one who can put me back together if we survive this.”

The smoke thickened as we pressed forward, emergency lights casting shadows that jumped across the walls. Specter navigated through half-collapsed ceiling panels and chunks of concrete, his movements sure despite the chaos around us.

“This way,” he guided, tugging me toward a maintenance shaft where the lights flickered and died.

I stumbled over debris, each breath rough. “Do you even know where we’re going?”