Page 44 of Pressure Point (Lantern Beach Blackout: Detonation #2)
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
Quinn’s hand hovered over the demolition control panel as Noreen’s weapon tracked toward Atlas.
Everything slowed to crystalline clarity—the rising water around their ankles, the sound of Hurricane Delilah’s weakened but still dangerous winds, the cold calculation in Noreen’s eyes as she prepared to eliminate the only people who could expose Sigma’s weather weapon program.
“Quinn, step away from those controls,” Noreen said with calculated calmness. “You don’t want to be responsible for killing your friends.”
Quinn remembered Dr. Hartwell’s body on the rocks. She thought about the thousands of people evacuating Lantern Beach.
How many more communities would Sigma destroy if they had their way?
“You’re right,” Quinn said. “I don’t want to be responsible for killing my friends.”
A smirk stretched across Noreen’s face. “Smart girl.”
The next instant, Quinn slammed her palm down on the demolition activation switch. “But I can live with killing you.”
Noreen gasped, and the shelter erupted in chaos.
Sigma operatives lunged toward her. Atlas’s team responded, fending the men off.
As they did, Quinn dove away from the control panel. Gunfire exploded around her, and the confined space turned into a deadly maze of ricochets and falling equipment.
Noreen’s weapon tracked toward Quinn.
She braced herself for what was coming.
Before Noreen could fire, Atlas tackled the woman.
The bullet went wide, missing Quinn.
“Run!” Atlas told her.
Running was the last thing she wanted.
But she needed to get out of the way so the guys could do their job without worrying about her.
Quinn scrambled toward the door. Before she reached it, a wide-screen monitor tumbled in the wind.
She saw it coming a split second before it hit her, catching her temple with brutal force.
Pain exploded through her skull, and Quinn felt consciousness slipping away as she collapsed to the flooded ground.
Just then, the barriers in her mind—the psychological walls that had kept her memories fragmented and incomplete—shattered like glass.
Calista Quinton. A meteorologist who was recruited for a top-secret project by the CIA.
After extensive training, she’d been sent on assignment to Russia.
The country wanted to develop the weaponization of weather. Her job was to infiltrate the program, find out what they were doing, and stop it.
She’d been successful.
Then she’d been whisked back to the states, given a new name, and she’d begun working for NOAA. She was done with her undercover days.
Her name had been scratched from all records so those she’d betrayed couldn’t find her.
That was where she’d met Dr. Hartwell. He’d begun acting strangely in recent weeks.
Together, they’d been sent on assignment down to Florida. It was where Hartwell developed his theory that someone else was experimenting with weaponizing weather.
As they’d investigated, he’d been taken. The terrorist group wanted him for his expertise.
Quinn had escaped, but she didn’t know who she could trust—only herself. She had to figure out a way to stop these people. So that was what she’d set to work to do.
Until these terrorists had found her and grabbed her too. They brought Dr. Hartwell and Quinn somewhere on the Outer Banks and tried to force her to help them.
She’d refused.
They’d told her they’d kill Hartwell if she didn’t.
She’d still refused. Hartwell wouldn’t want her helping them. She knew that.
When she saw the first chance, she’d run. But she must have hit her head somewhere in the process of escaping.
Her memories had disappeared.
Until now.
Quinn’s eyes snapped open as her complete identity crashed back into place. She wasn’t a fragmented amnesia victim anymore.
She was Calista Quinton, and she remembered everything.
Including exactly how to stop Sigma’s weather modification program permanently.