Page 17 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

SEVENTEEN

Punishment Protocol

ALLY

Dreams of home shatter as the overhead lights snap on without warning. My muscles contract automatically, my body remembering pain before my brain fully wakes. The collar feels heavier today. The metal edge digs into the raw skin of my throat.

It’s been two days since Malfor’s revelation about the nanobots. Despite my best efforts, I’m no closer to figuring out how to use that knowledge to our benefit. There has to be a way to send a message. Warn Guardian HRS about the nanobots.

Three hours of sleep. Maybe four. Not enough to clear the fog of yesterday’s work from my brain, not enough to steady my hands or ease the throbbing behind my eyes.

Across the cellblock, Stitch is already awake, standing at her bars. Our gazes meet through the narrow spaces between cells. Something shifts in her expression—a subtle tightening around the mouth, a glint in her eyes that wasn’t there yesterday.

My stomach twists. She’s taken a risk, and from the almost imperceptible nod she gives me, it was calculated.

Deliberate. Dangerous.

“Stay sharp.” Jenna’s voice carries from her cell, deliberately casual despite the undercurrent of exhaustion.

Boot steps echo down the corridor before anyone can respond. Not the usual shuffling gait of morning guards but the precise rhythm of Malfor’s personal security team.

The cell doors unlock simultaneously, the now-familiar magnetic thunk preceding the guard’s barked commands.

“Out. Line up.”

They grab Stitch first, roughly, shoving her against the wall. Her expression remains neutral, but her eyes track everything—guard positions, weapons, the slight disruption in their usual routine.

My guard digs his fingers into my arm hard enough to leave bruises, marching me forward to stand beside Stitch. The back of my neck prickles with warning. Something’s wrong. The tension in the air tastes metallic, sharp enough to cut.

“What did you do?” The words barely carry between us, lips barely moving.

Stitch’s eyes flick toward mine, then away. “Took a chance.”

No time for more as we’re marched down the now-familiar route toward the labs. Left turn, right turn, left again. With each step, the guard’s grip tightens on my arm. With each turn, more security personnel appear in the corridors, faces tense beneath tactical visors.

Dr. Elkin waits outside the lab door, shoulders hunched beneath his lab coat, fingers working nervously at his collar. His eyes meet mine with something that might be pity or might be fear.

“Inside.” He steps aside, revealing the lab beyond.

The usual space has transformed overnight.

Additional monitoring equipment crowds the workbenches.

Two armed guards stand at each terminal.

Three men in suits I’ve never seen before pore over printouts and screens.

And at the center of it all, Malfor stands with his back to the door, perfectly still, hands clasped behind him.

“Miss Collins.” He doesn’t turn, voice pitched low and controlled in a way that sends ice water through my veins. “Your colleague has been quite busy.”

He pivots, smiles tightly with those cold eyes. “Did you know about her little project? Were you part of it?”

“I don’t?—”

“Don’t insult us with denials.” He gestures toward a monitor where lines of code scroll past, sections highlighted in angry red. “Three hundred and seventeen lines of rogue code. A beacon, buried in our security protocols. Designed to broadcast our location on a very specific receiver frequency.”

My heart stops, then restarts at twice its normal speed. Stitch tried to signal Guardian HRS. A desperate gamble using the very systems Malfor forced her to secure.

One of the suited men approaches Malfor, speaking in low tones. Malfor’s expression doesn’t change, but something hardens in his eyes. He turns to the nearest guard.

“Take them all to the courtyard. Now.”

The guard’s grip shifts from painful to bruising. Dr. Elkin steps forward, hand half-raised.

“The project timeline?—”

“Will be adjusted.” Malfor doesn’t look at him. “Some lessons require demonstration, Doctor. You of all people should understand that.”

They drag me back through the corridors, past Stitch. Our eyes lock for one fractured second, and I read the message there: Worth the risk.

When they throw us back into our cells, it’s only for minutes.

Just long enough for the guards to collect the others.

Rebel’s face has gone pale, her arm clutched protectively against her chest. Malia trembles.

Mia keeps her face blank. Jenna catches my eye across the cellblock, a question in her expression. I shake my head slightly.

Not now. No way to explain safely.

The cell doors slam open once more.

“Out. Courtyard. Now.”

Sunlight hits with a blinding force after days in fluorescent hell. The courtyard blazes white as the tropical sun is reflected off the concrete and metal surfaces, instantly causing sweat to bead on my skin. Gulls wheel overhead, screeching freedom we can’t reach.

They’ve arranged a semicircle of guards around a central post—metal, about seven feet tall, with restraints mounted at the top. Beside it stands a small table with objects I don’t want to identify.

Malfor waits beside the post in his rumpled suit. Sweat beads on his forehead but doesn’t diminish the cold calculation in his expression.

The guards force us into a line facing the post. Stitch, they drag to stand before Malfor. She stands straight, chin raised.

“I want to be clear about what’s happening here.” Malfor’s voice carries across the courtyard, pitched to reach all of us. “This isn’t punishment. It’s education.”

He paces before us, each step measured, hands clasped behind his back.

“One of you believed you could outsmart me. Could use my systems against me. Could signal your friends.” His gaze sweeps across us. “Let me explain why that was a profound miscalculation.”

He nods to the guards, who grab Stitch, forcing her against the post. Metal cuffs snap around her wrists, ankles, and waist. A final restraint locks around her throat, forcing her head up, immobilizing her completely. Her eyes remain defiant despite her vulnerable position.

“The signal was intercepted before it went anywhere.” Malfor moves to the table, running his fingers along the objects laid out there. “Your friends at Guardian HRS remain oblivious, still planning their doomed rescue mission. But this attempt suggests a failure in my conditioning program.”

His fingers select something from the table—a thin metal rod about two feet long. He tests its weight in his hand.

“The first lesson: disobedience has collective consequences.”

His thumb finds the remote in his pocket, and all our collars activate simultaneously. The pain is worse than before, not just stronger but somehow deeper, reaching parts of my nervous system that shouldn’t be accessible.

My spine arches, muscles contracting so violently I feel tendons tear. My vision whites out, then returns in fractured pieces. Around me, five bodies contort in identical agony.

When it stops, I’m on my knees, blood filling my mouth where I’ve bitten through my tongue. Jenna lies motionless beside me. Malia vomits weakly. Rebel makes a sound no human throat should ever produce. Mia groans, clutching her belly.

“That was thirty seconds at level four.” Malfor sounds like he’s discussing the weather. “There are three more levels available. I don’t recommend experiencing them.”

He turns back to Stitch, still immobilized against the post, her body trembling from the aftereffects of the shock.

“The second lesson: personal consequences for the instigator.”

Malfor turns back to the table, lifting two implements for us all to see. In his left hand, a bullwhip coiled like a sleeping snake, its leather tip worn from use. In his right hand, a thin metal rod, the kind prison guards might carry—heavy enough to break bone, light enough for precise control.

He steps toward me, both weapons extended. “Choose.”

The word doesn’t register at first. My brain refuses to process what he’s asking.

“Choose which one I use on her.” His voice softens to a terrible gentleness. “Or I use both.”

Stitch’s eyes lock with mine over Malfor’s shoulder. Even restrained, even bleeding, dignity radiates from her like heat. Her slight head shake tells me not to play his game.

But refusing means both weapons. Means twice the damage to her already battered body.

“The rod.” The words scrape my throat raw. The metal will hurt, will bruise, might crack ribs—but the whip will tear flesh and leave scars that never heal.

“Excellent choice.” Malfor hands the whip to a waiting guard, weighing the rod in his palm. “You see? Cooperation is so much simpler.”

The metal rod cuts through the air with a whistle, connecting with Stitch’s ribs. The sound of impact—metal on flesh, bone—echoes across the courtyard. Stitch doesn’t scream. Not for the first strike. Not for the second that lands across her thighs.

The third blow breaks her silence. Her scream tears through me worse than any shock from the collar, flaying something essential from my soul. And behind that scream, the knowledge that I chose this for her. That my hands might as well be wielding the rod.

“Stop!” The word rips from my throat as I lunge forward, only to be caught by guards on either side. “She was following orders. My orders.”

Malfor pauses mid-swing, turning toward me with eyebrows raised. The silence stretches between us, broken only by Stitch’s ragged breathing.

“Your orders?” His voice drops lower, intimate almost. “How interesting.”

He hands the rod to a waiting guard, then walks toward me. His shoes stop inches from where I kneel on the concrete.

“And what orders were those, Miss Collins?”

My mind races, constructing a lie that might divert his rage from Stitch to me. “I asked her to create a backdoor. A way to communicate with the quantum systems remotely.”