Page 25 of Rogue Hope (Hope Landing: New Recruits #4)

Blackness. Pressure. Disorientation.

Zara couldn’t breathe. Something heavy pressed against her chest, constricting her lungs as an unusual, blue-tinged dust filled her nostrils with each desperate attempt to draw air.

Her ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else, disorienting her completely in the darkness.

Fragments of awareness gradually penetrated her shocked senses. The weight was Finn. He was lying on top of her. His elbow dug painfully into her ribs, his body curved protectively over hers like a human shield.

Was he?

She couldn’t bear to even think the word. Struggling against his weight, she managed to snake one hand out from between them. She pressed the pads of her fingers against his neck.

He stiffened, shaking his head as if coming up for air and raised himself onto his forearms, taking some of the weight off her.

The healing black eye from their first encounter days ago was barely visible now beneath the strange bluish dust that coated half his face.

Blood from a superficial cut ran down his temple, but his features were animated, at least. He stared into her eyes, lips moving.

But she couldn’t hear a word. She shook her head.

Clearly, he misunderstood her. Panic lit his features. He rolled off her immediately, talking fast now.

She shook her head again and pointed to her ears.

He paused. Then nodded, making the sign for okay.

She mirrored the signal and pointed at his chest. You?

He sagged onto the floor and nodded.

She closed her eyes, lifting a shaky prayer of thanks.

The relief sent a rush of dusty air into her lungs, triggering a violent coughing fit that wracked her body with pain.

“—ara? Zara!” Finn’s voice gradually penetrated the ringing in her ears, sounding distant and distorted. His face hovered above hers, eyes wide with concern as he wiped the strange-colored dust from her face.

She blinked, trying to clear the grit from her eyes.

Where once stood tables and chairs now lay an odd scene of knocked-over furniture and a fine layer of blue-tinged dust covering everything.

The wood table Finn had pulled over them remained largely intact, just dented along one side.

The walls stood firm though the windows were blown out, suggesting a blast more designed to disorient than destroy.

Shafts of late afternoon sunlight penetrated through the blown-out windows, illuminating swirling colored dust particles that gave the space strange quality.

“Can you hear me?” Finn’s voice became clearer as her hearing gradually returned. “We need to move. Now. Can you stand?”

Zara performed a quick inventory as she sat up. Everything felt shaken and bruised, but nothing seemed broken. “I’m functional,” she managed, coughing again. “That wasn’t a normal explosion.”

Finn helped her to her feet, his touch firm but careful. The blast had amplified her lupus symptoms, transforming the usual background discomfort into sharp pain that threatened to buckle her knees.

“Comms are down.” Finn tapped his earbud. “Some kind of signal jammer or specialized EMP. Not typical blast interference.”

Zara tried her own comm unit, confirming his assessment with a frustrated tap.

He eyed the unnaturally colored dust. “We need to get clear. This feels staged. Like we’re being corralled.”

He guided her toward the side exit, navigating through the scattered furniture with cautious steps. Zara focused on placing one foot in front of the other, fighting the dizziness that suggested the blast had been specifically designed to incapacitate.

The kitchen showed signs of being the blast epicenter, though strangely contained—scorched but not obliterated. Finn paused, examining the pattern briefly. “This doesn’t add up,” he muttered. “Concussive force without the thermal damage you’d expect.”

The back door hung open, perfectly functional despite the rest of the chaos. Finn paused, drawing his sidearm and positioning himself protectively in front of her. He peered cautiously around the doorframe before motioning her forward.

They emerged into an eerily quiet alleyway with minimal debris. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows, transforming ordinary trash containers into potential hiding places.

Distant sirens wailed, growing steadily louder, but something felt off about the otherwise deserted area.

“No curious onlookers,” Zara whispered. “No one comes running after an explosion?”

Finn nodded grimly, taking her hand. “Almost like the area was cleared beforehand.” He tugged her behind him. “We’ll head northwest instead of east. Throw off anyone expecting a predictable escape route.”

As they moved deeper into the alley network, Zara couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Twice she turned to check behind them, seeing nothing but feeling the weight of unseen eyes.

Their comlinks crackled back to life without warning, causing Zara to flinch at the sudden burst of sound.

“—ara! Finn! Report status immediately!” Griffin’s normally composed voice carried unmistakable tension.

“—heat signatures lost after the explosion—” Deke’s voice overlapped.

“—evac route compromised by first responders—” Axel chimed in.

“—Zara, respond—” Ronan’s gruff command cut through the others.

Finn pressed his finger to his earbud. “We’re mobile. Heading northwest on foot. Building compromised but not collapsed.”

A chorus of relieved exclamations followed before Finn cut them off. “Fall back immediately. All team members return to the airport. Do not attempt extraction. Repeat, do not attempt extraction.”

Zara stared at him in confusion and irritation. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “We need them to?—”

Finn shook his head sharply, continuing his instructions to the team. “Possible Vanguard operatives in the area. High probability they’re tracking team movement. That blast was designed to flush us out, not kill us.”

“Yo, Z, you concur?” Ronan asked.

She bit her lip, fighting the disorientation, the ringing in her ears. Fighting her own conflicting emotions.

Whether she could trust Finn or not, he’d shielded her from whatever that strange explosion was meant to do. Which may or may not mean anything relevant.

She tried to sort through the info whirling through her brain, separating emotion from intel, wishes from good judgment.

“Zara?” Ronan again. “Do you concur?”

The solution hit her with complete clarity. Whatever Finn’s motives or allegiance, getting her teammates out of danger took priority. “I do. One hundred percent. We’ll rendezvous at Theta location.”

“Not going anywhere without you, Z,” Axel insisted.

“Ditto,” Deke added.

She clenched her fists. “Guys, do what Finn says. This feels like a trap designed to gather us all in one place.”

“The lady’s right,” Griff agreed.

“Always is,” Ronan added. “Confirm fall back. What’s your extraction plan?”

Zara motioned to Finn. “This is your show.”

“We’ll go dark and proceed to your Theta location,” Finn replied.

“Meet you there,” Ronan said.

Finn shook his head, eyeing her as he spoke. “Negative. You should wait until we’re certain we haven’t been tracked.”

Another excellent point. “Or you, either.”

Silence greeted her, but finally Ronan spoke. “Affirmative. Good call.”

“Maintain radio silence until designated check-in,” Finn said.

“We’re expecting her back in perfect shape, Novak,” Ronan added gruffly. “Alpha team out.”

The wail of sirens grew louder. Without discussion, they both pressed deeper into the shadows of a recessed doorway, bodies instinctively angling for maximum concealment.

They remained motionless as emergency vehicles screamed past the alley entrance, red and blue lights briefly illuminating the narrow passage before plunging it back into deepening twilight.

In the momentary flash of light, Zara caught a glimpse of movement at the far end of the alley that disappeared too quickly to identify.

“Did you see that?” she whispered.

Finn nodded almost imperceptibly. “Been tracking three shadows since we left the building. Keeping their distance for now.”

The temperature was dropping rapidly as night approached, the desert heat giving way to a chill that seeped through her dust-coated clothing.

Finn scanned their surroundings. “If Vanguard set that device, they’re watching. Whatever that blue stuff was, it wasn’t meant to kill us outright. They want something from us.”

“Agreed.” She shivered—from cold, pain, or the realization of their predicament, she couldn’t tell. Like it mattered.

Finn reached into a pocket of his vest to produce a flattened energy bar. He broke it in half, offering her the larger portion without comment.

She accepted it gratefully. The sweetness against her dry, dust-coated tongue was almost shocking after the strange metallic taste that lingered from the explosion. She chewed slowly, savoring the simple sensation of something other than fear and pain.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said after swallowing. “Why would Cipher want us cornered here? What does he gain by flushing us out this way?”

Finn finished his portion of the bar before answering, gingerly touching the fading bruise around his eye. “Could be he needs us incapacitated but functional. Alive for questioning or leverage.”

“That tracks more than elimination,” she agreed. “Everything he’s done so far has been precisely calculated. This blast was calibrated—disorienting but not deadly.”

Finn shifted position, wincing slightly—revealing that his seemingly unaffected posture was a facade. “The pattern is evolving, but the intent remains consistent. He wants what we know.”

Before she could respond, Finn’s phone vibrated. He extracted it carefully, angling the screen away from the alley entrance to minimize its telltale glow in the growing darkness. His expression hardened as he read whatever message had arrived.

“What is it?” Zara prompted, noting the new tension in his jaw.

“Source inside CIA administration,” he replied, voice low. “There’s an alert being distributed agency-wide. We’re being labeled hostile operators who accessed classified information regarding covert operatives embedded in the Sentinel network.”

“What?” The word escaped as barely more than a breath. “We haven’t?—”

“According to this, we did,” Finn interrupted grimly.

“Who’s your source? How reliable is this information?”

“Very reliable,” Finn answered, his defensiveness suggesting he had no intention of revealing his contact’s identity. “High enough clearance to see the alert before it goes wide.”

The implications crystallized with horrifying clarity. “Cipher,” she whispered. “He fed them false intelligence, made it look like we accessed those files.”

Finn nodded grimly. “And now he needs us alive but discredited. We’re the only ones who can contradict his narrative.”

“Which means ...” Zara felt the blood drain from her face as she completed the thought. “We’ll have arrest orders out from every government agency within hours. He’s isolating us.”

“Making us easy targets for whatever he’s planning next,” Finn agreed, a ghost of his old smile appearing briefly. “Nothing quite like being the object of a manhunt to limit your movement options.”

No kidding.

“We need to move,” Finn said after a moment, rising slowly from his crouched position. “Stay in the shadows, maintain distance from main streets. We’ll skirt the perimeter and make our way north. And watch for that blue dust—I suspect it might have tracking properties.”

Every movement generated fresh waves of pain, but she refused to show weakness.

With the distant shouts of first responders following them, they slipped deeper into the labyrinth of back alleys, guided by Finn’s seemingly instinctive navigation and the rapidly appearing stars in the desert sky above.

She sent a silent question skyward as they walked, wondering what purpose her Savior could possibly have in placing her in this position again. The stars offered no immediate answer, their cold light merely illuminating the next shadowed step in their desperate flight.