Chapter 6

Kandy remained slumped on the bottom stair, her fingers digging into the wood. She listened to the heavy roar of the armored SUV engines starting up outside. Her heart was still thrashing against her ribs like a trapped bird.

She forced a dry, hacking laugh, trying to mask her near-breakdown from Marlene's confused stare. It's fine, Kandy chanted in her head. Once I marry Jax, I'll have enough money to hire my own army. The military can't touch me.

Outside, the neighborhood was dead quiet. A few neighbors peeked through their dusty curtains, staring wide-eyed at the convoy of black, heavily modified tactical SUVs idling on the cracked asphalt.

Misha walked to the second vehicle in the line. He grabbed the handle of the rear door and pulled. It opened with the heavy, hydraulic hiss of a bank vault.

Janet ducked her head and slid into the backseat. The interior smelled of cold leather, ozone, and the faint, sharp tang of gun oil. It was the scent of a war machine.

Misha climbed into the driver's seat. He tapped the microphone clipped to his tactical vest. "Package secured. Initiate extraction."

The heavy SUV lurched forward, the suspension absorbing the potholes of the Rust Belt streets with ease.

Janet stared out the thick, tinted ballistic glass. She watched the decaying houses and rusted factories of her childhood blur past. She felt no nostalgia. The tether to her past life was officially severed.

She shifted her gaze to the rearview mirror, subtly studying the side of Misha's face.

Her mind was a clinical processing unit. She replayed Kandy's reaction to Misha. The hyperventilation. The dilated pupils. The involuntary loss of motor control. It wasn't just fear; it was the trauma of a prey animal remembering the jaws of the predator. Janet concluded that in the previous timeline, Kandy had sold Gaylord's secrets, and Misha had personally dismantled her.

The suffocating silence in the cabin was broken by Misha's deep voice.

"Do you have any undisclosed medical conditions? Heart murmurs? Hemophilia?" he asked, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.

"No," Janet replied, her voice perfectly even. "My physiological markers are optimal. I easily meet the military's criteria for a top-tier organ donor."

The heavy SUV swerved slightly. Misha's knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. The veins on the back of his massive hands bulged against his skin. The phrase "organ donor" had hit a raw nerve.

Misha reached over to the passenger seat and picked up a military-grade encrypted tablet. He thrust it backward over his shoulder without looking.

Janet took it. The screen displayed a Non-Disclosure Agreement. It was over a hundred pages long, stamped with Level 8 Department of Defense clearance.

She didn't scroll through the legal jargon. She didn't ask for a lawyer. She dragged her finger across the bottom of the screen, signing her name in a sharp, jagged script.

She handed the tablet back.

Misha looked at the signed document, then looked at her in the mirror. His brow furrowed. "Once we cross the perimeter into the Appalachian facility, you cease to exist on paper. You understand that?"

Janet met his icy stare in the reflection. "I'm not going anywhere until I cure your boss."

The SUV's brakes slammed hard.

The massive vehicle shuddered, the tires screeching against the asphalt before Misha forcefully corrected the steering.

Misha's eyes in the mirror were suddenly burning with a violent, protective rage.

"Listen to me very carefully," Misha snarled, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You do not use the word 'cure' in front of him. You do not offer him hope. The last three specialists who promised him a miracle left the compound with shattered femurs. He broke them with his bare hands."

Janet committed the information to memory. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Extreme trigger response to false hope. It was a crucial piece of the diagnostic puzzle.

"Understood," she said simply.

The convoy turned off the interstate, tires crunching onto an unmarked, winding gravel road that led deep into the dense forests of the Appalachian Mountains.

Janet closed her eyes. She let her consciousness sink deep into her own nervous system. She began mentally mapping the bio-electric conduction pathways of the Lazarus Protocol, preparing her body for the immense energy drain.

Misha glanced at her in the mirror. He saw her closed eyes and her perfectly still posture. He assumed the reality of her situation had finally crushed her, and she was silently praying to a god that couldn't hear her.

Two hours later, the convoy slowed to a halt.

They were facing a massive, sheer rock wall covered in military camouflage netting. Heavily armed guards in full tactical gear stepped out from the tree line. They approached the SUV, their assault rifles raised, initiating a brutal, invasive sweep for explosives and biometric verification.

They had arrived at the abyss.