Chapter 4

The service corridor was a nightmare. Twisted metal, hanging wires sparking, the smell of smoke thick and acrid. The building groaned around me, each sound a threat. I moved carefully, testing each step. My ER skills were useless here; this was pure survival instinct.

The Navigator offered occasional, unhelpful prompts. Caution: Structural integrity compromised. Thanks, I hadn't noticed.

Finally, I broke through a jammed door into what was left of the VIP lounge. Dust hung heavy in the air. Groans and cries for help.

And there was Chloe Sinclair, propped against a fallen marble column, looking surprisingly intact except for a delicate smudge of soot on her cheek.

"Ava?" she said, her voice weak but definitely not dying. "Thank God! My leg... I think it's broken."

I knelt beside her, my medical training taking over. "Let me see."

Her ankle looked twisted, probably a sprain, maybe a minor fracture. Painful, yes. Life-threatening, no.

As I was examining her, I saw her discreetly tap her phone, which was clutched in her hand, screen barely visible. A tiny green light indicated an active call.

She was talking to someone. Julian.

"Julian, darling, it's awful," she was saying, her voice suddenly much more panicked and breathless than it had been with me. "Ava's here, but the whole ceiling is about to come down on us! We need help now! This specific spot... it' s going to go any second!"

She was exaggerating, by a lot. The immediate area around her, while damaged, was more stable than the corridor I' d just crawled through.

I looked up. The ceiling above me, near the doorway I' d entered, was definitely looking worse. More cracks were appearing.

A new, horrifying thought hit me. She was diverting resources. To her. Away from potentially more critical areas, or even... away from me.

Julian' s voice, tinny and distant from her phone, but audible: "Chloe, hold on! I'm sending the primary team to your exact location. They'll get you out. I' m coming myself as soon as they clear a path."

Chloe gave me a small, triumphant smirk that she quickly hid when she spoke back into the phone. "Oh, hurry, Julian! I'm so scared!"

Rage, cold and pure, flooded through me. She was using this. Using me.

Before I could say anything, a firefighter' s voice boomed from the other side of the debris near Chloe. "Ma'am! We're here! We'll get you out!"

They were focusing on her, just as she' d planned. Julian arrived moments after they' d cleared a path to her, his face a mask of concern. He rushed to Chloe' s side, helping her up, his attention entirely on her.

He didn' t even glance at me.

Just then, the section of ceiling above the doorway I was near gave a final, terrible groan.

"Ava, look out!" Ben' s voice, from somewhere far off, through my radio.

But it was too late.

Pain exploded in my head, my shoulder, my leg. Darkness.

The last thing I heard was Julian' s voice, cooing at Chloe. "You're safe now. I've got you."

Then, my own comm crackled. It was Julian. His voice was strained, tight.

"Ava? Are you there? What's your status?"

I was trapped. Debris pinned my leg. Blood was trickling into my eyes.

"Julian," I gasped into my radio, my voice weak. "I'm... I'm trapped. The west corridor access... it came down. I'm injured."

There was a pause. I could hear Chloe in the background, whimpering dramatically.

"Ava," Julian said, his voice sharp, impatient. "I'm dealing with Chloe's trauma right now. She almost died. This isn't the time for your dramatics. The professional rescue teams are on site, let them handle their jobs."

He hung up.

He hung up on me.

Dismissed me as dramatic. While I was bleeding out, trapped in his collapsing building.

The Navigator' s voice, cool and precise in the sudden silence of my fading consciousness: Rejection number one hundred registered. Target: Julian Vance. Method: Dismissal during life-threatening situation. Mission parameters fulfilled.

One hundred.

I' d done it.