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By midnight, I was shaking so hard the bed rattled. Cyrus called a doctor—Julian—who shook his head.
"He needs to go to a real hospital, or she won't make it through the night."
Cyrus hesitated for two days. On the third day, I was drifting in and out of consciousness.
"Posie..." he whispered, his nose brushing my neck. "Should I trust you?"
It was the only moment of vulnerability he ever showed. And it was exactly what I needed.
He finally ordered Julian to take me down the mountain in a private SUV.
Kasper, the security chief, protested, but Cyrus overrode him.
"Wait for me at the bottom," Cyrus told me. "I’m coming for you."
As the SUV wound down the mountain pass, Julian whispered in my ear.
"You almost lost the bet. He only let you go because he thought you were dead."
Halfway down, I claimed I was going to be sick. When the car stopped, the silence was broken by gunfire.
Julian and I had planned it. We took out the guards in the car.
"Run!" Julian yelled. "Don't look back!"
I ran. I plunged into the freezing brush, the thorns tearing at my skin.
I ignored the fever, the pain, the exhaustion. I ran toward the only thing that mattered.
I saw the flashlights first.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapon!"
I raised my hands, clutching the maps and the deployment files I had memorized from Cyrus’s desk.
The adrenaline faded. The world turned black. I felt hands catching me as I fell.
In the darkness, I saw a memory.
A sunny afternoon at the academy.
"Hey, what are you putting down for your first choice of assignment?" I asked a young man.
"Front line," he said, smiling. "I want to protect the country."
"Then I’m going too," I said.
"Why?"
"Because," I whispered in the dream. "I have to protect you, Captain."
(The End)
