The scent of antiseptic was supposed to be a comfort, but to Hannah, it smelled like an arena where she was slowly losing. / Chapter 8 / 13

Chapter 8 - In the Dark"Mr. Henderson?" Hannah called out, her hands sweeping across the dark sheets of the bed.

"Over here, darlin'," a weak voice rasped from the corner by the bathroom door.

Hannah dropped to her knees. The elderly carpenter was huddled on the floor, dragging the portable oxygen tank with him.

"The machine stopped humming," the old man wheezed, his fingers clawing weakly at his collar. "I couldn't... couldn't breathe."

"I've got you," Hannah said, her hands working with frantic, practiced precision in the dark. She checked the regulator valve, switched the tank to manual backup flow, and listened for the hiss of compressed oxygen.

Hiss.

The sound of life.

Mr. Henderson slumped against her shoulder, taking deep, shuddering gasps of air. "What's happening, Hannah? Are we back at the clinic?"

"No," Hannah whispered, staring into the impenetrable blackness of the room where the windows showed only the dark, stormy outline of the Chicago skyline. "We're somewhere safer."

A heavy shadow filled the doorway.

Marco stepped inside, his back to the hall, his pistol raised. "They're on the third floor. We have maybe two minutes before they clear this wing."

"We can't move him," Hannah said, her hands still resting on the old man's shoulders. "His blood pressure will bottom out if we disconnect the manual line now."

"Then we hold the room," a deep, gravelly voice echoed from the hallway.

Hannah’s heart gave a violent leap.

Damen Moretti stepped past Marco into the room. His overcoat was gone, his white shirt stained with dark smudges of soot and engine oil, and a nasty cut bled freely from his left temple down to his jawline. But in his hands, he carried a heavy tactical shotgun he must have taken from one of Vance's guards.

"Damen," Elena's voice crackled over the small radio clipped to Marco's collar. "They're coming up the service ladder. All four elevators are dead."

Damen didn't answer the radio. He walked straight to the window, checked the heavy latch, and then turned his gray eyes toward Hannah in the dark.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice cutting through the hum of the oxygen tank with absolute focus.

"I'm fine," Hannah breathed, pulling her sleeve down. "What about the server?"

"The data is safe," Damen said, a grim, humorless smile touching his lips. "The federal prosecutors have everything they need. By sunrise, Arthur Vance won't even own the clothes on his back."

"Then why are they still coming?" Hannah asked, the terror finally breaking through her professional calm.

"Because rats don't stop biting just because the ship is sinking," Damen said, pumping the shotgun with a sharp, metallic clack that echoed like thunder in the small room. He stepped sideways until he blocked the doorway completely, standing between Hannah and the dark hallway. "Marco, take Elena and get the patients to the freight elevator in the sub-basement. My car is waiting in the alley."

"And you?" Marco demanded.

"I'm going to finish a conversation my father started nine years ago," Damen said softly.

"I'm not leaving," Hannah said, standing up from the floor despite her shaking knees.

Damen turned his head slightly, his gray eyes catching the faint green glow of the emergency exit sign down the hall. "Hannah. Listen to me."

"No, you listen to me," she snapped, stepping right up to him, ignoring the soot on his shirt and the blood on his jaw. "I spent twelve hours yesterday smiling while my clinic burned down around me. I smiled when I was exhausted, I smiled when I was terrified, and I smiled when people walked past me on the pavement while I was dying." She grabbed the lapel of his ruined shirt, her fingers curling into the fabric. "I am done smiling, and I am done watching other people fight my battles. If you stay in this room, I stay in this room."

Damen stared down at her, his chest rising and falling slowly. For the first time since she had met him, the terrible stillness in his eyes fractured, replaced by a fierce, blazing wildfire.