BOOM.
A screen shattered as Alpha hurled his whiskey glass across the room.
"I want her back!" he roared. "I want her now!"
Selina stood with her arms crossed, watching the ltdown unfold.
"She was helped," she said flatly. "You trained your n like wild dogs. One of them turned. Maybe more."
Alpha pointed a trembling finger toward the tech team.
"Find out who. Check every death, every false signal. Soone let her through."
The team scrambled into action.
Selina stepped closer and leaned into his space.
"Even if you bring her back," she said coldly, "she won’t break now. You know what death does to people like her."
"She’ll break," Alpha growled. "Everyone breaks."
Selina stared at him. "You didn’t kill the sister quickly enough. You made her a martyr."
Alpha opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.
Selina and Alpha locked eyes.
"She made contact," Selina said quietly.
"She’s building sothing."
Alpha’s smile returned, dark and razor-edged. "Then let her build. When we find her again, we won’t sell her."
He looked down at the old video of Ayla, paused on her crying face.
"We’ll use her to destroy every last trace of GhostNet. Burn her world down."
Just then, one of the guards approached. "Boss, her sister is injured, not dead. We followed her; she was helped by soone. Two of our guards were with her, and one was a stranger. The CCTV footage is looping, so we can’t see where they went."
Alpha replied, "Of course she is being helped. Where else would they go but to the hospital? Check all the nearest hospitals and prepare the team."
The guard nodded and left. Ten minutes later, he returned, saying, "They are at Red Woods Hospital, twenty minutes away from here, the closest to the western Pennsylvania forest."
Alpha grinned wickedly. "I don’t care about the stranger who helped her or the guards. We will deal with them later. Right now, I want only Lunel." His words were sharp, and no one knew what he was about to do.
A minute later, all the vehicles hit the road back-to-back toward Red Woods Hospital, with Alpha sitting in one of the cars.
After twenty minutes, the vehicles screeched to a halt outside the hospital. Alpha got out of the car and signaled for his n to surround the building.
With that one signal, the area was surrounded.
When he entered the hospital, his guards and he checked every floor. Nurses and doctors looked terrified at the sight of ard guards; patients were scared as well. But they couldn’t find anyone.
Alpha shot one of the nurses and asked the doctor, "Where did they all go?"
The doctor said, "I don’t know what you’re talking about."
Alpha shot another nurse; she scread and clutched her arm.
"Do you still say you don’t know what I’m talking about?" he demanded.
He pressed the gun against the doctor’s mouth and asked, "Will you tell or not?"
The doctor cried and nodded. Alpha pulled the gun away and asked, "Where did they go?"
"They left through the back door," the doctor answered.
After hearing this, Alpha shot the doctor in the leg. "This is the price of keeping Alpha waiting." With that, he left the hospital, but the guards found no sign of anyone escaping. However, they did discover a single shoe print leading toward the forest. The guard smirked and reported back to Alpha.
"Boss, footprints are heading into the forest."
Alpha replied, "I’m going back. Bring her to alive."
Ten minutes earlier, when Liam got the ssage, he told Jax, Jane, and Aylin, "We’re sticking together. No matter what happens, we’ve got each other’s backs to make sure no one gets caught. The doctors are done, and we need to move, but Ayla can’t co with us."
Aylin tensed up. "He’s going to find her."
"Not if we do this right, we will escape from here and return when Alpha and his n are gone. We will change the hospital if needed, once her health stabilizes," Liam replied.
He moved closer to the bed and pulled the curtain back a bit. Ayla was lying there, pale but alive, with her arm all bandaged up. Her eyes started to flutter open.
"You’re safe," Liam said softly. "Listen carefully."
She tried to sit up, but Liam gently pushed her shoulder back down. "Stay still. Don’t talk to anyone unless they’re in white. Got it?"
Her lips trembled. "They’ll kill you."
Liam kept eye contact. "Not tonight."
Jax glanced at the exit. "We’re running out of ti."
Liam nodded and pulled a hospital bracelet, already stained with dry blood, from his jacket.
"This is now hers," he said, loosely putting it around Ayla’s wrist. "Her na stays in the hospital records. As far as Alpha’s concerned, she never left this bed."
Jane looked worried. "So, what’s next?"
Jax said, "He will know Ayla is not with us."
Liam’s gaze shifted to Aylin. "He’s coming after her, not us."
Aylin nodded, her mind still occupied with thoughts of who Liam really was. But this was not the ti; she would deal with him later, she thought to herself.
The corridor lights flickered.
Liam was the first to move.
They avoided the main entrance, taking a maintenance tunnel and heading down a stairwell that slled like bleach and rust, finally slipping out through a service door that led into the woods.
The rain had started, light and steady.
They took off running.
Outside, Liam suddenly stopped and crouched down. He pressed his hand into the mud, then carefully looked back at the hospital, dragging their footprints for a few steps before cutting sharply to the east.
"Forest logic," he murmured. "Predators follow straightforward paths."
Jax looked back. "You’ve done this before."
Liam stayed quiet.
They changed their trail three tis, first toward the river, then along an old logging road, backtracking and climbing over rocks to avoid leaving marks.
By the ti Alpha’s n found the first footprints, the group was already long gone, breathing steadily, bodies low, and pushing ahead with determination. But who knows, Alpha trained his n like wild dogs; they can sll.
*****
Back at the Hospital
The guards were prepared to head into the forest to search for them.
They didn’t look back at the hospital.
They didn’t check the rooms.
They didn’t notice the nurse quietly re-entering a room on the third floor, adjusting an IV and whispering softly, "You’re safe. Don’t move."
Ayla stared at the ceiling, her heart racing, as silent tears slipped into her hair.
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