Chapter 174
The halls were too quiet for this hour.
Winter moved quickly, keeping to the darker corners of the corridors, the manila folder tucked tightly beneath his jacket. He avoided the wider intersections, stepping softly past flickering lights and security cameras he already knew the blind spots of.
Winter’s footsteps echoed down the narrow corridor, his mind still churning with the information from Zara. He hadn’t expected the file to contain so much.
Genetic warfare, weaponization, manipulation... how hadn’t they thought that far? it was everything they feared, and then some. Now, Subject 17 had been moved, which shattered the fragile plan they’d been working on.
He reached the barracks on the edge of the restricted housing wing in under five minutes.
The door to Bale’s unit was already cracked open. Weird, considering how much sensitive information he had in there.
Winter could hear hushed voices inside—sharp, clipped. Preparing.
"Almost there," Bale was muttering, his voice a hard-edged whisper. "Another five minutes and we’d have been ghosted."
"You sure about that?" Harlow replied, it sounded like he was shoving a duffel onto his shoulder. "The gate shifts in twelve. We miss that, it’s another twenty-four."
Winter knocked once and pushed it open.
Harlow spun around first, pistol half-raised before his expression shifted into shock. "Shit—Winter?"