Page 69 of Beyond Redemption

I shut the door and turned seeing that Liis was already heading for Stella’s room.

“Gently,” I said, reaching for the bag. “Nothing’s happening yet.”

“I know.”

I keyed the radio once, listening to the crackle of voices layered under static, turning it down once I heard Stella’s sleepy half-cry from the back room. Liis’s spoke to her softly, making the world smaller for her in all the right ways.

I moved to the window and watched dust rise beyond the north fence, thin at first, then thicker, as if the desert itself had begun to stir. It was the truth. Nothing was happening yet, butwhatever was lurking beyond the fences had awoken General Marcel’s Arizona Border Recon Patrol, and they were about to learn what that choice would cost them.

Chapter Thirteen

Liis

Seventeen pairs of feet shuffled past the reinforced inner entrance of the bunker. The first door we’d passed through on the surface required a keypad. It looked like any other, heavy and secure, but not out of place. Beyond it, a narrow set of stairs led down into a space lit by a single caged bulb, casting a harsh circle of light. At the far end stood a massive steel blast door, nearly nine feet tall and four feet wide, its segmented surface built to seal tight, operated by a thick wheel lock reinforced with internal hydraulics.

The Maddox brothers, their wives, and children stepped in, some of the younger ones small enough to be carried. With Staff Sergeant Ibarra, Thomas, Olive, and me, we crowded together at first, forced into careful steps to avoid bumping into one another. Once inside, the bunker opened up around us.

Naomi's description hadn't done it justice. Beyond the entrance lay an underground facility large enough to hold transport vehicles, living quarters, a medical bay, and even weapons caches, hidden beneath the ABRP's compound in a way that made me doubt even the U.S. government knew it existed.

I stood just inside the entrance, watching my family come through before Ibarra sealed the door behind us. Trenton and Camille came in last, Camille balancing Oliver against her shoulder, one hand steady at the back of his head while he slept. Trenton’s gaze swept the bunker in one pass, almost as ifhe expected whatever had prompted our quick relocation to be waiting for us inside.

The door closed behind us with a low, final sound that didn’t echo so much as settle into place. The ominous feeling was subtle but unmistakable. No one said anything, but the collective thought seemed to move through our group that we hadn’t just moved to safety, we were cut off from the world above.

Reinforced concrete gave way to structure. Rows of transports parked in clean lines, the medical bay sectioned off in glass, and the living quarters extending down multiple corridors. The lighting was soft and even, designed to keep those inside from devolving into madness, but it couldn’t disguise the bunker’s purpose. I’d seen this movie before. Marcel’s secret pocket of survival seemed to come straight out of a film about governments preparing for the end of the world, except scaled to something that made sense for militia. Big enough to comfortably house up to 300 souls, and yet no space seemed to be wasted.

Olive stood slightly apart from the others, Stella perched on her hip, absently twisting strands of Olive’s hair between her fingers. Bodhi stayed close to her side, his stance angled outward, his gaze moving over the structure around us. His eyes tracked the ceiling, the beams, the walls, the vehicles—taking it in with an almost disbelieving curiosity.

The rest of the Maddox family gathered instinctively, tightening into familiar groupings. Abby’s hand rested against the arm Travis wasn’t using to hold Carter, Taylor stood just ahead of Falyn and their kids. Tyler kept a steady hand on Gavin’s shoulder while Ellison leaned in, speaking low into her husband’s ear. James and Jessica hovered near Travis, watching Trenton and Camille whisper quickly to each other.

Thomas stepped forward before questions became panic. “I know you’re all wondering why we’ve been relocated here. I’mnot going to sugar coat it. There’s been movement outside the perimeter,” he said.

More whispers, a few gasps.

He continued. “We don’t have a confirmed ID yet, but Marcel made the call to move us down here as a precaution.”

“Precaution for what?” Taylor asked.

I spoke up. “The families who live here know exactly how to move if something happens, where to go and how to get there without hesitation. In the unlikely event this escalates, we’d be trying to figure it out in real time, and that puts the twenty of us in the way. It made sense to bring us all down early to keep things controlled and everyone safe.”

The reaction came all at once, their voices overlapping and sharp.

“How long are we supposed to stay here?”

“What kind of movement?”

“Why didn’t you tell us before now?”

“Who’s out there?”

“How would they know we’re here?”

“Where are you two going to be?” Trenton cut through the rest, his focus locked on Thomas.

Thomas hesitated, and I instantly wished he hadn’t. “We don’t know anything yet,” he said, the typical authority in his voice noticeably absent.

“That’s not an answer,” Trenton snapped back.

Thomas stared at him for a moment, apology in his eyes. “It’s the only one we have.”