Page 69 of Hollow State

"That's never good."

Wynn waved her hand over the top of the vials. "How did things go in here today?"

"Everything's ready." He had to admit that he was proud of that. Proud he'd been able to strip out the crap Emma had added, which was nothing short of mad science.

"I don't even know how Gus did it, but he got me everything I needed to make sure what I put in your bodies isn't some knockoff bullshit a crazy woman created."

"That eases my mind, and it’ll certainly make everyone else feel better, too."

"What about the patch?" Wynn asked. "I know Gideon was frustrated by the concept."

"We both abandoned it." Darwin stripped his gloves and dropped them into the bin. "A patch is only as good as the thing telling it when to release, and he's still fighting the pairing sequence. He doesn't have time to test if we could do one patch for each drug. There are just too many things that could go wrong with a patch."

"So, it's needles."

"It's needles and a person." He threaded his fingers through his hair. "That's the plan."

"Speaking of plans." She inched closer. "Me, Scout, Quinn, Neve, and Coulter finished the walk-through on the blueprints with Gideon. Every access point into and out of that building. We discussed where each person needs to go. What Zadie and Gideon need to get out of ORACLE. The physical hard drives from the data center that need to be removed. And how this can be done without us being detected."

"Which we both know is a slim chance."

"A risk we need to take."

"I don't have to like it to come around to it."

"Good. Coulter and Neve want to execute inside forty-eight hours."

Darwin took off his glasses, set them on the counter, and sighed. He knew this was coming. He wouldn’t complain about it, and he certainly wouldn’t try to sabotage the mission. No—he worked diligently at his task and double and triple-checked his work. "That's fast."

"It's as slow as we can afford. Every day down here is another day Burn builds his file and another day closer to Finch selling your drug to some South American cartel." She rested both hands on his shoulders. "It's a good plan. And it's the first time we're actually playing offense. We'll have the upper hand. Finch won't see us coming, and the best part is, we have Quinn."

"He could lose his job after this."

She palmed his face. "Did you ask him to stay?"

"No," Darwin said. "I understand he chose to help. That he's doing this because of what happened to his sister and he loves Scout. I get it. I just can't stop tracing this back to where it all began."

"Yeah, with fucking Finch." Her fingers worked into the muscles at the base of his neck. She'd figured out weeks ago that he carried all his tension there. "If Finch hadn't found you and your drug, it would've been someone else. So, stop. You did nothing wrong. Every single one of us has a reason for wanting to nail Finch. Once we get the proof, Quinn's people will put it in front of a judge."

"When you put it like that, it's really hard to argue with you."

"You should've learned by now that you're rarely going to win one of those."

He laughed.

"When this is over, you can practice medicine again. And you get to call Newton and your parents and tell them where you've been. That's the part I think about the most."

Before the bunker, Darwin always told himself he'd call them… tomorrow. He'd make it up to them next week. Next month. It was always later. And he told himself he didn't miss them.

But, God, he missed them so much.

Wynn lowered herself onto his lap with a knee on either side of him.

He put his hands on her hips and squeezed. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"When this is over, and you can pick something more consequential than a door." He tightened his grip. "What do you want?"