Chapter 8: Ambush Protocol
The double doors shuddered on their hinges as Jack shouldered through, the dark smears on her tactical vest glistening under the fluorescents. "Your phone’s been a beacon for the last twenty minutes," she snarled, her eyes locking on Addie with a ferocity that didn’t need explanation, Tim moved on instinct, his body moving before his mind caught up, his hands, always so careful, gentle, curled into ready fists. Addie’s gaze darted past him, already mapping the corridor—fire exit to the left, supply closet to the right, distances and sightlines calculating in a frantic, silent rhythm.
"How many?" Tim asked, his voice low and utterly changed.
“I should have known!” Jack’s voice snarled, now closer, She stared directly at Addie, her grey eyes burning. “How many do you two want dead?” The accusation hung in the strobe-lit air, a tangible thing. She then looked at Tim, her expression twisting with a bitter, painful betrayal. “The bitch let in a squad.”
Jack’s words hung in the antiseptic air, each one a shard of ice. Tim knew this meant a squad of 40; Jack fought back tears, “10 are already dead thanks to you two and none of those were my soldiers., you killed the pediatrics ward.”Jack growled towards Addie, the sound raw and scraping against the quiet hum of medical equipment. Addie took a step back, her shoulder blades meeting the cold concrete wall as the number found its target. The sounds from the the surrounding wards seemed to warp, twisting into a silent accusation she could feel in her bones.
The raw truth of words still hung in the antiseptic air Spooks was already moving, his previously relaxed posture now a study in lethal efficiency as he blocked the corridor leading back to the wards. Tim instinctively shoved Addie behind him, his body becoming a shield against his old friend. “Jack, wait—” he began, but Spooks was already on them, one large hand closing around Addie’s wrist with impersonal force.
. Jack stood there, her gaze laser-focused on Tim, her previous calculation now replaced with raw, operational fury.
“WAIT WHAT?” JACK LOOKED AT HIM, GLARED WITH SUCH ACCUSATIONS that leaving her in France could never compare to.
“SPOOKS, WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DEAL WITH THEN THE RAT." THE DOOR SLAMMED SHUT AS JACK AND SPOOKS HEADED TO NEW CORRIDORS TO SECURE WHO THEY COULD. The finality of the slam echoed, leaving Addie frozen, the word ‘rat’ sealing around her like a shroud. The clinical truth of them a sharper cut than any blade. Before she could form a denial, Spooks materialized beside them, and before he left his movement silent on the polished floor.
He plucked her phone from her jacket pocket with a pickpocket’s ease, examined it for a moment, then crushed it in his fist with a sickening crackle of plastic and a sharp, sparking pop. The fragmented pieces, still warm, tumbled into a nearby biohazard bin marked ‘SHARPS’ before vanishing once more.
Before a single syllable could escape, a runner skidded into the corridor, his breath ragged, a handheld radio crackling with static and panicked voices. “Ma’am, we’ve got a breach signal at the secondary access—they’re inside the perimeter.” Jack’s posture snapped from controlled observation to lethal command, her hand already grabbing the proffered coms unit from the runner as she barked orders into it, her voice cutting through the chaos. “All units, converge on Sector Seven, seal the pediatric wing now, and someone get a trace on that signal.” She turned, her grey eyes sweeping past Tim to lock on Addie with pure, undiluted venom. “Use the rat as a body shield, The rat can die for all I care,” Jack growled she motioned to Spooks as they both moved, a synchronized storm of tactical gear and purpose, heading not for the threat but to secure the vulnerable patients and choke points. Tim had to stare at Addie, the echoing silence after Jack’s departure broken only by the distant sound of booted feet running. “Why?”
“It’s not a rule book, it’s civilization,” Addie shot back, her voice a sharp, defensive whisper in the sterile hallway. “You left that in France, I get it, but don’t act like I’m the monster for still believing in it.” Tim looked aghast, his face hardening as if she’d physically struck him, the warm blue of his eyes turning to ice. The cheerful echo of a child’s laugh from the ward sliced through the silence between them. He took a slow step back, creating a distance that felt more final than any locked door.
His gaze turned inward, fixing on a point in the sterile air as the pieces—her analytical intensity, her relentless questions, Jack’s immediate hostility—clicked into a brutal, new configuration. Tim now had to think, “So you used me..” He chuckled almost sounding like a mad man unhinged, unpredictable. “You just want a big what award?!” His voice wasn’t loud, but it scraped raw against the walls. Addie flinched as if he’d slapped her, the color draining from her face while the hum of the hospital seemed to swell into a roar.
Addie’s mouth opened, a desperate explanation about protocols and proportionality already forming. “Tim, I was just trying to—”
“Tell me, Addie,” he cut in, his voice low and shredded, finally turning to face her fully in the sterile hallway. “Are you going to forget the hundred-plus people you just killed?” The hum of the medical bay down the hall seemed to swell, a silent audience to his accusation. “Are they worth it? And she is not an It she is Jack a commander doing what your people aren’t. Protecting civilians.”
The words hung in the antiseptic air, a brutal verdict. Tim slid against the wall the farthest away from her, the rough concrete catching on his jacket as he created a sudden, cold expanse of floor between them, her hand still tingling where his thumb had just been. sound barely escaping her. He just looked at her, his blue eyes holding the distant, calculated chill of the man who’d left someone in France.
“It’s not murder to follow the law, Tim,” she said, her voice cracking under the weight of the ghost of children’s laughter drifting from the ward. He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture frayed with a helpless anger she’d never seen in him. “IF YOU COULDN'T TELL THE DOOR IS LOCKED,” TIM SOUNDED EXASPERATED AND IN NEAR TEARS, “THEY AREN'T GOING TO RISK YOU OPENING AN EXIT OR AN ENTRANCE FOR WHOEVER IS HERE.” The hydraulic hum of a secure door sealing somewhere down the hall punctuated his warning, a stark reminder of the permeable boundary between this sanctuary and the world that wanted it dead.
Addie’s head snapped up, her green eyes blazing. “It’s not murder?” Tim looked awestruck at the sheer stupidity of that statement. “You tell yourself that, your body count right now is higher then mine I bet.” he said, his voice dropping to a disbelieving whisper. the hospital’s sterile light suddenly feeling like an interrogation lamp. He watched her step back, the space between them widening into a canyon. “Welcome to the butchers club.”
The fragile quiet shattered as the heavy door at the corridor’s end crashed open, the sound echoing like a gunshot. Jack staggered in, her left leg a ruin of torn tactical fabric and dark, gleaming blood, one of Spooks’ arms slung heavily over her shoulders as he bled from a gash above his eye. “35 dead, 15 soldiers,” she spat, her voice a raw, metallic scrape as her gaze, burning with a fury beyond any Tim remembered, locked onto Addie. “You have 50 bodies on your head Rat. This isn’t even counting your friends.” Jack and Spooks made their way out, they were going to try and figure out what’s left, and triage placements.
Her own words echoed in the sterile air, a verdict he hadn't meant to pronounce so absolutely. TIM WAS IN SHOCK, HE ACTUALLY BROKE DOWN. A ragged, torn sound escaped him as his knees buckled, not from injury but from the sheer weight of the monstrous equation he’d just defined—her brilliant, moral clarity versus the fragile, bloody peace of this ward. He slid down the cold wall, his forehead pressing against the concrete, his shoulders shaking in a silent convulsion that had nothing to do with tears. Addie froze, her analyst’s mind short-circuiting at the sight of his collapse, her hand hovering uselessly above his heaving back. The ward was awash with the sounds of gunfire, large soldiers letting little kids know that things are going to be okay. the moment Addie created, a perfect, terrible knot she knew she could never untangle.
Tim turned toward a wide, reinforced window further down the hall. The glass was cool against his forehead as he looked down into a lower bay, where the stark white light of the hospital bled into a shadowed loading dock. Below, some team members moved still forms on gurneys with a brutal, efficient silence, while others knelt beside the wounded, applying pressure and speaking in low, steady tones. He watched a hulking man, the one who’d high-fived the girl earlier, cradling a conscious but bleeding teenager’s head, his bloody hands impossibly gentle. The two halves of the Wish Foundation were laid bare in one stark, silent tableau.
A sharp, percussive bang echoed from the main ward, not a gunshot but something heavier his 24 hours were up, “Walker we need docs, leave the rat and come help.”
Guard!” Tim barked, his voice stripping itself of all familiarity, becoming a cold, operational weapon. He caught the arm of a passing nurse whose scrubs were spattered with fresh blood. “Put her in the secure cell, double the watch, and do not engage.” He didn’t look back as two large orderlies materialized, their hands firm on Addie’s elbows, steering her away from the chaos erupting around the operating suite. He was already moving, tearing his shirt off as he hit the scrub room doors, the scent of iodine and crisis flooding his senses, his doctor’s programming overriding everything else.
He saw a new arrival, a man whose leg was a ruined mess of fabric and dark wetness, surrounded by busy personnel. Jack doing her own stitches because everyone was taking care of the carnage around them. Tim was ignoring Addie he couldn't hear her as he was looking out at the chaos of his own making, his entire being focused on assessing triage priorities, the metallic scent of blood cutting through the antiseptic air.
“Tim—” she managed, her voice sharp with a fear she couldn’t mask, as they guided her back down the buzzing hallway with professional finality. He watched, jaw tight, as they disappeared around the corner toward the reinforced bunkroom, now a cell under military-grade guard. Turning on his heel, Tim strode toward Jack, his eyes locked on the haphazard gauze taped to her forearm, already blooming with a fresh stain. “That is not going to hold,” he said, pointing at her makeshift bandage, his doctor’s instinct surfacing through the tension. Jack rolled her eyes, “you care since when?”
“Jack.”
“I’ll be fine, go get your girlfriend.” Jack soon moved with a supply cart where it was needed.
Tim stood a little trying to figure out what to say, before he could form a reply, a shrill, continuous alarm shattered the ward’s calm, followed by a nurse’s sharp cry from an open doorway. “We’re coding in three! It’s Jack!”
He was already moving before he saw Jack slumped against a supply cart, her face ash-grey, one hand clutching her abdomen.. “JACK? STAY WITH ME.” TIM MOVED WITH UTTER EFFICIENCY THROUGH THE CRASH CART GETTING JACK TUBED AND THEN TO AN OPERATING SUITE.
JACK WAS ON THE OPERATING TABLE AND GETTING PREPPED FOR SURGERY, TIM WAS SCRUBBED AND INSIDE IN SECONDS AND WITH THE OTHERS AROUND HIM HE WORKED IN PERFECT CONCERT TO GET JACK’S BLEEDING TO STOP.
Below, a team working with quiet efficiency around her got her into the recovery room. Tim’s eyes instantly tracked the monitors, reading the story in the digital rhythms. The systolic pressure was strong, the oxygen saturation perfect, the rhythm steady and sure. JACK’S VITAL SIGNS WERE THERE AND STABLE IT WAS SUCCESSFUL, WHY DID TIM FEEL SO GUILTY. He took a seat and watched the slow, even rise and fall of her chest under the hospital blanket, and the memory of France—of her unprotected—crashed over him with a nausea no perfect chart could ever fix. “You trusted me, didn’t you… oh God,” he said, his voice cracking as his head fell into his hands, trying to fight back tears. “I’m sorry.”
He pulled up a chair and sat at her bedside. “I’m so sorry.”