Chapter 16: Holy Defiance
The chapel door groaned shut behind them, sealing out the Alpine wind and trapping the scent of damp stone and cold wax inside. Dominic swayed on his feet, his weight still heavy on Catalina’s shoulder. The few candles flickering on the rough-hewn altar threw dancing shadows across the empty pews and up the stone walls, making the tiny space feel both cavernous and claustrophobic.
An elderly priest emerged from a door near the sacristy, his vestments simple, his face a map of deep lines. He startled at the sight of them—a bleeding, battered man leaning on a pregnant woman, a tough-looking young woman with a stroller, and a silent Black man with watchful eyes. This was not a typical wedding party.
“Can I help you?” the priest asked, his voice a soft, wary German-accented murmur.
Dominic straightened as much as his ribs would allow. He locked his knees, forcing himself to stand independently. The act was one of sheer will, a declaration. “We want to be married,” he said, the words scraping out raw but clear.
The priest’s eyebrows rose. He looked from Dominic’s bruised face to Catalina’s determined one, to the sleeping child. “This is… a matter for the civil authorities first. And you are not from this parish.”
“We don’t have time for authorities,” Catalina said, her voice steady despite the frantic hammer of her heart. “Please, Father.”
Dominic took a pained step forward. “We want vows. Before God. Even if He turns His face away.” He swallowed, the motion visible in his throat. “Say the names. Toretto and Toretto. Loud enough for Him to hear.”
A profound silence filled the chapel. The priest’s eyes widened with understanding. He looked at their identical dark hair, the same shape of their eyes, the way they stood together like two halves of one battered whole. He saw the fierce protectiveness in Letty’s posture, the way Tej had positioned himself subtly between the door and them. This was no simple elopement.
“This is…” the priest began, his voice failing. He crossed himself slowly. “A sacrilege. A sin.”
“Our sin,” Dominic agreed, his gaze never wavering. “Not yours. You’re just the witness. We’re already damned. We just want it said out loud, in a holy place, once.”
The priest looked at Mina, her chest rising and falling in peaceful sleep, her dark curls stuck to her forehead. He looked at Catalina’s hand, resting protectively over the slight swell beneath her sweater. His expression softened, not with approval, but with a deep, weary compassion.
“God hears all vows,” he said finally, his voice gaining a quiet strength. “Even those He may grieve.” He gestured to the space before the altar. “Come.”
Catalina’s breath left her in a rush. She helped Dominic shuffle forward. Every step was agony for him; she could feel the tremor in his frame, the sweat soaking through his borrowed sweater. They stopped before the simple wooden cross. Letty pushed the stroller to the front pew and stood beside it, a silent sentinel. Tej remained near the door, listening.
The priest stood before them, his prayer book closed in his hands. “We will do this simply. There is no license. This ceremony binds you only in the eyes of God. Do you understand?”
“We understand,” they said in unison, their voices blending.
“Very well.” The priest opened his book, his old fingers tracing the words. He began the traditional preamble, but his voice was hushed, adapted for this secret, shameful sacrament. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here…”
Dominic reached for Catalina’s hand. His grip was weak, cold, but the connection was an electric current. She could feel his pulse racing through his fingertips, a frantic echo of her own.
The priest sped through the scriptures, his eyes occasionally darting to the high, narrow windows as if expecting a lightning strike. When he reached the vows, he paused, looking at them with an intensity that saw past their injuries and their defiance, down to the raw, desperate love beneath.
“Dominic,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “Will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to live together in God’s holy ordinance? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep only unto her for as long as you both shall live?”
Dominic didn’t hesitate. He looked into Catalina’s eyes, the candlelight catching the blue in them, making them look like deep water. “I will,” he said. The words weren’t loud, but they filled the stone chapel, absolute and final.
The priest turned to Catalina, a flicker of pain in his own aged eyes. “Catalina. Will you have this man to be your wedded husband…”
She listened, but the words blurred. All she saw was Dominic—his pain, his stubbornness, the ghost of the boy she’d fallen for in a Barstow garage, the man who had fathered her children, the partner in this impossible life. She thought of the toy car in Mina’s hand, of his muttered promise to fix the oversteer. A sob threatened to climb her throat. She choked it down.
“I will,” she said, her voice clear and strong, cutting through the damp air.
There was no ring. The priest nodded, skipping the symbol. “Then by the authority vested in me by the Church, I now pronounce you…” He stopped. A long, tense silence stretched. He looked at the cross, then back at their expectant, battered faces. He took a breath. “I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss.”
It was not a blessing. It was a statement of fact, heavy with sorrow.
Dominic turned to her. He moved slowly, every shift of his torso a knife-twist. He cupped her face with both hands, his thumbs brushing her cheeks. He didn’t smile. His expression was one of solemn, soul-deep completion.
He kissed her. It was gentle, unlike the desperate kiss in the hospital. It was a seal. A sacrament of their own making. It tasted of blood and candle wax and forgiveness begged, not given.
When they parted, the priest was already stepping back, closing his book as if it were something dangerous. “Go in… go in whatever peace you can find,” he murmured, unable to say the traditional words.
“Thank you,” Catalina whispered, her eyes glistening.
Dominic just nodded, his face a mask of exhausted gratitude. He turned, his arm going back around her shoulders, leaning into her once more. The ceremony had cost him the last of his adrenaline.
Letty was already moving, grabbing the stroller handle. Tej pulled the heavy door open, a slice of icy grey daylight cutting into the candlelit gloom.
They moved out into the cold, a ragged, unholied procession. The wind had picked up, sweeping down from the snow-capped peaks and biting through their clothes. As they descended the worn stone steps, Dominic stumbled. Catalina and Letty caught him, holding him upright.
“The car’s just down the lane,” Tej said, his eyes scanning the empty, winding road below.
Dominic, breathing in ragged, shallow gasps, looked back once at the small chapel. It sat nestled against the towering, indifferent mountains, a speck of defiance. He had done it. He had bound them together in the only way left, under the gaze of a God who might despise them, in the shadow of a world that would destroy them for it.
He looked at Catalina, really looked at her, as they helped him into the waiting, nondescript sedan Tej had procured. “Mrs. Toretto,” he rasped, a ghost of his old, wry smile touching his lips.
It was a joke. It was a truth. It was a shield and a weapon.
Catalina fastened his seatbelt, her hands lingering on his chest, feeling the unsteady beat of his heart through the layers of wool. She kissed his temple, her lips cool against his feverish skin.
Letty secured Mina’s car seat beside him, the little girl stirring but not waking. “Alright,” Letty said, slamming her door and getting into the passenger seat. “Where to now, Mr. and Mrs. Toretto?”
Tej started the engine, the sound too loud in the silent mountain pass. He looked at Dominic in the rearview mirror, waiting for the order.
Dominic stared out the window at the retreating spire of the chapel, his eyes hard. The momentary softness was gone, burned away by pain and purpose. He had what he needed. A vow. A line drawn.
“Home,” he said, his voice low and final. “We go to ground. And then we find who sent that cleanup crew. We end this.” He leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes, but the set of his jaw was anything but relaxed. It was the face of a man planning a war from his sickbed, with his wife’s hand clasped tightly in his own.
The sedan climbed higher, leaving the chapel’s valley for a thinner, colder air. Pine branches heavy with last night’s frost scraped against the windows like skeletal fingers. Tej drove with a calm, efficient focus, his eyes constantly scanning the mirrors. The only sound was the engine’s hum and Dominic’s shallow, pained breathing from the back seat.
“How much further?” Catalina asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her hand hadn’t left Dominic’s.
“Fifteen klicks up this logging spur,” Tej answered, his knuckles tight on the wheel. “Place is off-grid. Literally. Last three klicks are on foot.”
“On foot?” Letty twisted in her seat, her eyes narrowing at Dominic’s ashen face. “He can’t walk three feet, Tej.”
“He’ll have to.” Dominic’s eyes were still closed, but his voice held a thread of steel. “Or I’ll crawl.”
Catalina’s fingers tightened around his. “We’ll manage.”
The road deteriorated from cracked asphalt to gravel, then to a muddy track of frozen ruts. The forest closed in, dense and dark. Tej finally stopped where the path was blocked by a fallen spruce, its root system a giant, frozen claw. “This is it. From here, we walk.”
The air that hit them was a physical shock, sharp with pine resin and icy decay. Letty got out first, unfolding the stroller and bundling a waking Mina into a thick, down-filled suit. The little girl whimpered, confused by the cold and the stillness.
“Hey, little gearhead,” Letty cooed, tucking the toy car into her mittened hand. “Adventure time.”
Catalina and Tej helped Dominic from the car. He sucked in a sharp breath as his feet hit the ground, his face going grey. He leaned heavily on Tej, but his other arm stayed locked around Catalina’s shoulders. “Show me,” he gritted out.
They moved into the trees, a slow, strained procession. The “path” was little more than a memory of a trail, covered in slick, brown needles and hidden ice. Every step for Dominic was a monumental effort, a stifled groan torn from his lips. Catalina focused on the ground ahead, on bearing his weight, on the sound of Mina’s quiet gurgles from the stroller Letty pushed behind them.
After an eternity, a structure emerged from the gloom.
After an eternity, a structure emerged from the gloom. It was less a house and more a concrete block partially buried in the hillside, its surfaces streaked with moss and old snow. A single reinforced steel door, pocked with rust, stood as the only break in its brutal face. It looked less like a refuge and more like a tomb.
“Cheerful,” Letty muttered, heaving the stroller over a final root.
“It’s dry, it’s warm, and it’s invisible,” Tej said, producing a heavy key from his pocket. The lock turned with a screech that echoed through the silent firs. The door opened into darkness and a puff of stale, cold air.
Inside, it was exactly as promised: a bunker. The main room held a rustic kitchenette, a dented metal table, and a seating area of worn military surplus couches. Doors led off to what must be bedrooms and a generator closet. The walls were bare concrete. A single, dim bulb flickered on when Tej hit a switch.
Dominic barely registered the space. He made it three steps inside before his legs gave out. Tej caught him, guiding him the last few feet onto the nearest couch. Dominic sank into it with a shuddering groan, his head falling back, eyes clenched shut against the pain.
“Med kit,” Catalina said, already moving. Her voice was all business, a mechanic assessing a broken engine.
“On the table,” Tej replied, gesturing to a heavy green box. “Basic stuff. Painkillers. Antibiotics. Sutures.”
“Sutures?” Letty asked, pulling Mina from her stroller.
“In case,” Tej said simply.
Catalina found the strong painkillers, shook out two pills, and filled a glass with water from a jug. She knelt before Dominic. “Dom. You need to take these.”
He opened his eyes. They were glassy with exhaustion and pain, but they focused on her. He took the pills, his fingers brushing hers, and swallowed without looking away. He drank the entire glass, then handed it back.
“Help me up,” he said.
“You need to rest.”
“I need to see the perimeter. I need to see the generator. I need to know what we have.” He tried to push himself up, but his arms trembled violently. He collapsed back, a curse hissing through his teeth.
“Later,” Catalina said, her voice leaving no room for argument. She glanced at Tej. “Show me.”
Tej gave a brief tour. The generator was a sturdy, quiet model in a sound-insulated closet, fed by a buried propane tank. The two small bedrooms each held a set of bunk beds. A storeroom was packed with canned food, water, medical supplies, and tools. The bathroom was cramped, with a tiny shower. It was survival, not living.
Letty got Mina settled with some crackers, the little girl’s wide eyes taking in the strange, dim cave. “Home sweet home, kid,” Letty whispered, ruffling her hair.
Dominic watched it all from his place on the couch, his body prisoner to his injuries but his mind racing. “Windows?” he asked.
“None,” Tej said. “Ventilation is passive, through filtered shafts in the roof. One way in.” He pointed to the heavy door. “Which is also the only way out. It’s a choke point.”
“A trap, if they find it,” Dominic murmured.
“Or a fortress,” Catalina corrected, coming to sit on the couch’s arm near his head. Her hand found his hair, stroking it back from his damp forehead. The gesture was automatic, intimate. “We have what we need. We rest. You heal.”
He turned his face into her touch, a silent concession. The pills were dragging him under, the fight bleeding out of him. “The toy car,” he mumbled, his words slurring. “Needs a new… a new rear diffuser. The downforce is… wrong.”
Catalina froze. Her eyes met Letty’s across the room. He was remembering. Not just her, not just the wedding, but the tiny, specific promise he’d made in the hospital haze. A promise about a toy.
“We’ll fix it,” she whispered, her throat tight. “When you’re awake.”
He was already asleep, his breathing deepening into ragged, heavy drafts. The lines of pain on his face smoothed, leaving him looking young and terribly vulnerable.
The first night in the bunker was a study in watchful silence. Tej took the first shift, his ear tuned to the scanner monitoring police bands. Letty convinced Catalina to lie down in one of the bottom bunks with Mina, who curled into her mother’s side like a small, warm animal. Sleep, when it came for Catalina, was thin and fractured, splintered by every groan from Dominic on the couch and the imagined sounds of pursuit in the wind outside.
She woke to a deep, visceral cramping low in her belly. The pain was alien and urgent, a fist of iron tightening and then releasing. She lay still in the dark, listening. Mina breathed softly beside her. The generator hummed its distant song. Dominic’s breathing from the other room was steadier, less strained.
Then it came again. A sharper, longer contraction that stole her breath. She bit down on her lip to keep from crying out. It was too early. Months too early.
Panic, cold and liquid, spilled into her veins. She counted silently, clutching the rough wool blanket. The pain lasted nearly a minute before ebbing. As it faded, a warm gush of fluid soaked through her sweatpants and into the thin mattress.
Her water had broken.
The reality of it detonated in her mind. They were in a concrete hole in a frozen mountain. They had basic medical supplies. Dominic could barely stand. She took a shaky breath, then another, forcing the terror down into a small, hard knot. She slid out of the bunk, careful not to wake Mina.
She padded to the main room. Dominic was asleep on the couch, lit by the single bulb Tej had left on. Letty was awake, cleaning a pistol at the metal table with methodical precision. She looked up, and her hands stilled instantly.
“Cat?”
“It’s happening,” Catalina said, her voice surprisingly calm. “My water broke.”
Letty was on her feet in a second, the pistol forgotten. “How far apart?”
“Just started. Maybe ten minutes.” Catalina walked to Dominic, kneeling beside him. She placed a hand on his chest. “Dom. Dom, wake up.”
He stirred, his eyes fluttering open. It took him a second to focus, to shift from the depths of drugged sleep to the dim light of the bunker and the urgent pressure of her hand. “Wha’s wrong?”
“The babies,” she said, holding his gaze. “They’re coming now.”
He blinked, processing. The fog of painkillers and injury cleared with a brutal swiftness. His eyes snapped fully open, sharp and aware. He tried to sit up, his face paling. “Now? It’s too soon.”
“They don’t care,” Catalina said, a strained smile touching her lips. “They’re Torrettos. They’re on their own schedule.”
Another contraction seized her. She bent forward, a low moan escaping her as she gripped the edge of the couch. Dominic’s hand came up, weak but present, to press against her back.
The pain passed. She straightened, breathing heavily. Dominic was looking past her, to Letty, who was already pulling the medical kit and stacks of clean towels from the storeroom.
“Tej!” Dominic called, his voice rough but commanding.
Tej appeared from the generator closet, his expression shifting from curiosity to grim understanding as he saw the scene.
“Boil water,” Dominic ordered, every word an effort of will. “All you have. Get every clean sheet, every towel.” He turned his head, his gaze locking onto Letty. His breathing was shallow, not from his own pain now, but from a rising, desperate fear. He saw Catalina’s strength, but he also saw the stark reality: no doctor, no hospital, no way out.
Letty met his look, her own face a mask of fierce resolve. She gave a single, sharp nod. She had delivered foals on her uncle’s ranch. She had stitched up knife wounds and set broken fingers. This was different. This was everything.
Another contraction hit Catalina, harder this time. She braced herself against the couch, her knuckles white. Dominic watched, helpless, a man who could rebuild an engine blindfolded but was utterly powerless here.
As the pain receded, he caught Letty’s eye again. The trust between them, forged in a hundred garages and on a thousand miles of outlaw road, was absolute in that moment. He didn’t have the strength to say it all. He didn’t need to.
His voice was a raw scrape of sound, filled with a love and a terror that dwarfed the mountains outside. “You need to bring the twins into the world, Letty.”
The words hung in the stale, concrete air, a sacred and terrifying command. Letty’s breath caught, but her hands, now holding a stack of clean towels, didn’t shake. She just nodded once, a soldier accepting a mission. “Okay,” she said, her voice stripped of all its usual roughness. “Okay, Cat. Let’s get you to a bed.”
“The bunk’s too narrow,” Catalina panted, bracing for another wave of pressure. “The floor. Here.” She gestured to the open space near the couch where Dominic lay imprisoned.
“No,” Dominic growled, struggling to push himself upright. “Not on the cold–”
“It’s fine,” Catalina interrupted, her tone leaving no room for argument. It was the voice she used when a torque spec was non-negotiable. “Tej, the sleeping bags. Pads. Anything.”
Tej moved like a ghost, his efficiency silent and swift. He layered foam sleeping pads and unzipped bags onto the concrete floor, creating a makeshift nest. Another contraction ripped through Catalina, stronger, closer. She gripped the back of the couch, her face burying into the rough fabric to muffle a cry. Mina, sensing the shift in the room’s energy, began to fuss in her portable crib.
“I’ve got her,” Tej said, swooping in to lift the toddler. He carried her toward the generator closet, speaking in low, soothing tones. “Come on, little speed demon. Let’s check the fuel mix. Uncle Tej’s gonna show you some cool dials.”
The door clicked shut, muffling Mina’s whimpers. The isolation in the main room became absolute, a bubble of brutal, intimate focus.
Letty helped Catalina lower herself onto the padded floor. The cold from the concrete seeped up through the layers, a stark contrast to the fire in her pelvis. “Right,” Letty said, kneeling beside her. She was all business now, the fear channeled into motion. “Tej’s boiling water. We’ve got clean string, scissors, blankets. Tell me what you need.”
“Time,” Catalina gasped, lying back. “And him.” She turned her head toward Dominic, who was watching, helpless, his face a drawn mask of agony. “Just… talk to me.”
Dominic’s fingers stretched toward her from the couch, a scant few inches separating their hands. “I’m here,” he said, the words thick. “I’m right here.”
Letty arranged towels, checked supplies with a mechanic’s precision. The medical kit held rudimentary items: shears, sterile gauze, iodine, a roll of suture thread. It was meant for gunshots, not for this. She laid everything out in a neat, terrifying row.
Another contraction seized Catalina, longer and more violent. Her back arched off the pads, a sharp cry tearing from her throat. The sound was animal, raw. Dominic flinched as if struck. “Breathe, Cat,” Letty urged, her hand on Catalina’s knee. “Like we talked about. In and out.”
“We never… talked about this,” Catalina gritted out, sweat plastering her hair to her temples.
“Yeah, well, pretend we did.” Letty’s attempt at lightness fell flat. Her eyes were wide, fixed on Catalina’s face. “You’re doing good. You’re so strong.”
The rhythm established itself, a brutal tide. Contractions rolled in, one after another, leaving Catalina trembling in the brief valleys of respite. She panted, she cursed, she dug her nails into the sleeping bag. Dominic talked, his voice a low, constant stream against the pain. He talked about the first carburetor they rebuilt together, about the smell of honeysuckle on the Barstow fence line, about the way Mina’s laugh sounded like gears turning perfectly.
He never mentioned the danger outside. He never mentioned the wedding in the cold chapel. He painted a world that was just them, just wrenches and sunlight and a child’s laughter.
“I see the head,” Letty announced, her voice trembling with suppressed awe. She was positioned between Catalina’s legs, a towel in her hands. “Okay, Cat. On the next one, I need you to push like you’re shifting into fifth without the clutch. Hard and fast.”
Catalina nodded, her strength visibly ebbing. She was drenched, exhausted. She found Dominic’s eyes and locked onto them. He was her tether, the fixed point in the swirling storm.
The contraction built, a peak of impossible pressure. “Now!” Letty commanded.
Catalina bore down, a guttural shout filling the bunker. She pushed until the world narrowed to a single, burning point. And then, with a sudden, wet release, the pressure eased.
A sharp, indignant cry pierced the air.
Letty was crying, silent tears cutting through the grime on her cheeks. She held a tiny, squirming, blood-slicked creature in her hands. “It’s a boy,” she whispered, her voice breaking. She cleared his mouth with her finger, wiped him roughly with a towel. His cries strengthened, a powerful, protesting wail.
Catalina sobbed, a wave of relief and overwhelming love crashing over her. “Let me see him.”
Letty laid the baby on Catalina’s chest, wrapping them both in a clean sheet. He was impossibly small, his face scrunched and red, his tiny hands clenching the air. Dominic stared, utterly transfixed, his own breath coming in shallow gasps. “Hey,” he breathed, the word a prayer.
“One more, Cat,” Letty said, her voice regaining its steadiness. She was in the zone now, her hands sure. “Your son needs his sister. You gotta do it again.”
The second birth was faster. Catalina’s body, now knowing the path, gathered its last reserves. With a final, shuddering push, the girl arrived. Her cry was different—quieter, more melodic. Letty handled her with the same rough tenderness, cleaning her before placing her beside her brother.
Two tiny heads, covered in fine, dark hair, nuzzled against Catalina’s skin. The room was filled with their sounds, their new life a profound defiance against the concrete and the fear. Catalina wept openly, her hands trembling as she touched each damp head.
“You did it,” Dominic said, his own eyes glistening. “Look at them.”
Letty efficiently tended to the aftermath, her movements clinical and swift. The mundane reality of cutting cords and cleaning up grounded the sacred moment. She wrapped the placentas in towels for later disposal. The twins, swaddled now, settled against their mother’s warmth.
Tej cracked the generator room door open, Mina on his hip. “We heard the welcoming committee,” he said softly, a genuine smile softening his usually guarded face.
Mina pointed a chubby finger. “Babies?”
“Yeah, little gearhead,” Letty said, wiping her hands on a towel. “Your brother and sister.”
Exhaustion descended on Catalina like a weight. She was shivering, the adrenaline bleeding away. Letty and Tej worked together, cleaning her up, helping her into a dry shirt, and moving her carefully to the lower bunk. They placed the twins, one on each side of her.
Dominic watched it all, his jaw tight. He had witnessed a miracle from a distance of three feet, unable to lift a finger to help. The frustration and love warred in his eyes. “Letty,” he said, his voice raw with emotion.
She looked over at him, her face smudged and tired.
“Thank you,” he said. It was everything in those two words.
She just nodded, too full to speak. She busied herself boiling water for tea, a semblance of normalcy.
Catalina drifted in a hazy, euphoric fog, her fingers stroking the downy heads of her children. The boy, the firstborn, she had named Leo, for the lion-hearted. The girl was Stella, a star in their darkness. Names they had chosen in whispers months ago, names that belonged only to them in this hidden life.
Dominic finally managed, with a pained, gargantuan effort, to roll onto his side on the couch, facing the bunk. He could see them now, his family, whole and vulnerable. His eyes never left them.
The peace was fragile, a soap bubble in a storm.
An hour later, as Catalina nursed Stella for the first time, the single bulb flickered. It died for a full three seconds, plunging them into a blackness so complete it felt solid.
It sputtered back to life.
Everyone froze.
Tej was on his feet instantly, moving to the generator closet. He listened, his ear pressed to the door. “Generator’s running steady,” he whispered.
“The bulb’s old,” Letty said, but her voice was tight.
Then the scanner on the table crackled to life. It had been silent for days, monitoring empty frequencies. A voice, tinny and distorted with static, broke through. It spoke in German-accented English, clear and professional.
“Team Two, confirm visual on the vehicle at the terminus of the spur road. Over.”
Another voice, sharper. “Confirmed. Sedan, abandoned. No recent footprints due to frost. Proceeding on foot to investigate the treeline. Over.”
The words landed in the bunker like stones. Leo chose that moment to let out a thin, reedy cry. Catalina instinctively clutched him closer, her milk letting down in a sudden, warm rush of fear.
Dominic’s eyes, which had been soft with wonder, hardened into chips of obsidian. He looked from his newborn son’s face to the reinforced steel door. The chase was over. The hunt had found their den.
He moved, ignoring the shrieking protest from his ribs. He swung his legs to the floor, every muscle fiber screaming. Using the couch arm, he pushed himself to his feet. He stood, swaying but upright, a column of pained determination.
“Tej,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the tense air. “The contingency.”
Tej was already moving, heading not for the main door, but to a panel hidden behind a shelf in the storeroom. He pried it open, revealing a ladder descending into blackness. “Escape shaft. Comes out two hundred yards down the ridge, near the creek.”
Letty was already packing a bag with diapers, formula, blankets. Her movements were frantic but precise. “We can’t move her. Not yet. She just gave birth.”
“We have to,” Dominic said, his gaze locking with Catalina’s across the room. He saw the fear there, but beneath it, the same fierce resolve. They had run before. They would run again.
Another contraction gripped Catalina—a afterpains, but in the panic, it felt like a cruel joke. She hissed, curling around her children. “Give me… five minutes.”
“We don’t have five,” Tej said, his head still cocked toward the scanner. The voices had gone silent. That was worse.
Dominic staggered the few steps to the bunk. He braced himself on the frame, looking down at his wife and his three children. Leo had quieted. Stella slept. Mina, held by Letty, watched with wide, knowing eyes.
He bent, with immense effort, and kissed Catalina’s sweat-damp forehead. His lips lingered there, a vow. “I’ll get you out,” he breathed, only for her to hear. “I’ll carry you if I have to.”
A new sound filtered through the thick walls. Not from the scanner. A faint, metallic scrape against the outside of the steel door. Someone was testing the lock.
The bubble of peace shattered entirely.
Dominic straightened, turning his body toward the sound. He was broken, unarmed, and standing between a steel door and everything he loved. His hands, empty at his sides, curled into fists. The focus on his face was absolute, a terrifying calm. He was no longer a patient. He was a barrier.
“Letty, get them to the shaft. Now,” he said, his voice quiet, final.
He didn’t look back as Letty and Tej sprang into motion, gathering the babies, helping Catalina from the bunk. His entire world was the single, solid door, and the gentle, probing noises of the world trying to break in.