BLACKOUT PROTOCOL

“Drop the tablet slowly, Ethan… or I’ll put a bullet through your heart before Crowe gets the chance.”

The gun in Lena’s hand never shook, neither did her eyes.

Red emergency lights flashed across the underground corridor while steel shutters slammed shut around them one after another. Crowe’s countdown echoed through hidden speakers like a death sentence.

Fifty seconds. Ethan stared at Lena silently. The message from his father still burned inside his mind.

SHE IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY.

His pulse slowed instead of rising, training, fear got agents killed, control kept them alive.

“You were waiting for me to see that file, weren’t you?” Ethan asked quietly.

Lena’s jaw tightened.

“Drop the tablet.”

“You knew there’d be another message hidden inside.”

“Ethan.”

“Answer me.”

Forty-five seconds.

The tunnel trembled violently as another security shutter crashed into place nearby. Dust rained from the ceiling.

Lena stepped closer, gun still aimed directly at his chest.

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“That’s funny,” Ethan replied coldly.

“Most people say that before betraying me.”

Something flickered briefly across her expression. Guilt. But it vanished instantly.

“You don’t understand what your father meant.”

“Then explain it.”

“He wasn’t warning you about me.”

Ethan laughed once, a short, humorless sound.

“The message literally says you’re not trustworthy.”

“Because I’m not.”

The answer caught him off guard.

For the first time since meeting her, Lena looked exhausted. Broken.

“There are things I haven’t told you,” she admitted softly.

“But if I wanted you dead, Crowe would already have your body.”

Thirty-eight seconds.

The alarms screamed louder overhead, Crowe’s voice returned through the speakers.

“You’re running out of time, Ethan.”

Ethan ignored him, his eyes stayed fixed on Lena.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Lena hesitated, then she lowered the gun slightly.

“I worked for Blackout Protocol longer than I admitted.”

“How long?”

“Eight years.”

Ethan’s stomach tightened.

“That’s impossible. The program officially doesn’t exist.”

“Exactly.”

“What did you do for them?”

Lena looked away briefly.

“Hunt people.”

The answer echoed heavily between then, Ethan suddenly understood the scar on her neck. The deadness in her eyes, the precision in the way she moved, she wasn’t just connected to the program, she belonged to it.

Twenty-nine seconds.

“Why help me?” Ethan demanded.

Lena swallowed hard.

“Because I helped kill your father.”

Silence crashed into the corridor, even the alarms seemed distant now. Ethan stared at her, certain he heard wrong.

“What?”

Her voice almost broke.

“I was there the night they found him.”

Rage exploded through Ethan so fast it frightened even him. He slammed Lena against the wall before she could react, pinning her throat beneath his forearm.

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I was.”

“You expect me to trust you after that?”

“No.”

His breathing turned violent.

“You killed him?”

“I tried to save him.”

“DON’T.”

The roar tore through the corridor. Lena winced but didn’t fight back, Ethan’s grip tightened.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

For the first time, real fear entered Lena’s eyes, not fear for herself, fear of the memory.

“Your father discovered they planned to use Blackout Protocol to control entire governments,” she whispered painfully.

“He tried to erase the system permanently.”

“And?”

“Crowe found out.”

The countdown reached twenty seconds.

Lena continued quickly.

“They sent a kill team after him. I was part of it.”

Ethan released her suddenly like her skin burned him. The betrayal hit deeper than bullets.

His father had been murdered, not missing, not dead by accidend, but executed, and the woman standing in front of him helped do it.

“I was nineteen,” Lena whispered.

“They trained me since childhood. I didn’t know who he really was until it was too late.”

Ethan backed away slowly. Every instinct screamed at him to shoot her, but something stopped him, because she looked ashamed, truly ashamed.

“Before he died,” Lena continued shakily,

“your father gave me that data chip. He told me to find you one day.”

Ethan frowned.

“What?”

“He knew they’d come for you eventually.”

The steel shutters slammed again nearby. Ten seconds. Crowe’s calm voice echoed once more.

“Goodbye, Ethan.”

Suddenly the corridor lights shut off completely. Darkness swallowed everything. Then the floor beneath them trembled violently.

“What did he do?” Ethan demanded.

Lena’s expression changed instantly.

“Hurry.”

“Hurry where?”

Instead of answering, Lena grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the corridor at full speed.

Behind them, massive explosions erupted through the underground tunnels.

Crowe wasn’t sealing the exits. He was collapsing the entire facility, concrete cracked overhead, pipes burst violently along the walls. The underground structure began caving inward.

“Move” Lena screamed.

They sprinted through smoke and falling pieces while alarms died one after another. Ethan could hear soldiers shouting somewhere behind them, trapped beneath collapsing steel.

A huge section of ceiling crashed onto the corridor ahead. Lena shoved Ethan sideways just before concrete exploded where he had been standing, dust filled the air instantly. Ethan coughed violently.

“I can’t see”

“This way”

Lena pulled him through a narrow maintenance passage hidden behind broken pipes. The tunnel was barely large enough to crawl through.

Another explosion shook the ground. The entire facility was dying around them. Ethan crawled after Lena through darkness while hot smoke filled the passage behind them.

Then he noticed something terrifying, the tunnel ahead was glowing red, fire, the exit was burning.

Lena stopped crawling abruptly. Ethan nearly crashed into her.

“What now?” he snapped.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she stared ahead with horror spreading across her face, Ethan followed her gaze and saw armed soldiers waiting on the other side of the flames.

But the person standing in front of them made Ethan’s blood run cold.

Director Crowe smiled calmly through the smoke. Then he raised a gun toward them.

Ethan realized Crowe had expected them to survive all along