My stepsister kicked me in the ribs while my father stood there watching, but when I pressed my emergency shortcut three times, the military police arrived—and the officer’s first question changed everything. / Chapter 29 / 81

Chapter 29 - The Reunion of Iron and Regret

Before Hayes dispatched the federal marshals to intercept Claire, I demanded fifteen minutes.

I walked down the subterranean corridor of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center’s secure psychiatric and medical ward.

At the end of the hall, guarded by two armed sentries from the 704th Military Intelligence Brigade, was Room 402.

I opened the heavy door.

My father was sitting by the window, staring out at the gray Maryland winter rain. He was wearing an olive-drab hospital gown, his arms thin, his hair completely white. He didn't turn around when the door clicked shut.

"I didn't want you to see me like this, Hannah," he said, his voice a hoarse, broken rasp—the remnants of the chemical paralytic still lingering in his vocal cords. "I should have let them shoot me that night. At least then you would have known I loved you."

I stood in the center of the room. The pain in my ribs had mostly faded, but the ache in my chest was something entirely different.

"I saw the video, Dad," I said softly.

My father’s shoulders seized. He slowly turned his head, his slate-gray eyes wide, filled with an agony so profound it took my breath away.

"You... you saw?" he whispered.

"I know about the sniper on the ridge," I said, walking slowly toward his chair. "I know about the paralytic. I know about Thomas."

A single, broken sob tore from my father’s throat. He reached out with two trembling, vein-lined hands, grasping blindly into the air until his fingers caught the sleeve of my uniform. He pulled me toward him, burying his face into my tactical vest, weeping with the raw, uncontrollable grief of a man who had been locked in a living nightmare.

"I felt her boot hit you," he sobbed, his tears soaking through my uniform. "I heard your bone crack, Hannah. And I sat there. I had to sit there and watch my little girl bleed on the floor because I couldn't bear the thought of them putting a bullet through your head. I was a coward. I was a coward..."

"You weren't a coward, Dad," I whispered, resting my hand on the back of his neck, feeling the rapid, fragile beat of his pulse. "You kept me alive long enough to fight back."

He looked up at me, his eyes searching my face, seeing not the defenseless daughter who had left Whispering Pines in an ambulance, but an officer who had traveled to the edge of Europe to bring the monster down.

"Thomas?" my father asked, his voice shaking.

"In federal custody," I said firmly. "He will never see the sky as a free man again. And Whispering Pines is being restored to your name under federal court order."

My father closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against my arm, his breathing finally slowing into something resembling peace.

"And Claire?" he asked quietly.

I straightened my back, adjusting the duty belt around my waist.