Chapter Text
"There’s no safety in love. You risk the whole of life. But the great thing is to risk – to believe – and to risk everything for your belief.” – Elizabeth von Armin
Chapter 1
Upstate New York
Eternem Laboratories
Present Day
“What’s wrong?” Moiraine stops what she’s doing and turns around. Sensing his apprehension from across the room.
“I don’t know,” Lan mumbles.
It’s true. He doesn’t.
There’s nothing concrete. Nothing tangible he can point to and explain why something feels off.
It just does.
The same way something felt off over a year ago, on the morning of the day she got shot.
He’d shrugged it off then. Forced himself to rationalize it as paranoia.
And it nearly cost Moiraine her life.
He swore to himself he’d never do that again.
They’re in a dark, empty laboratory. A high-ceilinged room the size of a small lecture hall. It’s full of counters with built-in sinks and test tubes and digital magnifiers. Incubators and cold storage vats. Vials and cylinders. Flasks, Gauss meters, beakers and centrifuges. A handful of electronic sensors emit the occasional beep that only serve to make his heart skip a beat each time.
Lan stands guard near the entrance and he watches Moiraine punch in another combination on the illuminated screen that’s attached to a stainless-steel fridge.
“How many combinations have you tried?”
“Six.”
“You need to stop. I have no way of knowing if this many failed attempts will trigger an alarm.”
“You said you disabled the alarms.” There’s a look of unease in her eyes too now.
Lan’s skin is crawling. Something is definitely off. “This is different.”
“One more.”
“Moiraine…”
There’s a metallic click and the fridge door opens, illuminating her.
“Damn it,” she exclaims as she reaches into the fridge. There’s another click when she pulls out a metallic cylinder about twice the size of her hands. She slides it carefully into the black messenger bag that’s draped around her shoulder.
“What is it?”
“It’s what we feared.”
Lan’s eyes dart across the room, searching for any sort of movement.
Moiraine bends down and removes something else from the fridge. Two small metallic orbs the size of golf balls. “I wonder if these are what I think they are….”
“We need to leave,” he tells her.
We never should have come.
“No one except Kerene knows we’re here,” she reminds him as she pulls one last vial out of the fridge before re-sealing the door. She’s dressed much like he is. Dark blue blouse, jeans, trench coat. Black leather boots.
And like him, she’s wearing a black medical mask.
“There’s no reason to think we might be in danger.”
There’s always danger, he wants to counter. I still don’t trust Kerene’s informant. And we are breaking and entering…
A gust of wind rattles a door and it sends goosebumps up his arms.
Lan undoes the clasp on his holster and pulls out his custom-made Glock. Grips the familiar weapon instinctively. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Her eyes meet his and she nods. Trusting his instincts, as she always has, even when he can’t explain them. “All right. I have what we came for.”
He’s still scanning the room and this time Lan catches a shadow of movement outside the window. A branch rustling in the afternoon wind, tapping against the glass pane?
Or is it?
And then he hears it.
Footsteps.
“Lan!”
He sees Moiraine’s eyes widen in shock and feels the needle stab him at the same time as she yells his name.
Lan yanks it out, hoping he did it quickly enough. Then he spins around with lightning speed and kills his attacker in one swift move. Two shots to the center of the body mass.
His limbs feel weak, rubbery, and darkness encroaches the edge of his vision. He fights it with everything he has and his blurry vision rewards him with the sight of three more men. Or maybe four.
There are multiple attackers.
Shit.
Lan shoots. Takes one down.
And another one.
They fire back and glass shatters as bullets ricochet around the room.
He hears Moiraine cry out.
Lan allows himself a glance in her direction, relieved to see her still standing. Raising her arms to protect herself from the flying glass.
He’s painfully slow and lethargic, but he takes down another attacker. All his movements are muscle memory now. Instinctive reactions from years of endless training.
Another man is approaching from the hallway.
Lan yanks a dagger out of his belt and throws it at him. Watches his body crumble to the ground but he’s replaced by another two men, waiting in the shadows.
There are too many and he’s heavily impaired. His limbs still aren’t doing what his brain is telling them.
“Lan!” It’s Moiraine’s voice coming from behind him. “Get down!”
He does as she says, even if his legs barely cooperate. Because he trusts her as much as she trusts him.
And then he sees the flashes of light – mini-bolts of lightning – that’s the only way to describe it. They’re coming from her direction. Taking out the two attackers. The bolts make a static hissing sound and as soon as they dissipate another two follow in quick succession.
Lan squats on the ground, one hand on the rubber floor to help keep his balance.
He’s so dizzy.
The bolts of light keep coming – and they almost take out another man. This one is outside in the hallway, hiding behind a propped open door, waiting for the unexpected attack to subside.
Lan can feel Moiraine approach from behind, breathing hard and he looks up at her in shock when she’s close enough. “What was that?”
“The One Power,” she exhales and holds out a hand to help him up. The entire laboratory spins when he’s back on his feet and for a moment, he ‘s afraid he’ll pass out. Thankfully, he doesn’t. “An atom-sized trickle of it.”
Lan notices a cut on the side of her face, right beside the strap of her mask. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She nods. “I’m fine. You? Did we get all of them?”
“No.” Lan nudges her behind him. “There’s at least one more still out there. Stay behind me.”
He reloads his gun. Slowly because his fingers feel like Jello. Moiraine eyes him with concern.
“It’s okay….” he mumbles. Even his mouth isn’t moving the way he wants.
There’s only one hallway leading to the nearest exit. The one where an attacker is hiding behind a door.
“Do you have any more of those… One Power balls on you?” Lan asks.
“They should recharge automatically. But not this fast.”
“Okay,” his arm holds her back, making sure she’s behind him so that he’s shielding her as he slowly advances both of them into the hallway. They’re in perfect synch, one quiet step at a time.
The attacker jumps out from behind the door but Lan takes him down with two bullets in quick succession. Sees his body drop to the ground ahead of them. He can feel Moiraine flinch, but she’s still moving alongside him.
“I think there’s one more,” he whispers to her.
He can feel her breath on his neck, in spite of the mask, her heart beating fast, but not erratically. She’s afraid but not panicking.
Suddenly another man jumps out from a room and takes a shot at them. Lan hears the bullets whiz by, barely missing them.
Lan fires back and he doesn’t miss. They watch him drop to the ground and Lan fires off a second insurance bullet. Then he grabs Moiraine’s hand and yanks her in the direction of the first red exit sign he sees, cursing his clumsy legs and praying there’s no one else waiting in the stairwell.
They run down two flights and a gust of cold air hits them as soon as they push open the final door. It helps to clear his clouded brain.
They have to run around the building to get to the rental car, which is parked two blocks away, but Lan stops them dead in their tracks as soon as they reach the paved walkway. There’s a man in a parked van right where they need to pass.
It’s a lone man, and Lan knows he could take him out. Could even take his car as a getaway vehicle. But that's a messy choice and they’ve already left a trail of bodies in the lab.
He wants to kick himself all over again. Everything that he feared might go wrong, did. And then some.
“Plan B,” he tells Moiraine. “Let’s get out on foot through the forest in case there’s another van of thugs on the way. I don’t think they’ll follow us there.” It’s getting easier now to fight back the looming darkness at the edge of his vision. The cold air is helping.
“Okay.”
The lab is an isolated complex in upstate New York, surrounded by rolling hills and forest.
“Ditch your phone.”
“I thought you said our new ones are untraceable?”
“They should be but we don’t yet know how we were traced here.”
“Are you sure you didn’t miss something when you disabled the security system?”
“I’m sure,” He triple checked it and would never have risked her entering the building if he thought there was a chance it was still activated.
They run across the manicured lawn at the back of the lab and drop their phones and masks into the sewer grate next to the parking lot. Then they climb a fence to get into the surrounding woods.
They’re both in good shape and Lan knows Moiraine can run for some time at a brisk pace before they have to stop.
And she does. Doesn’t protest when he leads her deeper into the forest and makes her cross an ice-cold river where the water comes up past their knees. In fact, he’s the one who’s still sluggish. Struggling to keep up with her pace.
They manage to put a good distance between themselves and the lab building before they have no choice but to stop besides a dense cluster of trees. Doubled over and gasping for air, they both sink to the ground and lean against a tree trunk in order to catch their breath.
Moiraine pulls a bottle of water out of her purse and hands it to him.
“You drink,” he tells her.
“Don’t be stupid,” she chides him. “I saw that man sticking the needle into you. You need to get whatever they gave you out of your system. I can feel how weak you are. Frankly, I don’t know how you’re still on your feet.”
He takes a couple of sips, grateful for the way the cool liquid coats his throat and then hands it back to her.
She drinks some too and closes her eyes. Takes another deep breath and coughs. “A half dozen men with guns and syringes? What the hell happened in there, Lan?”
“Good question.”
“And what now?”
Lan wishes he had his phone for navigation but he did his due diligence before they came here. Lan is familiar enough with their surroundings that he’s certain he’ll find the road. Only it might not be the most direct route. “There’s another back road about three kilometers from here. Let’s get on it and use it to get to the nearest town.” If he remembers correctly there is a gas station on that road before the town and they have at least three hours of daylight left.
He can get them transportation there. Either bribe someone with cash or use other means of persuasion to get them a ride. They both always carried generous amounts of cash with them, just in case.
They rest a few more minutes and Lan takes another swig of water.
She’s right. It’s helping.
Did she always have to be right? It was infuriating sometimes.
Lan gets up before her and again the dizziness still hits him hard but it’s no longer bad enough that he’s worried about passing out. He has the upper hand on it now. He shudders to think of what would have happened had he yanked out the needle a second later than he did.
Lan holds out his hand for Moiraine and catches her clench her teeth when he pulls her up. Notices the pain etched on her face and feels the pull in his own shoulder before he sees the blood stain on her beige trench coat.
He thought the pain he’s been feeling in his shoulder was a remnant of his own scar. It always makes itself known when he’s exerting himself. He hadn’t realized that it was her pain he was feeling.
He’s always been extraordinarily in tune with her feelings, in spite of the fact that she’s so good at masking them. It’s a strange bond that he still can’t explain. One he’s never felt with anyone else. Not his sister. Not Nynaeve.
It just is and as much as it used to confound him, nowadays he’s mostly grateful for it.
He can always tell if she’s tired, hungry, happy, irritated or hurting.
Like now.
“What’s this?” he asks pointing at the blood stain. “You said you weren’t hurt.”
“I said I was fine.”
“Show me.” He brushes the fabric of her coat aside and frowns when he sees the blood stain underneath. It’s huge. The size of a small plate. But it’s a superficial cut, not a bullet wound, thankfully. “Damn it, Moiraine! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Do I need to remind you that we were running away from people trying to kill us?”
He bites his tongue. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
Lan pulls out his shirt from his jeans and rips off a chunk of fabric and scrunches it into a ball. “Sit back down.”
“We shouldn’t waste…”
“Sit down.” It’s not a suggestion.
She does but shoots him a look that lets him know it’s not what she wants to do.
Lan doesn’t care and once she’s on the ground he makes her lie down. Presses the bunched-up fabric into her cut long enough to staunch the flow of blood.
“What happened?” he asks softly when her blue eyes look up at him.
“One of the bullets shattered a vial. I was in the way.”
“I see.”
When he’s satisfied that he’s sufficiently slowed the flow of blood, he rips off another strip of fabric from his shirt and wraps it around her shoulder. Turns it into an impromptu bandage. It’s messy but he hopes it’ll hold and then he helps her back up to her feet. “That should do until we can get it stitched.”
“Thanks.”
“If anything changes, tell me.”
“I will.”
She probably won’t but he knows he’ll feel it himself, and he’ll make sure.
Because that’s all that matters. Keeping her alive and in one piece.
It’s all that ever mattered.
He gives her a nod of encouragement. “We’ll be fine.”
“I know.”
“Let’s go.”
They have to get to the road before they lose daylight.