“Oh no, you’ve got a party to get back to, and I’ve got some big girl panties to pull up. But you’re sweet to offer.”

Theresa starts back up the grassy slope and Hassler watches her go. What it is about this woman that rips his heart out, he can’t exactly say. Truth be told, they’re just acquaintances. Have talked only a handful of times.

When she breezed through the office to bring Ethan something.

A bump-into-each-other at the symphony.

A cookout he was invited to at the Burke house.

Hassler has never been married, hasn’t been in love since high school, but in this moment, as he stands on the shore of Lake Union watching Theresa arrive at Ethan’s side and wrap her arm around his waist, he feels a flicker of blinding jealousy, as if he’s watching the woman who belongs with him falling for another man.

ETHAN

ETHAN

He crashed the CJ-5 through the rock-facade door. A piece of metal struck the windshield, sent a long, branching crack straight down the middle of the glass.

Ethan had half expected a brigade of Pilcher’s men to be waiting for him, but the tunnel stood empty.

He shifted into third gear.

Thirty-five miles per hour up the steep grade was the best he could do.

Lights streamed past overhead.

The bedrock dripping on the fractured windshield.

Every time he rounded a curve, he expected to see a roadblock, a line of Pilcher’s men with assault rifles and orders to shoot on sight.

Then again, it was possible Pilcher’s people had no idea what he’d done.

The only camera feeds in the superstructure were in surveillance HQ and Pilcher’s office. Surveillance techs could be sealed off, locked up, bribed, killed. Pilcher’s inner circle no doubt held a delusional sense of loyalty toward the man, but Ethan couldn’t let himself imagine all of them just standing by while he murdered the last of humanity.

His ears popped.

He was getting close and still no sign of resistance.

If he had to bet, Pilcher was planning to make certain that every last resident of Wayward Pines had been wiped out and then tell his people there had been a terrible accident. A fence failure. Nothing to be done.

Ethan eased his foot off the gas as the entrance to the superstructure came into view around a long, gentle curve.

He rolled into the massive cavern and brought the Jeep to a stop.

Jammed the gearshift into first.

Killed the engine.

He picked the Desert Eagle up off the floorboard, tugged the slide back and let it reset so the gun looked loaded. Digging through his pockets again, he only found two boxes of twelve-gauge slugs and his Harpy.