Phillip Hail POV

  “Sir, we’ve called in the two best interrogators the FBI has to offer. They’re already en route,” an agent informed me as I stood near the observation room, staring at the file on the two women who had refused to speak a single word.

  I turned to face him. “How long until they arrive?”

  “By tomorrow morning.”

  I nodded, the weight of my responsibility pressing against me. Time was running out, and I knew my superiors were growing impatient. “Good. Make sure they’re briefed on everything before they get here. We can’t afford any missteps.”

  The agent nodded and left. I turned back to the one-way glass, my mind running through every possibility. These women weren’t ordinary. He didn’t know what they were hiding, but he was certain of one thing: They wouldn’t be easy to break.

  Jace Strickland POV

  I pressed my back against the alley wall, my breath steady despite the adrenaline coursing through me. My mind raced, every nerve focused on the chase. This was the part I lived for—the rush of the hunt, the thrill of knowing I was closing in. The suspect had nowhere left to run, but he hadn’t accepted it yet. They never did until it was too late. I could hear the suspect’s footsteps pounding against the pavement just ahead, growing more frantic as he realized he was running out of options.

  “Freeze! FBI!” I commanded, pushing off the wall and sprinting forward.

  The man turned sharply, knocking over a trash bin in a last-ditch effort to slow Jace down. It didn’t work. Within moments, I tackled him to the ground, feeling his body jerk in resistance. He was strong, but I had the leverage. I forced his arms behind his back, his breath coming in panicked bursts. The metal of the cuffs clicked into place, a sound of finality.

  “Gotcha,” I muttered, hauling the man to his feet just as my partner, Henry Meyer, arrived.

  “Nice work,” Henry said, catching his breath. “We’ve been after this guy for weeks.”

  “Yeah, well, he ran straight into a dead end,” I said, tightening his grip on the suspect. “Let’s get him back to headquarters.”

  The interrogation room was dimly lit, the single overhead lamp casting a sharp glow over the suspect’s face. I watched him closely, taking in every micro-expression, every involuntary twitch of his jaw. Fear, defiance, calculation—I had seen it all before. The trick was knowing which to exploit. I leaned forward, my fingers laced together as I studied the man across the table.

  “We’ve got enough evidence to put you away for life,” Jace said, his voice calm but firm. “But you might be able to help yourself if you start talking now.”

  The suspect scoffed, shifting in his seat. “You don’t scare me.”

  Jace smirked. “I don’t have to scare you. I just have to make sure the judge sees you as the lost cause you are. Or… you can give me something useful. Your call.”

  Silence stretched between them before the suspect finally sighed, shaking his head. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  I pulled out a notepad and pen. “Let’s start with the names of your associates.”

  Later that night, as Jace and Henry were wrapping up their reports, their supervisor walked in.

  “Strickland, Meyer, pack your bags. You’ve got a new assignment.”

  I frowned. “Already? We just closed this case.”

  “This one’s bigger,” the supervisor said, tossing a file onto the desk. “Saliscana Island. The FBI needs our best interrogators down there. That means you.”

  Henry opened the file and scanned the contents. “What the hell? This town appeared out of nowhere?”

  “And they’ve got two women in custody who refuse to talk,” the supervisor added. “They’re bringing in top people to crack them. You leave in two hours.”

  I exchanged a look with Henry before grabbing the file and flipping through the details. The more I read, the more unsettled I became. A town appearing overnight? No recorded construction, no known inhabitants before two weeks ago? It defied logic. I had seen strange things in my career, but nothing like this. Something about this didn’t sit right. Who were these women? And why wouldn’t they say a word?

  As we boarded the plane, I stared out the window, the case file open on my lap. My fingers tapped against the folder absently. There was something off about this—something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It gnawed at me, a feeling I had learned never to ignore. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this was unlike anything he’d dealt with before. I turned the page, studying the grainy surveillance images of the two detainees. Their faces were unreadable, but there was something in their posture—too composed, too deliberate. They weren’t scared. They weren’t desperate. They were waiting. Their expressions were unreadable, their posture eerily composed.

  “What do you think is going through their heads?” I asked, my voice low.

  Henry exhaled. “If they’ve kept quiet this long, they must believe that whatever they’re hiding is worth more than their freedom.”

  I nodded, my grip tightening on the file. He’d broken plenty of criminals before. But something told him that these women weren’t criminals.

  They were something else entirely.

  The humid air hit Jace the moment he stepped off the plane, wrapping around him like a damp, invisible shroud. Even at this late hour, Florida’s heat clung to the tarmac, radiating up from the asphalt in barely visible ripples. The airstrip was dimly lit, the orange glow of floodlights casting long shadows across the cracked pavement. A gust of wind carried the distant scent of saltwater, reminding him just how close they were to the ocean.

  Jace adjusted his jacket, scanning the airstrip. There were no commercial flights here—just private jets and government-chartered planes. A black SUV idled near the edge of the tarmac, its headlights cutting sharp beams through the darkness. Two men in suits stood beside it, their postures rigid, their faces unreadable beneath the dim overhead glow.

  Security was tight. Too tight for a routine operation.

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  Jace wasn’t new to classified cases, but something about this one unsettled him. Maybe it was the urgency of their reassignment, the lack of detailed intel, or the way the Chief had avoided giving straight answers before sending them off. Maybe it was the town that had appeared overnight—an impossibility that defied everything he knew about the world.

  Or maybe it was the fact that two women, who shouldn’t exist, were sitting in a secure government facility right now, refusing to say a single word.

  Henry came up beside him, rolling his shoulders as if to shake off the stiffness from the flight. “Feels different, doesn’t it?”

  Jace nodded, his gaze locked on the men by the SUV. “Yeah. They called us in fast, too. We barely had time to close our last case before we were packed and shipped out here.”

  Henry exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of his neck. “No briefing until we landed. No press leaks. No real intel. And they sent us, of all people.” He gave Jace a pointed look. “They don’t call in their best interrogators for nothing.”

  Jace clenched his jaw. Exactly.

  Before he could respond, one of the men by the SUV stepped forward, his stance rigid with military precision. “Agents Strickland, Meyer?” His voice was clipped, professional.

  Jace gave a curt nod. “That’s us.”

  “Commander Hail is waiting for you. Get in.” The man pulled open the SUV door, his expression giving nothing away.

  Jace exchanged a glance with Henry before climbing into the backseat. The vehicle’s interior was cool, the leather seats stiff and unyielding. The second man slid in behind the wheel without a word, and as they pulled away from the airstrip, Jace watched the darkened landscape blur past.

  They weren’t heading toward a normal FBI field office.

  No, this was something else entirely.

  And he had a feeling they weren’t going to like what they found.

  The drive to the facility was quiet, filled only with the occasional rustling of the case file in my lap. Henry sat beside me, thumbing through his own notes, but we both knew there wasn’t much more to glean from the reports. We needed to see these women for ourselves.

  The blacked-out government SUV rolled to a stop in front of the secure facility. The air felt heavy as we stepped out. Something about this place made my skin crawl. Maybe it was the knowledge that inside those walls, two people sat, refusing to give a single word in response to any questioning.

  A man was waiting at the entrance, standing with his arms crossed, his posture rigid with tension. He wore a neatly pressed uniform, but the lines on his face told me he had been dealing with this case for too long already. His sharp gaze scanned us like he was measuring whether we were worth his time.

  “Strickland, Meyer,” he greeted, his voice clipped. “Commander Phillip Hail. I assume the two of you are as good as D.C. says?”

  I recognized his name immediately. Hail wasn’t just some middleman. He was a career military officer turned intelligence handler, known for his no-nonsense approach to security threats. If he was here, then this case wasn’t just unusual—it was dangerous.

  Henry nodded. “We get the job done.”

  Hail gave a curt nod and turned sharply on his heel. “Then let’s move. We need to talk.”

  We followed him inside, past rows of locked doors and heavily armed guards. The place was built like a fortress—reinforced steel doors, checkpoint stations, and watchful eyes at every turn. I had been in enough classified sites to recognize the difference between routine security and containment. This place? It was meant to hold something dangerous.

  The air inside was sterile, cold, almost clinical. The hum of fluorescent lights overhead barely masked the distant murmur of voices behind sealed doors. Every step deeper into the facility sent a subconscious warning through my brain: we weren’t meant to be here.

  As we moved down a corridor, I spotted two large observation windows, looking into what I assumed were the interrogation rooms. Inside, two women sat alone—motionless, emotionless.

  They weren’t shackled, weren’t restrained, yet the weight in the air made it feel like they were the ones in control.

  I slowed, taking in the scene. No fear. No frustration. No signs of stress. Just two women, dressed in deep violet, staring straight ahead as if they had all the time in the world.

  Something about it made the back of my neck itch.

  Henry exhaled beside me. “I don’t like this,” he muttered under his breath.

  Neither did I.

  Once inside a secure briefing room, Hail turned to face us. “I won’t sugarcoat it—we need answers, and we need them now. These women aren’t just refusing to talk; they’re completely in control of this situation. No matter what we throw at them, they remain unreadable.”

  I crossed my arms. “How have they been treated so far? Are we looking at any issues of coercion? Anything that might be keeping them from talking?”

  Hail shook his head. “They’ve been treated fairly. They have food, water, medical care. But that’s not the issue. The issue is that they are choosing silence, and we don’t know why.”

  Henry flipped open the case file. “What have the other interrogators tried?”

  Hail exhaled. “Everything. Psychological pressure, routine questioning, even subtle tricks meant to get them to slip up. They don’t. It’s like they’re playing a different game than we are, and we can’t even see the board.”

  I frowned, flipping through the photos of the women again. Their stillness, their composed posture—it didn’t match any detainee I had encountered before. “Have they shown any emotional reactions? Fear, anger, frustration?”

  “Nothing,” Hail said. “And that’s what makes this unnerving. They don’t act like hostages. They act like observers, as if they’re waiting for something.”

  I tapped my fingers against the table, my mind already running through different approaches. “We’ll need to see them for ourselves.”

  Hail nodded. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Because if we don’t get anything from them soon… my superiors will want to escalate.”

  Henry shot me a look, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. If talking didn’t work, there were other ways to extract information—methods neither of us wanted to be involved in.

  “Let’s get started,” I said.

  It was time to see just how unbreakable these women really were.

  I stepped closer, peering into the observation room of the older woman. The woman inside sat with an eerie stillness, her hands resting lightly on the table. Her violet eyes were calm, unreadable. Unlike typical detainees, there was no tension in her posture—no nervous glances, no restless movements. She was regal in the way she held herself, as if she was the one doing the observing rather than us.

  Her long, wavy purple hair was neatly arranged, cascading over her shoulders, and her deep-colored clothing only emphasized her composed demeanor. Even her eyes, an unnatural shade of violet, mirrored the same hue. Purple. Everything about her was purple—her hair, her eyes, her clothing. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was deliberate, calculated. A statement. There was something unsettling about how unaffected she appeared, like she knew something we didn’t.

  Henry stood beside me, watching her with narrowed eyes. “She’s completely at ease. That’s not normal for someone in her position.”

  “None of this is normal,” I muttered. “What about the younger one?”

  Hail motioned to the room next door and started walking. “Same attitude, different presence. She’s just as composed, but she watches us differently. More… analytical, like she’s evaluating every move we make. If we’re going to break one of them, it’ll have to be her.”

  We walked further into the room, stopping in front of the next observation window. Inside, the younger woman sat in a similar position—straight-backed, calm, completely in control. But there was something different about her. She wasn’t just waiting. She was studying.

  She was beautiful, but in an unnerving way. The kind of beauty that felt otherworldly, almost unnatural. Her violet eyes, identical in color to the older woman’s, were sharp, calculated. Her hair, a lighter shade of lilac, contrasted slightly against the elder’s deeper purple locks, as if signaling something unspoken between them. It fell in a sleek cascade down her back, as if not a single strand dared to be out of place. Even her clothing, simple yet elegant, adhered to the same striking hue. There was an intentionality behind it all, as if everything about her was meant to stand out, to make a statement.

  Her gaze flickered to the camera in the corner for a split second, then back to the door, like she knew we were coming before we even arrived. That sent a chill down my spine.

  “She knows we’re watching,” I muttered. “And she doesn’t care.”

  I nodded, considering our options. “We need a different approach. They’ve already shut down everything the previous interrogators tried. If we go in too aggressive, we push them further into silence. If we act too soft, they’ll see right through it.”

  Henry sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “So what’s our move?”

  I studied the younger woman a moment longer. There was a quiet intensity in her gaze, an awareness that was more than just observation—it was calculation. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t uncertain. She was waiting. For what, I didn’t know.

  “We need to figure out what they’re waiting for.”