The cabin inside was freezing.

It smelled of pine needles and old paper.

Liam closed the heavy curtains over the front windows.

He clicked on a small desk lamp in the corner.

It cast a dim yellow glow across the wooden floor.

“I’ll check the perimeter,” Liam said, grabbing a flashlight from a shelf.

“Try to get some rest.”

“I can’t rest,” I said.

I sat down at the wooden kitchen table and pulled out the hard drive.

I also pulled out the encrypted laptop Liam had smuggled out of my office weeks ago.

My fingers were stiff from the cold, but I forced them to move.

I connected the external hard drive to the laptop and powered it on.

The screen flickered to life, illuminating the dark kitchen.

The decryption software I had designed for Apex’s internal servers was still on the desktop.

I opened the program and entered my master passkey.

The progress bar began to crawl across the screen.

*Decryption in progress… 12%… 24%…*

Liam walked back inside, shaking the water from his jacket.

“Everything is clear outside,” he said.