Empty.
Everywhere I look, it’s empty.
My hands shake as I slap the comm unit to life. Static. No connection. Someone’s jammed it. I rip the panel open, wires spilling like guts, and start rerouting by instinct—nothing. The interference is too deep. The bastards left nothing to trace.
I run for the terminal. Pull up the data logs. Gone. Every line of security feed, every ping, every trace of entry. Deleted like they were never there.
“Vex,” I whisper again, but my voice breaks halfway through his name.
The walls feel too close. The air’s too thin. I can smell ozone—burnt circuitry and a sickly sweet chemical tang. My head swims.
Gas. That’s how they did it.
I grab the comm again, punch in Takhiss’s frequency. The signal doesn’t even blink. Dead line.
“Come on,” I snarl. “Come on, answer me.”
Nothing.
I try again. Harder. Louder.
“TAKHISS!”
Silence.
I try my father next. No response. The line rings once, twice—then cuts.
The world tilts sideways. I’m on the floor before I realize I’ve fallen, knees slamming into cold tile. I can’t breathe. My hands are trembling so bad I can barely keep them on the keypad.
Gone.
He’s gone.
My baby’s gone.
I choke on a sob, clutching at the air like I can pull him back from it. My throat burns. My nails dig crescents into my palms. I can’t think, can’t plan, can’t?—
Then something clicks.
Clint.
The name bursts through the fog in my skull like a flare in the dark.
Clint Rogers.
If anyone can find a ghost in this kind of chaos, it’s him.
I drag myself up by the table edge. My vision’s still swimming, but I force the backup terminal online—old, clunky, analog-coded so it can’t be jammed remotely. I slam in his contact string from memory.
The console spits back a warning—long-range encryption unstable—but I don’t care. I override the limiter.
Static floods the line.
“Clint… Clint, it’s Ella,” I rasp, words tumbling out between ragged breaths. “Vex is gone. They took him. They forced the door—logs wiped—signal jammed. I need you. I needAces High. Now.”
I hit send before the system collapses under the interference. The console sparks, blue light searing my eyes, and then goes black.
That’s it. Message sent or lost—I don’t know.
