The servers sparked. One tower went dark. Another followed. The room dimmed, machine by machine.
And I kept that photo up as Kessler pounded on theglass, lungs starving. His face, seen through the camera feed, was slick with sweat and streaked with blood. His lips were pale, cracked, his eyes bulging. Veins stood out along his neck as he clawed at the barrier, leaving prints—blood and condensation. He was mouthing words now, silent screams too broken to understand, his whole body wracked with tremors, and his skin was turning the wrong color—ashen, tinged with a frightening blue as oxygen deprivation closed in.
He convulsed once—sharp and violent—jerking against the glass. Hands flew to his throat, clawing as if he could tear the air from it. A choked, garbled scream escaped him, raw and wet, before his knees buckled and he slammed against the floor. His back arched, legs kicking once, then again. A smear of blood marked where his head struck it.
Then, finally, he slid to the floor.
His eyes stared blank, wide, and sightless. Lips parted. A single breath rattled from his lungs and then stopped altogether.
A final alert flashed on the screen:
PURGE COMPLETE. SYSTEM TERMINATION INITIATED.
And then the room fell silent. The screens were blank. Kessler lay slumped against the glass, dead.
“Is it over?” Rio asked me, and I nodded as he gripped my arm.
A buzz broke through the quiet—Jamie in my ear. “We got everything. It’s done. The feed’s saved to external and wiped from the local drives. You need to get out.”
Killian added, “Cops’ll be in ten minutes late. You’ve got time to walk.”
I pocketed the photo.
The building behind us was dead. Whatever Kessler thought he ruled, whatever monster he’d created from my simple code, was gone now. We headed out the way we came, trusting that any video of us would be wiped, and only when we were back in the truck and heading away from KessTech did I relax.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Rio, and to everyone listening back at the Cave. My voice was rough, weighed down with everything we’d done and what it had cost. “I know you wanted to be the one to kill him.”
There was a beat of silence, then Robbie’s voice crackled through the comms—low, steady, and filled with something I hadn’t expected: peace.
“I watched it,” he said. “All of it. Thank you—for making it end. For making it matter.”
Rio’s grip on my hand tightened. I turned, threading my fingers through his, exhausted to the marrow.
I swallowed hard. “No. Thankyou. For surviving. For letting us fix what he broke.”
And I meant it. Every word. We hadn’t killed a man in isolation. We’d ended the reign of something that should never have been born. And maybe Robbie could breathe now.
Epilogue
RIO
I leaned over the engine,sleeves pushed up, grease working its way into the lines of my skin as if it belonged there. It was a Sunday, a good day—quiet, dust motes dancing in the garage light, the clang of a socket wrench echoing off the walls as I worked on the beautiful ’67 Fastback that was the current Redcars personal project. Nothing urgent. No alarms, no blood. Just a busted alternator and a beautiful man perched on a stack of tires next to me.
My man.
Lyric was typing, eyes narrowed at the screen balanced on his knees, his fingers flying. His hair was even longer now, pulled back into a low ponytail, and curling in the heat of a summer day. He kept tucking it back, distracted, and I caught him frowning.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Killian,” he murmured.
“Is he still harassing you to join the Cave full-time?” I asked, half joking, half not.
Lyric huffed but didn’t look up. “Asshole says it’s a choice, and I back away, but then he sends me another string to pull and he drags me right back in.”
I grinned, wiped my hands on the rag hanging from my back pocket. “You gonna eventually say yes?”
He glanced at me then, and wrinkled his nose, which was so fucking cute. “I already kind of did. On a trial basis. With flexible hours. And the right to say no if the job’s too boring.” He paused. “Is that okay?”
