The line went dead.
The cabin felt smaller after his voice vanished. The hum of the engines returned, but the air carried static that had nothing to do with interference.
Julia broke the silence first. “He saidwhich one of you.What did he mean by that?”
Aaron’s voice came over the intercom, low and steady. “He’s trying to divide us.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he knows something we don’t.”
Miles slammed his laptop shut. “He traced us long enough to get our flight path. He could have teams waiting when we land.”
I met Julia’s gaze. “Then we land ready.”
She nodded, that familiar fire sparking behind her eyes. “Always.”
When the planedescended through the last layer of clouds, the landscape below came into focus: endless green fields, silver rivers cutting through the heart of the country—and inthe middle of it, a patch of fenced concrete that shouldn’t have existed.
Miles looked up from the forward monitor. “Welcome to Springfield.”
Aaron’s reply was quiet, grim. “And to Veridian’s heart.”
29
Julia
The aircraft dipped slightly as it began its slow descent, but inside the cabin, the world felt strangely still. Boone shifted in his seat. Miles typed quietly. Aaron spoke in low tones with the pilots up front.
But Hawk…
Hawk wasn’t looking at any of them.
He sat across from me, relaxed and ready for a fight, his head lowered just enough that a shadow cut across his eyes. The kind of posture a man adopts when he is thinking too hard, carrying too much, and trying to hide both.
I unbuckled my harness and moved across the narrow aisle. “Scoot,” I murmured.
He glanced up, brow raised. “Scoot?”
“You heard me.”
A faint twitch hit the corner of his mouth—there and gone—but he shifted, making room on the bench beside him. I sat close, knees brushing his. Warm. Solid. Real.
Outside the small window, Missouri rolled by in ribbons of green and gold. Peaceful. Undisturbed. Completely unaware of the nightmare humming beneath its soil.
“You’ve been quiet,” I said softly.
He didn’t answer right away. Then:
“Reese being alive changes things.”
“Only because you blame yourself for him.”
His jaw flexed. “I trained him. I vouched for him. I missed the signs that he was slipping.”
“You missed nothing,” I countered. “Reese didn’t fall—he jumped. That’s on him, Hawk. Not on you. He got greedy for money, and the more he got the more he wanted.”
His gaze slid to mine, slow and piercing. “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
