“He’s counting on Jonah being expendable.”
A low, lethal edge slips into his voice. “He miscalculated.”
I transmit the full packet—routes, timestamps, fallback location.
Then I sit back, hands shaking onlyafterit’s done.
I don’t know if this will work.
I only know that if Jonah survives…
It will be because Malenkov underestimated a journalist who refused to stay in her lane.
And because Ronan Pierce trusts me enough
to let me walk the edge of the war with him.
Outside, the morning sun spills across the ocean.
Inside, the hunt tightens.
And Jonah’s clock is officially running.
50
Jonah
Location: In Transit — Unknown
Time: Unknown
The silence changes first.
I don’t know how else to describe it.
One moment it’s the familiar hum—air recycling, distant machinery, the low throb of something mechanical buried deep in the walls. The kind of sound that never stops, that eventually becomes part of your breathing.
Then it fades.
Not all at once.
Just enough that I notice.
My eyes open.
The lights above me are dimmer than before. Not emergency lighting. Not full dark.
Transition lighting.
My wrists are still bound, cuffs biting into skin that never quite healed. Ankles too. A chain runs between them, short enough to keep me folded inward.
I’m not in my cell.
The realization hits hard, fast.
The walls are narrower—metal, not concrete. The floor vibrates beneath me in a slow, rhythmic pulse.
Movement.
