I had broken the myth.
They didn’t control everything.
They were afraid.
And Ronan Pierce?
He was coming.
Darkness swallowed me whole—but not before I heard one of them say, voice tight with urgency:
“She almost got loose.”
Almost,I thought as everything went black.
Almost was enough.
Because now?
They would change plans.
Make mistakes.
Move faster than they should.
And people who rush in the dark—
Die there.
6
Ronan
The alert comes in at 2:13.
Cyclone doesn’t say my name—doesn’t need to. The tone of his voice does it for him.
“We’ve got something.”
I’m already on my feet, blood humming, instincts awake in a way sleep never manages to dull. The ops room is dim, lit by screens and storm light leaking through the windows. Rain lashes the glass like the world knows what’s coming.
Cyclone taps his keyboard, pulling up flight telemetry. “Unscheduled security spike on a private transport. Call sign scrubbed mid-flight. Cabin disruption flagged—not enough to force a landing, but enough to ping three different monitoring systems.”
River leans in. “Define ‘disruption.’”
Cyclone exhales. “Internal movement surge. Elevated bio readings. Acoustic anomaly consistent with… a struggle.”
My jaw locks.
“How long?” I ask.
“Eight minutes. Happened during cruise altitude. Then everything goes quiet.”
I close my eyes once—just once—and see it.
Lena is measuring the distance.
Timing her breath.
