That’s how predators hunt larger prey. You make them chase what they think they can still control.
I tag the exit point and push it to Lena’s screen.
“Get eyes on the surface,” I tell her. “No intervention unless he trips a perimeter.”
“Gotcha,” she replies.
Aaron studies me. “You okay with this?”
I glance once more at the white pulse climbing steadily toward daylight.
“No,” I say honestly.
Then I harden.
“But this is how we end it.”
Because Jonah Elliot didn’t just escape.
He exposed the flaw Malenkov never planned for.
And now, instead of chasing ghosts—
We’re about to hunt a man who just lost control of his dark.
60
Jonah
Location: Forested Ravine — Eastern Europe
Time: Unknown
The air changes before the light does.
It warms—just slightly. Carries moisture. Pine and damp earth instead of oil and rust. My lungs burn as they expand too fast, ribs protesting the movement.
I breathe anyway.
Pain doesn’t get to decide this moment.
I stop without meaning to.
Marin nearly runs into me again.
“You feel it too,” she whispers.
I nod.
We take three more steps.
Then the tunnel ends—not with a wall this time, but with sky.
Gray, overcast, fractured by jagged silhouettes of trees. Morning light filters through branches like it’s unsure whether we deserve it.
I stagger forward and brace a hand against the rock wall, lungs dragging in air that feels too big, too open. Thelight is too bright for eyes that haven’t seen daylight in years.
I’m above ground.
