Sentinel didn’t run.
Heshifted.
“How long?” I asked.
Boone was already typing, hands flying. “Best estimate? Five minutes ago. Maybe less.”
Five minutes.
My jaw tightened.
“She forced his hand,” I said.
Russ looked at me sharply. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” I leaned forward, palms flat on the table. “That wasn’t an extraction failure. That was a relocation.”
A controlled one.
Which meant Scout Fallon had done exactly what she intended.
“She touched something,” I continued. “Not enough to expose him. Enough to make him uncomfortable.”
Boone glanced at the frozen timestamp. “You think she knew this would happen?”
“I know she did,” I said.
Because Sentinel didn’t abandon assets unless the board changed.
And Scout had changed it.
“Pull every Sentinel relocation pattern we’ve got,” I ordered. “Every site that went dark within a six-hour window after contact.”
Russ’s eyes widened. “That’s a tight net.”
“It needs to be,” I said. “He won’t move her far. He’s not done with her yet.”
Not with someone like Scout.
Boone hesitated. “Logan… if he moved her, that means he spoke to her.”
I nodded once.
“She spoke back.”
The room went still.
Most captives begged. Some resisted. Some broke.
Scout Fallon negotiated the board while sitting in a white room with no windows.
That made her invaluable.
And dangerous.
“He’s escalating,” Russ said. “What’s his next move?”
I straightened slowly.
