I straightened, heart steady despite the blood in the air.
I’m still here, I thought.
I’m still thinking. I pray Logan is as good as Raine said he was.
And if Sentinel believed fear would make me break—
Then he’d already underestimated how close rescue really was.
14
Logan
The first scream doesn’t come through audio.
It comes through math.
A sudden compression in the system’s timing loops. Human response windows are narrowing. Decision trees are collapsing inward instead of branching.
That’s when I know.
I straighten slowly, every instinct going cold and precise.
“He’s gone live,” I said.
Boone looked up sharply. “Live how?”
“Live bait,” I replied. “Real people. Real consequences.”
The room stilled.
I keyed the cascade again, stripping the data to its bones. Sentinel’s architecture wasn’t defensive anymore—it wastheatrical. He wasn’t hiding Scout.
He wasperforming around her.
Russ swore under his breath. “He’s forcing interaction.”
“Yes,” I said. “And he’s timing it.”
The logic trace pulsed again—faster now. Less elegant. A tell.
Sentinel was angry.
And anger always shortened his margins.
“He wants me to rush,” I continued. “Wants me loud. Wants me early.”
Boone shook his head. “But if he’s using live bait—”
“He thinks I’ll trade stealth for speed,” I finished.
I zoomed out, not on geography—but on behavior.
Sentinel wasn’t escalating randomly.
He was escalatingin proximity.
“Mark the pressure points,” I said. “Every internal spike that aligns with Scout’s movement.”
