Safe point.
It’s never safe.
It’s just the point we’ve controlled longer than the enemy has.
I glance at Lark again.
She’s holding it together.
Barely.
And the fact that she’s holding it at all tells me more than the file ever could.
Somewhere behind us, the hatchback makes the same turn.
My jaw tightens.
There you are.
I don’t let my body show it. I don’t let my driving change.
But inside, everything in me goes razor-sharp.
“Lena,” I say softly. “It’s still there.”
“Copy.”
Ronan’s tone shifts into cold focus. “Confirm tail. Don’t spook. We want their patience to slip.”
Lark turns her head. “What does that mean?”
It means we’re going to make someone make a mistake.
It means we’re going to make the hunter show teeth.
But I don’t tell her that.
“Buckle up,” I say instead.
She blinks. “I’m—”
“Now.”
She pulls the seatbelt across her chest, clicks it in, hands shaking once before she stills them. Then she looks at me, chin lifted like she’s daring me to lie.
“Are we being followed?”
“Yes,” I answer.
Her throat works. “By who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I watch her take that in.
She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t collapse. She doesn’t demand to be taken home.
She just… goes quiet.
