Closer to the fire.
“We let him trigger them,” she says. “But not the way he designed.”
Ronan’s eyes narrow. He’s already tracking.
“You want to intercept the cascade mid-execution.”
“Yes.”
She starts moving again—fast, precise, building something new over his framework.
“We take control of the response layer,” she continues. “Reroute authority channels. Redirect outcomes. Turn his own structure against him.”
One of the operators exhales slowly.
“You’re talking about rewriting the event in real time.”
“Yes.”
Another voice—sharp, interested.
“That’s not stopping it,” he says.
Lark doesn’t hesitate.
“No,” she replies.
“It’s owning it.”
A beat.
Then Cal leans back slightly, a slow grin forming.
“Oh,” he says.
And there’s something dangerous in his tone.
Something that recognizes exactly what she’s proposing.
“That’s… evil.”
I feel it too.
The shift.
The edge.
The moment where survival stops being defensive—
and becomes offensive.
I look at her.
At the woman standing in the center of something designed to break her—
and deciding instead to take control of it.
Pride hits first.
