“I was going to confirm you were usable before I risked the operation.”
Usable. The word made her go rigid. In response, she pressed the sharp edge hard enough for the skin on his throat to split. A thin line of blood bubbled and slid downward.
“I still need answers,” she said. “About where I’m from. About Ryker. About what really happened to my family.”
“There isn’t time.”
“Then make time.”
“No,” Emerson said. The refusal landed so hard that she almost physically flinched. “You don’t get a full briefing. You don’t get a history lesson. You can’t sit here and process what you are while the clock runs out.” His glare was fierce enough to sting. “You get what you need to function in the next hour.”
Audrey’s eyes flashed. “I’m not going into a trap blind.”
“You already are,” he shot back.
That stopped her.
He moved closer—slow, still not caring about the knife. “You think this is about choice?” he continued. “It isn’t. It’s about timing.”
The tablet chirped as the countdown went below twelve hours.
11:56:03.
“She’s accelerating,” Emerson said, eyes looking at the screen before returning to her. “If we don’t activate the signal and get to the forger within the hour, all my work tracking her here collapses. She won’t make the same mistake twice.”
They stared at each other.
Then Emerson pressed forward, not away from the blade, but into it, forcing it deeper into his skin. Blood smeared along the edge. “If you’re going to cut,” he said evenly, “do it.”
He inclined closer, deliberately, forcing her either to draw back or slice deeper. She didn’t move. “I will burn half this city if that’s what it takes to bring her in.” He stayed calm and unshaken. “If you don’t leave with me in the next five minutes, I will kill you and leave your body so destroyed that even your sister wouldn’t recognize it. I don’t need a clean record. I need Sophia caught. You’re helpful,” he added. “But the mission doesn’t depend on you.”
The clock dropped to 11:54:42.
Emerson didn’t look away from her. “You want answers? Be my bait, and her mind is all yours to read.”
The tablet pinged again with another notification.Movement confirmed.
Audrey didn’t pull the blade away immediately. She held it there, feeling how little he feared dying compared to failing. Somewhere in the city, her mother was already on the move. If they didn’t get there first, they’d lose the opportunity.
Carefully, she put down her trusty weapon, feeling immediately empty-handed when she did.
Emerson didn’t waste a second. He snatched up the tablet and flicked the map wider. The warehouse district expanded across the screen.
Zones marked in changing colors appeared in green, amber, and red. He expanded the map again, then toggled something. Invisible overlays snapped into place.
Audrey bent closer despite herself. “You’ve studied her.”
He didn’t look up. “For years.”
“And you think you can predict her.”
“I think I can force her to choose between bad options,” he said. “That’s enough.”
Audrey exhaled slowly.
After ten years of confusion, of being told she was unstable and trying to reconcile memories that never quite aligned, it all converged on this moment. She’d spent so much time reopening the same wounds that every move ahead felt dangerous, as if it might cost her what little of herself she still recognized.
But at the center of her anger and fear was one irreducible want: the whole truth about how Cary and her dad died and her mother’s choices. She needed to hear Sophia confess. She needed answers, not just to heal but to decide what came next.
