She twisted anyway, trying to look back.
The hall behind them was illuminated with the emergency lights. People ran in every direction. She caught one last glimpse of Mihail at the far end of the chamber.
An officer shouted for him to get down while another leveled a rifle at his head.
Mihail lifted both hands slowly and smiled like a man, as if he were somehow still in charge.
Audrey’s insides lurched.
He was truly staying—because he’d chosen to.
Nikos saw where she was looking and shoved her harder. “Keep moving.”
“What about him?” Audrey spat. Despite hearing Mihail’s plan, she still couldn’t believe they were leaving him behind. For a fugitive as wanted as Mihail, it had to be a death sentence.
Nikos clamped his mouth shut, and that was answer enough.
Her fight was gone.
Her breath a broken rhythm.
Her hope was a fiber pulled thin.
They forced her down a narrow steel passage. Basir keyed something into a side panel and held up Alex’s tablet for the scanner. A door folded open to reveal a cramped transfer compartment that reminded her of a coffin. The same raven mark she saw in the Silo was stamped on the cargo crates.
Without windows, there was no way to see where they were taking her—but she knew. Audrey recoiled so hard the suppression bands bit into her skin. “No.”
Basir seized her by the shoulder.
“No!” she shouted again, twisting hard and wrenching something in her wrist. “I’m not going with you?—”
Nikos slapped a hand over her mouth and lifted her clean off her feet. “Listen to me,” he said, face inches from hers, eyes dark and glittering, too close to grief to be rage alone. “Mihail is buying you this route. He stays, you go. That’s the order. Don’t make me break you to keep you alive.”
Alive. The word almost made her laugh.
He shoved her into the compartment. Basir locked the restraint strap across her lap and wrists in one practiced movement.
“Emerson—” she started.
Nikos looked back toward the smoke-filled corridor. An uncertain grimace crossed his face. Then it was gone. “If he’s alive,” Nikos said, “he’s following his own orders now.”
The door was already sliding shut again. Audrey kicked once, uselessly, boot thudding against steel.
She believed Nikos. But what was Emerson doing now—hunting Ryker, hunting her, or both?
It didn’t matter. She needed him because he knew where Cary was. The realization made her feel sick all over again. Audrey forced herself to make a choice—whatever happened, she would escape these men and hunt down the only lead to Cary herself. Find Emerson. Find Cary. Get out, no matter who stood in her way.
The door sealed.
Darkness narrowed around her as the pod flew forward.
Mihail gone.
Alex gone.
Emerson vanished.
Cary, alive somewhere.
