Not running. Not hurried. The measured, confident tread of someone who knew their prey had nowhere to go.
Shit. He’d either seen her enter the cave, or he already knew it was here.
Emma’s throat closed with terror so pure it tasted metallic. She pressed harder against the wall, willing herself to be smaller, quieter, invisible.
She followed the passage as it curved. The air quality changed, becoming thicker somehow, pressing against her ears.
A chamber. She was in a chamber now; the space opened up around her, echoes shifting. Emma slid along the wall and squeezed herself into a corner. Her hand brushed over something smooth.
She slid a hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the Red Veil coin she had been carrying like a lucky penny. She pulled it out, clutching it hard enough to hurt. “Please,” she mouthed into the darkness. Not a prayer—she wasn’t sure who or what she was talking to. The island itself, maybe. Anything that might help.
Her other hand was still against the wall, fingertips tracing a carved shape. A spiral, cut deep into the stone.
Light bloomed behind her. A flashlight beam swept across the chamber entrance.
Emma’s breath stopped. The assassin was outlined by his own light, his crossbow held with professional ease. He was pivoting slowly, searching the chamber.
The beam swung in an arc toward her.
Emma’s hand brushed a recess in the wall—a hollow space below the spiral carving. Something was inside it, smooth like glass but warmer, almost alive against her palm.
Her fingers closed around it. The stone filled her hand. Volcanic glass, dark as midnight, with something pale inset in the center. A soft glow emanated from the center.
The beam found her. “Ah, there you are.”The assassin raised his crossbow, his finger moving to the trigger.
She clutched the stone with both hands; the coin fell forgotten to the cave floor. Something within her—instinct or desperation or the island itself speaking to her—told her topush.
Not physically. The movement was internal, like releasing a breath held too long, or opening a hidden door.
The stone flared.
Wind exploded outward from where Emma stood, lit in pale blue-white, painting the chamber in sharp relief. The assassin’s eyes widened behind his tactical mask?—
The wind caught him and flung him backward.
He hit the far wall with a sound she felt more than heard, a meaty thud that made her stomach clench. The crossbow clattered across the stone floor. The flashlight spun, its beam wheeling crazily before it too went dark.
Then silence.
Emma stood frozen, her legs shaking; the talisman still clutched in her hands, its glow fading.
A groan echoed in the chamber, followed by the rustle of clothes.
Shit. I’ve got to get out of here.
Her attacker was waking up. And he was between her and the way out.
Chapter 33
Shockwave
The security footagedidn’t lie.
Zach replayed the sequence for the third time, watching the man dressed as a groundskeeper move through the south corridor. Wrong gait. Wrong body language. Wrong everything.
Groundskeepers didn’t move like that—scanning corners before entry, keeping shoulders angled to reduce profile, avoiding direct sightlines to cameras. This wasn’t an employee. This was someone trained.
The timestamp placed him near the maintenance wing twenty minutes ago. He pulled up the live feed. Empty corridor. The access log showed a badge swipe at the control room entrance four minutes prior.
