I don’t look back.
The device is still in my hand.
Still recording.
“Good,” I breathe. “That’s all I needed.”
I cut into the first side corridor I see, angling away from the main pursuit, my path shifting instinctively as I map escape routes on the fly.
“You’re not catching me,” I mutter, pushing through the pain in my side.
Because this?—
This changes everything.
And I’m not letting it die in that room.
CHAPTER 34
HRASK
The alarm hits before I see her.
It tears through the corridors in sharp, layered pulses, red light flooding the walls in rhythmic flashes that turn everything into motion and shadow, and the controlled chaos of the base fractures into something harsher, more chaotic. Boots pound across metal in overlapping patterns, voices snapping orders that bounce off the structure and distort direction, and I cut through it all at a diagonal, not following the flow, not fighting it directly, just slipping between the fractures where it breaks.
“Yeah,” I mutter under my breath, adjusting my pace as a patrol rushes past the junction ahead of me. “You definitely didn’t keep a low profile.”
A sharp crack echoes from deeper inside the sector—weapon discharge, not standard issue—and I don’t need a system map to tell me exactly where she went.
“Command level,” I murmur as I angle toward it. “Of course you went straight for the center.”
The corridor narrows, then opens again into a wider artery feeding out from the command wing, and the movement here is heavier, more focused, units converging instead of dispersing.
“You’re running out of space,” I say quietly, scanning the intersections ahead.
Then—
Movement.
Fast.
Wrong direction.
I pivot just as she bursts out of a side corridor, her stride uneven but relentless, one hand gripping something tight enough that her knuckles blanch under the pressure.
“There you are,” I say, stepping into her path.
She almost shoots me.
Her weapon comes up instinctively, her eyes sharp and wild for half a second before recognition slams into place.
“Don’t—” she starts, cutting herself off as she exhales hard. “Damn it, Hrask.”
“Good to see you too,” I reply, grabbing her arm and pulling her into the shadow of the adjoining corridor before the next wave of patrols rounds the corner.
“You picked a hell of a time to improvise,” I add, keeping my voice low as I press her back against the wall just long enough to check the corridor.
“I didn’t improvise,” she snaps, still breathing hard. “I finished it.”
