I pulled up her dashboard.
Still dark.
No passive pings. No residual signals. No movement history after Friday night.
“She’s off grid,” I murmured.
Lucas exhaled slowly. “I called Ben on Friday. I thought?—”
“I’m sure I can guess what result you were aiming for,” I interrupted, annoyed that Taryn was probably out of range because of him.
Silence stretched between us, thick with the weight of consequences neither of us could fully calculate yet.
“What do I do here?” Lucas finally asked.
“You leave,” I said immediately. “If anything escalates again, you disengage. You do not intervene physically.”
“What about the students? I can’t just leave them behind!”
“They’re not your responsibility anymore. And Lucas?”
“What?” he bit out.
“If you check on the student who was bitten, I believe you’ll notice he shows signs of sickness or aggression.” I sighed, “Leave now.”
I knew the stubborn bastard was going to ignore my advice. I comforted myself with the knowledge that he could take care of himself.
“I’m going to come home.”
The fact that I still thought of it as home after all these years reflected my feelings towards the girl with storm clouds in her eyes.
“When?” Lucas asked.
I looked at the screen—at the rising patterns, my missing coworkers, and the 911 calls.
“Now,” I said firmly. “I need to be with Taryn.”
“Okay,” He paused. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
I could hear what sounded like glass breaking in the background.
“I have to let you go!”
“Wait—”
He hung up. Shit!
I stood and shut down my workstation, ignoring the alerts stacking in the corner of the screen. I grabbed my jacket and headed for the exit, already rerouting in my head—roads to avoid, supply points, where I was most likely to find Lucas.
And now that Taryn had disappeared into the blind spots of every system I trusted, it was time to pay a visit to my dear old stepfather.
The parking garage was half-empty.
It shouldn’t be. We worked 24/7.
Badge-ins were down across the city—hospitals, transit, utilities. I’d been monitoring all of these closely. People didn’t stop showing up all at once unless something was wrong or something had convinced them it was safer not to.
I adjusted my route before I reached the freeway. Surface streets first. Fewer bottlenecks. And more options.
