She rises slowly to her feet and turns toward the speakers.
“You made them afraid to be children.”
Her voice shakes with rage now.
Wu answers immediately:
“No.”
A pause.
“I removed weakness before the world could exploit it.”
That does it.
Hannah steps directly into the center of the checkpoint.
Red emergency lights flashing across her face.
Blood on her hands.
Storm inside her eyes.
“You know what your problem is, Wu?”
Silence.
Then calmly:
“Tell me.”
Hannah’s voice turns deadly quiet.
“You think surviving makes you God.”
Even Russ looks at her differently after that.
Wu goes silent for the first time since we entered the bunker.
And somehow—
that silence feels dangerous.
62
Hannah
Wu doesn’t answer.
And somehow that terrifies me more than his voice ever did.
The bunker falls into a heavy silence broken only by distant alarms and the slow groan of machinery somewhere deep underground.
The children stay clustered near the blast doors.
Watching us carefully.
Watching me.
