The entrance to the uplink bunker was buried beneath layers of moss, rotting leaves, and a collapsed thicket of tree limbs. No one would have known it was there unless they were looking. And even then, it took Jared nearly twenty minutes to uncover the old steel hatch hidden beneath a camouflaged tarp coated in decades of forest debris.Mei knelt beside him, shivering from the cold sweat that came with fear. She held the rifle tightly, even though she hadn’t fired it once yet. Her hands trembled, but her stance didn’t break.“This is it?” she asked quietly.Jared gave a slight nod. “Used to be a failsafe command post. Remote systems control. It was taken offline before the Collapse.”“Why would they hide it way out here?”“Because it wasn’t meant to be found. Not by the public.”The badge Finn gave him still felt warm in his hand. Like it carried the weight of all the ghosts it had passed through before reaching him. He slid it into the scanner beside the hatch. There was a long silen

The hum was getting louder. Not the steady thrum of the transport’s engine, but something sharper—mechanical, high-pitched, and circling.I tightened my grip on the edge of the seat as the cabin light flickered once, twice, then went out completely. For a second, the only illumination came from the staccato flashes of lightning through the rain-smeared window. Each burst of light revealed the same thing: a dark silhouette hovering in the storm, matching our speed.“Tell me you’re seeing that,” I said, my voice lower than I intended.Liam’s eyes snapped toward the window, then to me. “Stay still.” He pushed himself up and reached for the latch above his seat, his other hand never straying far from the weapon at his hip.The hum shifted pitch, rising higher, almost impatient. I couldn’t tell if it was some kind of drone or something far worse.The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom from the cockpit.We have a tail.Adaptive stealth mode is activated. I could hear the tension benea

The clouds didn’t just part—they tore.It was like some invisible hand ripped a wound in the sky, peeling back the storm to reveal something that had no right to exist above the world. A vertical slit of blinding light cut through the black clouds, its edges jagged and shifting like it was alive.Through it, shapes moved. Not clouds. Not aircraft. Things with too many limbs, their silhouettes twisting in ways my brain didn’t want to understand.Liam stood rigid at the hatch, his fingers tightening on the frame. The flare’s dying glow barely lit his profile, but I could see his jaw clench. He’d seen this before. He recognized it.The light poured into the transport, making the rain look like silver needles in the air. My mask’s visor dimmed automatically to shield my eyes, but it didn’t make the sight any less wrong.One of the shapes pushed closer to the tear. I thought it was just blackness until its head—or what I assumed was its head—tilted toward us. Even from this distance, I fel