Adrian circled the burning wreckage of the warehouse, his eyes scanning the ground for anything that might tell him where Divine had gone. Smoke still curled into the night sky, and the heat kept them at a distance, forcing him to search along the perimeter rather than through the rubble itself."Over here," he called, crouching near a stretch of dirt beyond the rail yard's chain-link fence.The man joined him, his earlier shaken composure already smoothing itself back into cold control, though Adrian noticed his hands had not quite stopped trembling.Tire tracks cut through the soft earth, two parallel grooves leading away from a gap in the fence where the metal had been bent back. Footprints ran alongside them, several sets, overlapping and hurried."They left in a hurry," Adrian said. "Before the explosion.""Before we even arrived, most likely," the man said, following the tracks with his eyes. "This confirms what the prisoner told us. Karl left with her shortly before we reached

Karl scrambled backward on the floor, his earlier despair curdling into something far more dangerous as he processed the man's words, the shock rippling through the room, the pendant still clutched in the man's steady hand.He reached into his jacket with trembling fingers and pulled out a short blade, the kind meant for intimidation more than genuine combat, and lunged toward Divine, who still stood pressed close against Adrian."Stay back," Karl screamed, his voice cracking with panic. "I'll kill her. I swear I will. Don't come any closer."Adrian moved before the thought had even finished forming, his body reacting with the same instinctive speed that had carried him through every dangerous confrontation since that first night on the shore.He crossed the distance in a single stride, his hand closing around Karl's wrist a fraction of a second before the blade could reach Divine, twisting sharply until the weapon clattered uselessly against the floorboards.Karl cried out, cradling