CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINETrigger didn't waste a single millisecond.With a sharp, panicked curse, she ripped her heavy, reinforced tactical coat off the wall hook and threw it over her armored shoulders. For the first time in her life, she was vibrating with a violent panic.“Move! Move!” Trigger roared at Jinx, sprinting out of the detention block toward the underground garage.Moments later, the garage doors blasted open into the swirling vortex of the apocalypse.Trigger slammed her foot onto the accelerator of her modified, broken heavily armored all-terrain vehicle. The engine roared, tires biting into the thick ice as they plummeted headfirst into the blinding whiteout, tearing a frantic path toward Nova Domicile.“Dammit, Zane!” Trigger screamed over the rattling chassis, her knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel. “You useless, blind fool! Two lifetimes and you still let that parasitic leach pull the wool over your eyes!”The dashboard display cast a sickly green glow o

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE“I'm sorry I couldn't be your knight this time.”With a brilliant flash, Zane’s body completely disappeared, dissolving into shimmering particles of temporal dust that drifted toward the ceiling.“NO!” Trigger screamed, falling to her knees.Tears of unadulterated agony cut through the blood and soot on her face as she slammed her fists against the frozen floor.She had failed.Despite everything, she had failed again.Suddenly, the fortress's intercom crackled to life. Marcus Grant’s voice boomed across the bunker, cold, triumphant, and completely devoid of mercy.“Did you really think you could change anything, Ashley? Ariel? I am in control of the loop. Zane has been under my control since day one. Every choice he made, every step he took, was exactly where I channeled him.”Trigger gritted her teeth, her voice cracking as she roared at the ceiling.“You monster! You killed our parents! You destroyed the world! All for what?! For a woman who never has and never w

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREECollin’s teeth chattered violently, the sound a frantic click-clack against the howling, minus two-hundred-degree wind.He stared at the solid, flesh-and-blood reality of the man before him.“You should be dead,” Collin hissed, the sheer shock momentarily overriding his terror, twisting his face into an ugly sneer. “You shouldn't have survived that. Marcus controls the loop! You dissolved!”Zane didn't even flinch as the biting frost lashed against his jacket. His eyes remained fixed on Collin, dark and entirely devoid of warmth.“Marcus controls less than he thinks.”“You ruined everything!” Collin screamed suddenly, his voice cracking as he pointed a trembling, gloved finger at Zane's chest.“In my past life, it was your fault. You're the reason I died! You caused my downfall! If you had just given me those three cans of meat when I begged you, Rex would have never turned on me. Rex wouldn't have brutally murdered me! My blood is on your hands, Zane!”A faint, c

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVEZane slid his arms beneath Trigger’s limp form, lifting her carefully off the cold console.Despite her heavy combat gear and the plasma broadblade strapped to her side, she felt dangerously light.He carried her down the reinforced corridor to the living quarters, placing her gently onto the leather couch. Turning back, he scooped up Jinx’s unconscious body from the floor and laid her down on the adjacent section, propping a cushion beneath her head.Leaving them for a brief moment, Zane strode back to the primary command deck.He engaged the manual triple-deadbolt system on the main blast door and welded the electronic release panels shut with his plasma torch.No one was breaching Nova Domicile again.Descending into the depths of his bunker, he gathered the sterile surgical kits, bone-knitting serums, and cellular regenerators he had stockpiled for emergencies.Back in the freezing living quarters, the holographic interface of his system flickered to life.[BI

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVENThe lower vault chambers were a claustrophobic nightmare of interlocking steel corridors and dead ends, lit only by the low-frequency hum of auxiliary backup generators.Teddy urgently navigated the maze, his boots clicking rapidly against the gridded floor. The fifteen-year-old prodigy had completely dropped his submissive act.He stopped in front of a heavy, reinforced containment cell deep within the secondary subterranean ring, his fingers flying across the rusted keypad to punch in a bypass code he had spent weeks calculating.The electronic lock hissed open.Inside, huddled on a narrow metal cot beneath a pile of threadbare thermal blankets, were his ten-year-old twin sisters, Lily and Lacy, and his mother, Seline.Marcus had kept them locked away in this dark hole for nearly four months, using their lives as a permanent leash around Teddy’s neck to ensure his absolute obedience in building the time machine.He had planned on rescuing them after Marcus succe