2025-10-24 00:54:58
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
No Safe Havens
“Tell me you didn’t just use your phone,” Maris said.Arin looked up from where he was sitting, the blue light from the screen still fading off his face. “Evelyn texted. I had to know if she’s alive.”“You had to know,” she repeated, pacing near the window. “You just handed them our location, Arin.”He frowned. “Lucan doesn’t track personal lines. His control’s all corporate-level. I wiped the identifier days ago.”Maris shook her head, pulling the curtain back enough to look outside. “He doesn’t need to track your phone. He built what’s inside you. You think the Protocol isn’t a beacon?”Her words hit harder than he wanted to admit. The faint hum in his skull—the one he’d learned to live with—suddenly felt louder.“I can shut it down,” he said.“Can you?” she asked softly.Before he could answer, headlights flashed across the room’s thin curtains. A car door slammed. Then another.Maris moved fast. “Too late.”Arin was already reaching for his gun, the motion sharp and sure
Motel Lights
The motel smelled of damp carpet and cheap disinfectant. Neon from the sign outside leaked through the thin curtains, staining the walls pink and blue. The room had one bed, one flickering lamp, and a coffee machine that hadn’t worked in years.Arin sat at the small table by the window, the data drive between his fingers. It was no bigger than his thumb, yet it felt like it weighed everything they’d risked. Maris sat on the edge of the bed, towel-drying her hair, watching him with a stillness that meant she was thinking too much.“You’ve been staring at that thing for twenty minutes,” she said finally. “You planning to open it with your mind?”“Maybe,” he murmured. “The Protocol keeps feeding me access codes. I think it knows what’s inside.”“And?”“It’s waiting for me to give permission.”Maris tilted her head. “Permission to what? To remember more?”He met her eyes, the neon catching faint glints of gold in his pupils. “To finish what I started.”She set the towel aside and
The Family Lie
The morning after the explosion, the Voss estate smelled of burnt paper and tension. Servants moved in silence, their faces pale with questions they would never ask. Lucan had sealed his study since dawn, locking himself away with two phones and a decanter that was half-empty before noon.Evelyn stood outside that door, still in her nightgown, a stack of reports clutched against her chest. She’d been awake since the first alarm call. The docks were in chaos, the press circling like sharks, and Arin—Arin was gone.She knocked once. “Father.”Lucan’s voice came from within, steady but colder than usual. “Enter.”She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The curtains were drawn, the light harsh against the mess of papers strewn across his desk. Maps, shipping ledgers, sealed envelopes stamped with corporate crests. Every piece of it smelled of secrecy.“What happened at West Ninth?” she asked, trying to sound composed.Lucan poured himself another glass of whiskey. “An unfortuna
The Safehouse
Maris led him through the back lanes where the concrete still held the memory of rain. The lamps here were weak and far apart, painting everything in bruised amber. Arin moved a step behind her, coat collar up, the hum of the Protocol steady in his skull. Each pulse from it matched the rhythm of his heart.“The safehouse isn’t guarded the way you think,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “Varek trusts silence more than guns. His people only show up when something goes wrong.”“Then we’ll make sure they never know we were here,” Arin said.The old tram line loomed above them, a forgotten skeleton of rust and shadow. Beneath it sat a squat warehouse with faded lettering that once promised freight schedules and reliability. Now, its windows were papered over and its door bolted with heavy steel.Maris knelt by the lock. “Give me a second.”Arin crouched beside her, watching her hands work. The rain had lifted her hair in damp curls, the kind that caught the light every time she
The Man Who Remembered Too Much
He woke to silence, thick and heavy. The vault was gone. The walls, the metal hum, the light—all of it replaced by a dull ache that filled his skull. For a few seconds, Arin didn’t move. He wasn’t sure if his body still belonged to him.Then a voice—soft, hesitant—broke the dark.“Arin?”Maris.He turned toward her. She was sitting beside him on a cot in a dim warehouse office, her hair messy and damp, her face pale with worry. A thin trail of dried blood ran down from her temple. She’d been crying.“You’re awake,” she breathed, half relief, half disbelief.Arin pushed himself up slowly. The air felt wrong. He could hear everything—the low hum of a generator outside, the distant rhythm of rain, the faint heartbeat in Maris’s chest. It all moved inside his head like an orchestra out of tune.“What happened?” he asked. His voice came out deeper, rougher.“You passed out after the explosion,” she said, watching him closely. “Soren’s gone. I dragged you out before the roof gave in.”
Warehouse Seventy-Three
The storm hadn’t stopped chasing them. By nightfall, the air was heavy with mist and salt, the kind that clung to skin and whispered of bad luck. Arin moved through the narrow lanes behind the wharf with Maris at his side, her steps quick but quiet, her hand occasionally brushing his as if to remind him she was still real.Warehouse Seventy-Three sat alone, a hulking shadow at the edge of the loading bay. No guards visible, no sounds inside, only the soft hum of an unseen generator. The place looked asleep, but Arin had lived long enough under other people’s eyes to know when something was pretending to rest.“You sure this is it?” he asked.Maris nodded, pulling her hood lower. “Soren’s directions were exact. This is where Varek’s people move shipments they don’t log.”“And the shard?”“If it’s here, it’ll be in the lower vault. That’s where they store items that can’t be scanned.”He didn’t ask how she knew. The way she looked at the door told him she’d been inside before.Th
You may also like
The Poor Owner of a Legacy System
Pein32.9K viewsThe Tycoon System
Aster_Pheonix85.2K viewsMy Sniper System
kuhaku_sora22.2K viewsSkythunder System
Scoco20.6K viewsAwakened The Strongest Talent
Yeshua Yin10.8K viewsAlmighty Dominant Caspian Grey Hastings
Mh_Ummi (Styles)1.3K viewsDoomsday Supreme: I Have An SSS Grade Talent
Lady Nine Tails22.0K viewsProject Sky: The Awakening Of The Forgotten Heir
DEKING244 views