The rain had finally stopped, but the air hung thick with the smell of earth and rust, soaked through by the relentless storm.
Emily led the team out of the subway station, her boots splashing through shallow puddles pooling in cracks along the ruined pavement.
The sky above was a blanket of low gray, a ceiling that felt just a little too close, smothering the broken city beneath it.
They weren't running anymore.
They were bait.
Emily's fingers tightened around the strap of her rifle, the weight of it both comfort and burden.
Each step forward felt deliberate, the kind of walk someone takes when they know they're being watched — and they want to be.
Hale's eyes were always there, somewhere, even if the drones were silent for now.
She glanced back at the team. Jared, walking in tense silence, his face pale under streaks of dried mud.
Lena, pacing just off her shoulder, her jaw set tight as if she were grinding down her doubts one by one.
