The storm battered the island like it wanted to break it apart.
Wind howled through the reinforced vents of the bunker, rattling steel beams and vibrating window panes sealed shut. Outside, nature howled. Inside, it was too quiet.
Sienna sat at the long dining table alone.
Silas had insisted on preparing the meal himself—an unspoken peace offering after everything they'd just uncovered. She didn't argue. She couldn't. Not after the kiss. Not after the map of pain they'd both laid bare on the bunker floor.
But still—something didn't feel right.
Her skin tingled faintly. Not desire. Not even fear.
A prickling beneath the skin. Like electricity. Like warning.
He returned fifteen minutes later with a tray: rice porridge with ginseng slices, a boiled egg, a dish of dark soy duck, and a ceramic teacup with a faintly steaming brew.
"Sorry," Silas said, setting the tray down. "It's not restaurant quality."
She smiled faintly. "I trust your poison more than a stranger's cooking."
He stilled—just a fraction.
The joke passed between them like a blade wrapped in silk.
Then she picked up the spoon.
He didn't touch his own food.
She noticed.
Halfway through the porridge, her vision blurred.
A sound, like rushing wind, roared behind her ears. She dropped the spoon. Her limbs began to tremble.
"S-Silas—"
He caught her before she hit the floor.
Her breathing quickened. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints. Sweat burst across her skin.
"Sienna, look at me," he said. "Tell me what you feel."
Her throat clenched. She couldn't speak.
Then—
She convulsed.
Blood erupted from her mouth—bright, frothy, tinged with black.
Silas didn't hesitate.
He pressed his lips to hers.
And he drank.
Not just to taste it. To test it.
Sienna could feel the heat of his mouth, the burn of her blood as he sucked it out with a medic's precision.
She moaned faintly—not from pain, but from the strange intimacy of it.
He pulled back after a few seconds, panting.
His lips were red.
So were hers.
And somehow, the bleeding had slowed.
She blinked up at him. "You—why—"
"I had to know what they gave you," he said. "The blood held the signature."
He pulled a small penlight from his pocket, flicked it on, and aimed it at the back of her hand.
Tiny dots lit up—like circuitry under her skin.
Her pupils widened.
"Nanotech," she whispered.
He nodded grimly. "Nano-encoded delivery. They didn't poison you to kill you. They poisoned you to mark you."
Sienna tried to sit up, but her limbs still quivered.
"Stay down," he said, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. "They need you alive. But they need to trace you now."
She swallowed hard. "Jenna."
Silas didn't reply. He just reached for a nearby syringe kit and loaded it with a clear anti-inflammatory serum, injecting her quickly at the shoulder.
It wouldn't stop the nanobots.
But it would slow them.
As the serum took effect, Sienna's breathing evened. The numbness receded.
Her voice was stronger when she said, "Someone cooked the ginseng."
Silas frowned.
"I didn't," he said.
They locked eyes.
There had been a third party in the kitchen.
Someone who knew the storm would isolate them.
Someone who knew Silas would prepare the food.
Someone who could slip a vial into the boiling broth—and disappear before either of them noticed.
"Security logs," she said, already trying to sit up. "We check them now."
He helped her stand, carefully. "If the grid's still jammed from the typhoon, we might not—"
But he stopped short as the panel flickered to life.
Someone had overridden the manual shutdown.
A single camera feed appeared on screen. Basement level. Pantry corridor.
And there—moving swiftly past the cold storage—
Jenna Nan.
Wearing a storm cloak.
Carrying a ceramic vial.
Silas stared at the image, fury tightening across his jaw.
"I'll kill her," he said softly.
"No," Sienna said. "We need her to lead us to K."
He turned to her.
"You think she's working for him?"
"I think," Sienna said, "Jenna's working for herself. And that makes her more dangerous than either of you."
Silas didn't argue.
He just stepped back, wiped the blood from his lips, and whispered, "I never wanted you to bleed for me."
She smiled faintly, color returning to her face. "Then stop making me love you."
The lights flickered again. Not from a storm surge.
From a breach.
Someone had accessed the island's outer perimeter.
Silas's expression turned cold.
"They're not waiting for the storm to pass."
Sienna reached for the scalpel she now kept tucked in her boot.
"Then neither will we."