The visor hovered in Sable's hand like an executioner's blade—sleek, matte black, with a red insignia etched across the surface: a closed eye with three jagged lashes. Not part of any known academy protocol.
Ace stared at it.
Not for what it was.
But for what it meant.
Submission.
Surveillance.
Surrender to a game someone else had coded.
Kiera lay unconscious at his feet, still breathing, still steady, but drugged or stunned—her fingers twitching ever so slightly, like she was still fighting somewhere inside her head.
Sable tilted her head. "Tick tock, Ace."
"Why her?" he asked.
"She volunteered," she said simply. "Said you'd never trust anyone unless they bled for you."
"And you just let that happen?"
"I orchestrated it."
There was no smugness in her voice. No pleasure.
Just cold, clinical calculation.
"I don't follow rules," she added. "I write them. And I'm giving you the chance to stop being someone else's pawn."
Ace lowered his blade slightly. "Why me?"
Sable stepped closer, offering the visor again.
"Because you're the only ghost who didn't vanish."
He didn't move.
Didn't speak.
But he took the visor.
Just not how she expected.
He crushed it in his hand.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface, wires popping like nerves severing, sparks dancing off his glove.
Sable flinched—not in fear, but surprise.
"I don't wear someone else's mask," Ace said quietly. "Not anymore."
The visor dropped to the floor with a clatter.
The red eye blinked one final time.
Then went dark.
The lights in the room surged back on. Monitors flickered to life. And for a split second, Ace saw what Sable had tried to hide—an entire wall of surveillance feeds, all monitoring different areas of Blackridge. Dorms. Training fields. Classrooms. Even the headmaster's office.
She wasn't just filtering students.
She was watching everyone.
Sable's calm demeanor cracked. "You just burned a bridge you'll regret."
Ace crouched beside Kiera and checked her pulse again. Still steady. Still warm.
"She's not part of your little operation anymore," he said. "Neither am I."
"You don't get to decide that."
He stood.
"I just did."
He lifted Kiera into his arms and turned toward the door.
"You really think they'll let you walk away?" she called after him.
"No," he said. "But I'm not walking. I'm hunting."
He carried Kiera back through the Blackmouth tunnels, her head lolling against his shoulder. Every corridor felt heavier, darker—as if the very architecture had turned against him. He counted three different motion sensors where there should've been none. Two redirected hallways. One misaligned exit route.
Sable was already trying to trap him.
Too late.
Ace had mapped these tunnels days ago.
He slipped through maintenance shafts, through pipes layered in condensation and silence, emerging into the basement of the east dormitory. No alarms. No locks. Just gravity and grit.
He laid Kiera on his cot, secured the door, and slid a small vial beneath her tongue—a synthetic stimulant from his own stash.
Within seconds, her eyes fluttered open.
Then narrowed.
"Was that a hallucination?" she rasped.
"No," he said. "You were played."
She sat up slowly. "Did you take the offer?"
"I gave it back—broken."
Kiera looked at him, really looked, then nodded once.
"I'd follow that."
Ace didn't answer.
He was already moving.
Already pulling out wires, parts, and data chips from his hidden compartment.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'm staying. And I'm watching back."
The next morning, Blackridge Academy resumed like nothing had happened.
Simulations resumed.
Students moved through corridors with calculated ease.
But behind every perfect stride, Ace saw the tension now.
He saw the patterns.
Sable had eyes everywhere—and Ace intended to pluck them out one by one.
He entered Data Theory like every other day, slouched into his seat, and kept his visor dimmed. But while the instructor droned on about predictive modeling, Ace rerouted his visor's feed to hijack local signals.
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
Each one a feed.
He tagged every source that led back to the Blackmouth servers. Traced their loops. Marked their blind spots.
By the time the bell rang, he'd mapped six unregistered observation posts.
And a backdoor signature that wasn't Sable's.
Someone else was watching her.
Later that night, Kiera entered the dorm with two folded files in hand.
"Had to slice into the instructors' secondary locker room to get these," she said, tossing them on his desk. "They're part of an older roster."
Ace opened them.
Two names stood out.
Subject Zero: Aiden Vale
Subject One: Sable Merrin
Kiera tapped a black-and-white image of a younger Sable. Hair shorter. Eyes wilder. Same scar below her temple.
"She's not faculty," Kiera said. "She's an experiment."
Ace nodded slowly.
It made sense now. Why she moved differently. Why she spoke like someone above the system. She wasn't born in Blackridge.
She was built for it.
And Aiden Vale?
That was still a mystery.
The file was redacted in six places. Entire paragraphs blacked out. But one line remained:
"Project Ghostflare initiated following Subject Zero's defection."
A ripple of realization passed through Ace.
He wasn't the first Ghost.
Just the next.
He waited until 3:47 a.m.—the point in the system's cycle when surveillance audits paused for thirty-seven seconds.
That was his window.
He left the dorm and crept across the campus, silent as vapor, slipping through patrol zones and thermal fields.
The observatory.
One of the few buildings that operated independently of Academy command.
And someone was inside.
A shadow passed across the top floor window.
Ace reached the rear wall, leapt up the fire escape, and slipped inside through the roof hatch.
Monitors flickered.
Red wine sat half-finished beside a monitor.
And a man sat in the dark, watching the feeds.
He didn't flinch when Ace stepped forward.
"I was wondering how long it would take you," the man said without turning. "You're faster than the last one."
Ace didn't speak.
Didn't move.
The man turned.
Graying hair. Beard trimmed with military precision. One eye replaced by a glowing lens.
"Name's Vale," he said. "Aiden Vale."
Ace's pulse ticked once.
Then again.
"Subject Zero."
Vale smiled. "So you've seen the file."
Ace tightened his grip on his blade. "Why did you defect?"
Vale stood. "Because I realized Sable wasn't the weapon."
He stepped forward into the light.
"You are."