By day four, the air had shifted.
Not just around me, but in the van too.
The crew was tense. Edgy. Tiger checked the rearview mirror too often. Mick's hands never stopped shaking. Kol started sleeping with his gun in his lap.
We hadn't seen a single soul in miles. But that made it worse, not better.
Kol finally broke the silence one night, during a stop near an old bridge. We were setting up temporary rest when he leaned against the hood and asked, "You think the facility's still standing?"
I blinked. "What?"
"After all this? You think it's still the same?"
I looked out toward the edge of the ruined road. "I think… I think they're still hurting him."
Kol didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
By day six, I was pacing again.
Couldn't sit still.
Couldn't think straight.
Every hour stretched like wire pulled too tight. Every minute that passed was a minute Nine spent alone. Hurt. Watched. Prodded by men who thought softness was a defect.
I could see his face in my mind.
The trust.
The fragility.
The need.
And gods, it burned to think I hadn't been there.
Nyx was snarling in my skull now. They're unmaking him. Piece by piece. And you left him there.
"I didn't have a choice," I whispered.
But the words didn't help.
On the seventh day, the landscape started to look familiar again.
We crossed the eastern ridge, slid down into the lower city basin. The sky had turned from ash to copper. The air smelled like rain.
The facility was still miles away—but we were close.
Close enough that Nyx started pacing again.
We're coming, little one.
I pressed a hand against the van's window, knuckles white.
Soon.
Just a little longer.
And I'd be back.