Chapter 51
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The Glass Citadel | Holding Sector
Early Afternoon
Kristina sat in the sterile white room, untouched food on a tray beside her. No visible restraints. No chains. But the silence was too clean. The cameras too still. She was being watched.
She remained perfectly still, every muscle deliberate in its calm. Counted the faint mechanical whirs behind the walls. Logged the sequence of footsteps every fifteen minutes. One guard. Then two. Back to one. Weakest rotation at the thirty-minute mark.
A door hissed open. A woman in medical scrubs entered, holding a tablet and a needle. Kristina offered no resistance as her vitals were checked. Eyes blank. Shoulders soft. Docile. Like prey.
But she’d already marked the pressure point above the nurse’s collarbone. She didn’t need to fight. Not yet.
The woman left. Kristina counted seven seconds after the door hissed shut. Then stood and examined the seams of the wall. Clean lines. No panel edges. Reinforced.
She exhaled slowly. Her voice, when it came, was quiet but certain.
“I’ve never been locked in a place like this before. But I won’t be staying long.”
A pause. The ghost of a memory flickered—her father’s hands adjusting her posture for a disarm technique. Her mother’s voice, sharp with urgency, whispering codes she didn’t understand then.
Kristina blinked. Buried the memory.
There would be time to grieve later. For now, she’d map the exits.
She was already working on the next move.
Angeles Crest | The Vault
No one spoke at first.
The door sealed shut behind them with a quiet hiss, locking out the world—and maybe, for a moment, their panic.
Lucian stood near the center of the room, jaw tight. He wasn’t pacing anymore, but he couldn’t stay still either. Across from him, Eli hovered near a sealed drawer, running his fingers over the cold metal but not opening it.
Their eyes met briefly. Something unspoken passed between them—tense, loaded. Eli looked away first.
Lucian’s expression shifted, not quite an apology. Not quite anything. Just a nod. Small. Wordless.
Sebastian moved to the center table, unlocking a secured panel Kristina had embedded herself. Inside were files—handwritten notes, coded sketches, contingency plans. Her war map. The only one that mattered now.
“She left this for us,” Sebastian said. “If anything went wrong… this was the fallback.”
Ash leaned against the edge of the lockers, quiet for once. Vex stood off to the side, eyes scanning the mounted drives with quick precision.
Lucian turned toward the center of the room. “So what now? We wait? Sit here while she’s—”
“Guys,” Vex said suddenly, cutting him off. “I’ve got something.”
They all moved closer.
A projection bloomed from one of the embedded panels. Three red pins marked a digital map, each tagged with simple labels:
Miller Estate – Selby, Miller Holdings – Redwood, and Private Sector – Coordinates Masked.
Only one of them was blinking.
A slow, pulsing flash. Red. Alive.
Ash straightened. “That wasn’t flashing before, right?”
Vex shook his head. “Not when I first decrypted the drive. Something triggered it just now. Signal’s coming through a buried channel—military-grade encryption.”
Eli stepped forward, brows furrowing. “She did that. Somehow.”
Lucian narrowed his eyes. “Open it. The blinking one. Now.”
Vex tapped into the overlay. The blinking pin expanded into a detailed architectural layout—floors, walls, exits, loading bays. No label. No title. Just schematic lines and cold geometry.
Sebastian's voice dropped. “That’s a live floorplan.”
“Then that’s where she is,” Lucian said. “And we’re going in.”
Sebastian nodded. “Ash and I will handle gear. Vex—copy everything, then wipe the system.”
Lucian turned to Eli—no anger this time. Just a long, unreadable look. Whatever had passed between them before… it lingered. But not here. Not now.
“You’re with me,” he said.
Eli didn’t hesitate. “Wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
A quiet hum rose as the Vault’s interface powered deeper into the decrypted files. Maps. Logs. Movements. A chessboard Kristina had been playing long before they realized.
And at the bottom of the final page, scribbled in pen, jagged from speed:
If you’re reading this—I knew you’d come. Now finish it.
The Vault came alive with motion.
Ash moved with sharp purpose down the armory row, loading weapons into modular cases. A rifle clicked into place beside a set of collapsible batons and magnetic charges—Kristina’s own designs, retooled for field use.
Sebastian keyed open one of the encrypted lockers, revealing rows of biometric tags and encrypted comms units. He tossed a comm unit to Lucian without a word. Lucian caught it one-handed, eyes scanning the digital schematic still pulsing faintly on the central table.
“This place is insane,” Ash muttered, opening a drawer labeled Remote Breach Devices. “Who alphabetizes their explosives?”
“She does,” Sebastian said simply. “And it saves lives.”
Across the room, Vex was finishing the data wipe. Lines of code scrolled across one screen as another displayed the blinking pin—still active, still transmitting. He looked back once more, eyes flitting across Kristina’s scrawled note.
Eli adjusted the strap on his tactical vest, fingers slower than usual. He caught Lucian watching him again. No confrontation this time. Just another look.
It was Eli who broke the silence. “You think it’s a trap?”
Lucian didn’t answer right away. He strapped a reinforced blade to his thigh and slid a spare magazine into his jacket.
“I think it doesn’t matter,” he said. “If she’s there, we go.”
Ash snapped a case shut. “How far’s the target?”
“About an hour and a half,” Sebastian said, pulling up a route on the holo-map. “No flyovers. No highways. We’ll need to go low-tech—surface roads and off-grid paths. I’ll drive.”
Lucian leaned over the map. “Any backup routes?”
“Three. One’s already flagged with surveillance markers—Kristina must’ve mapped them out before. We’ll take the least obvious.”
Eli nodded. “And if it’s underground?”
“Then we make noise,” Lucian said. “Loud enough that Miller hears it from wherever he’s hiding.”
Vex disconnected the final drive and slipped it into his gear. “Everything’s wiped. No trace we were ever here.”
Ash pulled the last duffel toward the exit ramp. “Then what the hell are we waiting for?”
Sebastian pressed a hidden switch. The steel door at the far end hissed open, revealing the pine-dark tunnel they’d come through. Fog had begun creeping back in, curling like smoke through the trees outside.
Lucian looked back once—just once—at the Vault. Everything in its place. No sign Kristina had ever left in a rush. Only preparation. Only intent.
“She built all this for one reason,” he said quietly. “Let’s not waste it.”
And with that, they disappeared into the mist.
Everything about the room was surgical—intended to look humane, but she knew better.
The holding sector was quiet now—just the low mechanical hum behind the walls, the faint hiss of the overhead vent system. She sat on the bench like they wanted her to. Obedient. Relaxed. Harmless.
Her hands rested on her lap, but her mind had long moved past the posture.
Every step, every corner of this place, she had memorized. There were cameras in the corners—three of them, one newer than the others. The lens in the left corner was misaligned by half a degree. It still recorded, but its blind spot was just big enough.
She’d tested that earlier. Subtle movement. A pause at the edge of frame. No reaction from the guards.
Now, she checked her sleeve.
The lining peeled back in a smooth fold, revealing a small screen on her wrist. A quiet flick of her finger brought the grid to life. Five red dots blinked across a map—steadily advancing. One veered wide, then regrouped. Fast. Coordinated.
Kristina exhaled slowly.
The tracking tech wasn’t just embedded in her own gear—it was part of the tactical hardware she’d designed for the others. Most of them didn’t even realize it worked in both directions. That wasn’t deception. It was insurance.
Because in a place like this, she couldn’t afford to be blind.
She zoomed in slightly. The sector perimeter had just been breached. That meant they were inside. She calculated—ten minutes, maybe less.
The door in front of her hissed once, then again. A warning. Someone was coming.
Kristina slipped the sleeve back into place, posture still composed. Not a flicker of panic. Not yet.
She didn’t look at the camera. She didn’t flinch.
She just waited—silent and calm—as the footsteps approached down the hall.
Timing was everything.
The Glass Citadel | Interior Sector Halls
The steel hallway trembled underfoot—an explosion somewhere below had triggered a full lockdown, but not fast enough. Lucian, Eli, Ash, Sebastian, Vex, and a blood-spattered agent they’d taken down were already past the second corridor.
“Left!” Vex shouted, leading them through a partially sealed blast door. “Holding cells are three levels up. Stairwell’s this way.”
“Minimal resistance,” Ash muttered as she reloaded. “Either we’re early—or they’re leading us in.”
“They’re not that clever,” Lucian growled. “Move.”
Another hallway. Gunmetal walls. No signage.
Sebastian stopped at a junction. “Kristina’s suit pinged again. Same signal—east wing.”
“She’s tracking us,” Eli said under his breath. “She knows we’re close.”
Lucian didn’t reply. He was already moving.
Kristina heard it before she saw it—the brief, concussive thud of suppressed gunfire, closer than before. Then silence. Then a body hit the ground outside her door.
One guard left.
The internal lock panel blinked green for a moment, auto-resetting after the system stuttered. Kristina seized the window.
In a single move, she launched to her feet, angled her body through the known camera blind spot, and snapped the hinge bar on the cot frame free. The thin steel rod clattered as she caught it midair—silent to the cameras, just enough to use.
The door hissed open.
The guard outside barely turned before she drove the bar straight into the side of his throat. He staggered, choking, and she stepped behind him fast, catching his weapon as he fell. A low pulse rifle. Standard Dominion design. She checked the mag. Full.
She kept moving.
The Glass Citadel | Sector Junction
They converged near the central corridor—Lucian’s team rounding one side of the intersection just as Kristina slipped from the opposite direction, weapon raised.
For a half-second, no one moved.
“Clear!” Sebastian barked.
Kristina lowered the rifle.
She looked the same and not the same—dirt smudged on her cheek, her hair half-unraveled, a gash across her shoulder that she hadn’t even noticed. Her eyes scanned each of them, fast, cold, calculating.
Lucian exhaled. Just once. “You’re bleeding.”
“Later,” she said. “The layout’s garbage. We need to move west. There’s an emergency evac lift near sublevel two—”
Ash grabbed her shoulder. “Wait. Are you okay?”
Kristina hesitated.
I’m fine,” she said flatly. “Let’s keep moving.”
Eli stared at her like he couldn’t decide whether to be furious or relieved. But he didn’t speak. Not yet.
“Then let’s finish this,” Lucian said.
Behind them, alarms started to blare again—muffled, but urgent.
They didn’t look back.
The Glass Citadel | Lower Chamber
Approaching Dusk
The cold hum of machinery fades beneath the weight of footsteps.
Kristina steps into the chamber first, blood on her temple, hair matted but eyes sharp—alive with purpose. Behind her, Lucian, Eli, Sebastian, Vex, and Ash fan out, guns lowered but ready. The smoke from breached doors still curls in the air like ghosts.
Across the room, Alistair Miller stands beside a central console. Calm. His hands slightly raised—not in surrender, but in mockery.
“Impressive,” he says, eyes fixed on Kristina. “They actually let you lead them. You’re not even military.”
Kristina stops just short of him. Her voice is quiet. Controlled. “I don’t need a badge to clean up your mess.”
Alistair tilts his head, smiling. “Still playing hero, are we? That’s cute. Tell me… what would your parents think of you now?”
Her jaw tightens.
Lucian takes a step forward, but Eli subtly raises a hand to stop him. No one moves. This is Kristina’s moment.
Alistair circles slowly, taunting. “Tell me—doesn’t it itch? That darkness in you? Don’t you miss it? All that training, all that rage. Come on… isn’t this where Black Harrow shines? Just put a bullet in my head.”
“I kill people like you. The difference is, I know what I am.”
“Oh, but I am bad. That’s the point. You’re standing there, what—trying to hold back? Pretending you’ve changed?” He laughs under his breath. “You haven’t. You were bred for this. Trained for it. It’s all you are.”
She doesn’t raise her gun.
Lucian watches her from behind. Tense. But quiet. Trusting her.
Kristina’s voice softens. “You’re right. I was trained to kill. Trained to solve problems with blood. And believe me, every part of me wants to end you.”
Her hand tightens slightly on her weapon.
“But it’s different now. I’m different now.” A breath. “In a way.”
Alistair’s smirk falters, just slightly.
Kristina steps closer. “As much as I want to end your life… I want the world to know what you’ve done. I want your legacy to rot in the light.”
A faint sound begins to grow in the distance.
Getting closer. Dozens. Then the low whump of chopper blades.
Alistair turns his head, finally breaking composure.
Outside, a swarm of vehicles surrounds the facility—unmarked SUVs, armored vans. Agents with tactical gear begin pouring in. FBI. Homeland. Possibly more.
Sebastian steps up beside Kristina, calm. “You said if we made it this far, to call them in. I made the call.”
Kristina doesn't look away from Alistair.
“You wanted a stage,” she tells him. “Well. Curtain’s up.”
Red and blue lights begin to flash against the walls.
Kristina lowers her weapon.
They’d died trying to expose this.
I lived to finish it.
“Game over.”
Some endings don’t close doors. They blow them open.
—To be continued.
