Chapter 28 · One Reset Left

"You're going to shoot me."

Jude's voice cuts through the static hum of the server room. We're three floors down from the archive, locked in a concrete box that smells like ozone and burnt insulation. The blast core sits between us on the metal table, pulsing faint red like a dying heart.

I keep my hand on my sidearm. "What?"

"Not out here." He taps his temple. "In here. You're going to put a round through my skull inside the loop, and that's the only way this works."

My grip tightens. "You've lost it."

"No." He leans forward, and the light catches the scar along his jaw. "I've run this scenario eleven times. Every single exit route ends with Drake triggering that chip in your head the second we touch the master loop. The only variable she can't predict is me dying before we reach the threshold."

"Then she wins."

"She wins if you're still breathing when the loop opens." His eyes lock on mine. "But if I'm already dead in the reset, my access codes revert to the failsafe. The system thinks I'm a ghost. Drake can't trace me. Can't lock me out.