Chapter 26 · Marked Registry - Chapter 26: Kill the Moon Grid

The red bands lit up three blocks away and I was already running.

Cain grabbed my arm. I yanked free.

"They just activated the grid," he said. Low. Urgent. "You go in now, you're dead in sixty seconds."

"Then I've got sixty seconds."

I didn't wait for him to argue. The Bureau building sat at the end of the block, all glass and steel and that cold LED glow that made everything look like an operating room. Every registered wolf in the city just got a red light on their wrist and a thirty-minute countdown to report or get tagged as hostile.

Mia was in there. I saw her through the glass before the blade dropped. She mouthed *Don't* and I knew—whatever she was doing, whatever they had her doing, she didn't want me anywhere near it.

Too bad.

Cain caught up before I hit the corner. "Ella. Stop."

"No."

"There's a kill box between here and the entrance. Motion sensors, silver-load turrets, facial recognition tied to the registry. You step in, you get flagged, you get shot."

I stopped. Not because I trusted him. Because the street ahead looked wrong. Too empty. No cars. No people.