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The screen wouldn't stop blinking.
Ella sat on the edge of Cain's desk, knees pulled up, staring at the red timer in the corner of his monitor. Seventy-one hours. Fifty-nine minutes. Forty-two seconds. The numbers dropped like her pulse was tied to them.
Cain stood behind her, close enough she could hear him breathing. He hadn't said a word since he cracked the file. Just pulled up the chair, logged into something she wasn't supposed to see, and let the countdown sit there between them like a bomb nobody knew how to defuse.
"So that's it," she said. Her voice came out flat. "Three days and I'm what. Gone?"
"Flagged," Cain said. "Means you're priority. Means someone's decided you're a problem."
"Great. Love being a problem." She dragged her eyes away from the timer and looked at him. His face was all hard lines in the monitor glow, jaw locked like he was chewing on something he couldn't spit out. "What happens when it hits zero?"
He didn't answer right away. That was worse than anything he could've said.
"Cain."
"Field agents get dispatched," he said finally. "Standard protocol. They bring you in for questioning. If you don't come quietly, they escalate."
"Escalate. You mean shoot."
His eyes flicked to hers. "I mean neutralize."
Ella laughed, bitter and sharp. "You people are real good with the euphemisms."
"I don't write the policy."
"But you follow it."
Something changed in his face. Not much. Just enough that she saw it. "Not always."
She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to. But he worked for them. Wore their badge. Logged into their system every morning and pretended the list wasn't a kill sheet.
"Why'd they flag me?" she asked. "I didn't do anything. I went home. I stayed quiet."
"You broke into the Bureau."
"That was—" She stopped. Right. She had. And Cain had let her walk out.
"Someone saw the access logs," he said. "Or someone's been watching you since before that. Either way, you're on their radar now. And once you're flagged, the clock starts."
Seventy-one hours. Fifty-eight minutes. Eighteen seconds.
She slid off the desk and paced to the window. The city stretched out below, all lit-up squares and headlights threading through the dark. Normal people doing normal things. Nobody had a countdown hanging over them. Nobody was three days away from vanishing.
"There's gotta be a way to pull the flag," she said. "Delete it. Hack it. I don't care."
"You can't delete it. It's tied to your registration number. The second you turned eighteen and got marked, you went into the system. There's no taking you out."
"Then we prove I'm not a threat. We—"
"Ella." His voice was quiet. Too quiet. "It's not about proving anything. The flag isn't a mistake. It's a decision."
She turned. He was still sitting there, arms folded, looking at her like she was something fragile he didn't know how to hold without breaking.
"Whose decision?"
"Someone higher than me."
"That's real helpful, Cain. Thanks."
He stood. Crossed to the desk and tapped something on the keyboard. The screen changed. A new file opened, lines of names scrolling down in tiny white text. She saw dates next to them. Status codes. Most of them said the same thing.
Terminated.
"This is the full registry," Cain said. "Every werewolf in the state. Sorted by flag priority."
Ella moved closer, scanning the list. Her name was near the top, bright red, pulsing like a heartbeat. And right below it—
Her breath caught.
"Mia."
Mia Santos. Flagged. Seventy-two hours.
No. Seventy-one hours. Fifty-six minutes.
Same countdown as hers.
Ella's hands were shaking. She grabbed the edge of the desk to keep them still. "She's—she's still alive?"
"I don't know," Cain said.
"What do you mean you don't know? It says—"
"It says she was flagged. Same time as you. But her status hasn't updated. That means one of three things. They haven't processed her yet. She's in holding. Or—"
"Or she's already dead and nobody bothered to log it."
Cain didn't argue.
Ella wanted to put her fist through the screen. Wanted to rip the whole damn monitor off the desk and throw it out the window. Mia's name sat there, two lines below hers, like they were both just entries in a database. Like they were nothing.
She swallowed hard. "If she's in holding, where?"
"Bureau has three detention centers in the city. But if she's flagged priority, they'd move her to the main facility. Sublevel three."
"Can you get me in?"
Cain stared at her. "No."
"You have clearance. You—"
"I have clearance for case files and evidence archives. Detention's a whole different division. I can't just walk you into a holding cell."
"Then get me into evidence," she said. "If Mia was flagged, they processed her. Took her things. There's gotta be something."
He shook his head. "Even if there is, I can't—"
"Cain." She stepped closer, close enough she could see the scar cutting through his eyebrow, the way his jaw tightened when he was about to say no. "You let me into the Bureau once. You cracked the file. You showed me the list. You don't get to stop now."
"This is different."
"How?"
"Because if I get caught pulling evidence without a case number, I'm done. And if I'm done, I can't help you when that timer hits zero."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him she didn't need his help, that she'd do it herself. But the truth was, she did need him. She needed his badge. His access. His face that didn't set off alarms when he walked through the halls.
"Please," she said. She hated how it sounded. Small. Desperate.
Cain looked at her for a long time. Then he swore under his breath and reached for his jacket.
"Ten minutes," he said. "That's all you get. We go in, we find her file, we get out. You don't touch anything. You don't talk to anyone. And if we run into another agent, you let me do the talking."
Ella nodded.
He pulled his badge off his belt and clipped it to his pocket. Then he grabbed a tablet from the desk and handed it to her. "Hold this. Look like you're reviewing something. People don't ask questions if you look busy."
She took it. Her hands were still shaking.
They left the office and moved through the dim corridors, past locked doors and flickering hall lights. The building was quieter at night, but not empty. She saw another agent cross an intersection ahead, coffee in hand, not even glancing their way.
Cain's badge beeped them through two security doors. Each one made her stomach clench tighter.
The evidence archive was in the basement. Rows of metal shelves, labeled boxes stacked floor to ceiling. Cain went straight to a terminal in the corner and logged in. His fingers moved fast, pulling up search fields, typing in codes she didn't understand.
"Santos, Mia," he muttered. "Flagged... processed two days ago. Items logged under case number—" He stopped.
"What?"
"Case number's restricted."
"What does that mean?"
"Means someone sealed it. I need higher clearance to pull the file."
Ella's chest went tight. "So we're done."
Cain didn't answer. He stared at the screen, jaw working. Then he pulled something from his pocket. A small black card, no bigger than a credit card. He slid it through the reader.
The screen blinked. Access granted.
Ella stared at him. "Whose card is that?"
"Don't ask."
The file opened. A list of items. Phone. Wallet. Keys. Jacket. And at the bottom—
USB drive. Location: evidence locker 47-C.
Cain stood and moved down the aisle, scanning shelf labels. Ella followed, heart hammering. He stopped in front of a locked drawer, used his badge to pop it open, and pulled out a small plastic bag.
Inside was a flash drive. Dark blue casing. And along the edge, smeared and half-wiped—
Blood.
Ella's mouth went dry.
Cain turned it over in his hand, staring at the stain like he was reading something written there. Then he looked at her.
"She hid this," he said quietly. "Whatever's on it, she didn't want them to find it."
"Then why'd they log it?"
"Because someone screwed up. Or she wanted them to log it. Wanted someone to come looking."
He held it out.
Ella didn't move. The blood was dry, dark brown against the blue plastic. Mia's blood. Or someone else's.
"Take it," Cain said.
She reached out. Her fingers brushed his as she took the drive. It was heavier than she expected. Or maybe that was just her hand shaking.
"If anyone asks," Cain said, "you never saw this. I never gave it to you. And you sure as hell never opened it."
Ella closed her fist around it.
Seventy-one hours. Fifty-two minutes.
And now she had one more secret she couldn't afford to keep.