Chapter 21 · Countdown Goes Live

My phone wouldn't stop.

Every notification was someone new. Someone who saw the stream. Someone who now knew my face, my address, the fact that I wasn't entirely human. The countdown sat at the top of the leaked clip like a promise. Thirty-six hours. Then what?

I tried to pull up my channel. Banned. The clip was everywhere else though. Reddit. Twitter. Some Discord I'd never heard of. They'd stripped my audio, isolated the growl from last month, synced it with footage of my hands mid-shift during the Leah fight. Professional work. Protocol work.

"Ivy." Cole stood in my doorway. He looked like he hadn't slept. "We need to move you."

"Move me where?" I didn't look up from my phone. Another share. Another hundred people who knew. "They put a timer on me. You think distance matters?"

"It buys time."

"For what?" I finally met his eyes. "You said they don't stop. You said once Protocol marks you, that's it."

He didn't answer. That was answer enough.

My laptop was still open on the desk. I'd been trying to salvage something. Warn the regulars. Tell them to stay away. But my Discord was locked. My backup Twitter suspended.