Chapter 19 · Now They're Hunting Her

Mira's name is on the breach order.

Kade stares at the scorched ward plate still cooling on the rubble. The last authorization line glows faint blue in the dust. Authorized by Mira Voss. Date stamp three days before the collapse.

She didn't write it. He knows that much. But the mark's real. Someone with tower access pulled her signature and burned it into the record. Clean. Official. Impossible to call fake without proof she never touched the system that day.

"They're not just framing you," he says. His voice comes out flat. "They're setting you up to take the whole thing."

Mira doesn't answer. She's already moving, boot heels scraping over broken stone as she circles the wreckage. Her hand stays near her blade. The other pulls a lens from her belt and sweeps it over the plate, the wall, the blast pattern.

Kade watches her work. The core under his ribs is still hot from eating the last tracker spike. It wants more. It always wants more. But right now the hunger's quiet, coiled tight like it's waiting for something worse.

"You can't go back," he says.

She doesn't look up. "I know.