Chapter 21 · Traceless - Chapter 21: The Stolen Child

The carrier collapsed before Cole could catch him.

Layla dropped to her knees beside the body. Blood pooled under the man's torn jacket, spreading fast across the concrete. His chest rose once, rattled, then nothing. She pressed her fingers to his neck anyway. No pulse. The skin was already cooling.

"We need to move." Cole's voice came from above her, flat and urgent. He was scanning the perimeter, one hand on his sidearm. The torn tracker node still dangled from his other palm, wires sparking weakly. "HQ will triangulate the disconnect. We've got maybe four minutes."

Layla didn't look up. She was staring at the carrier's face. Mid-forties, maybe. Ordinary features. The kind of guy you'd pass on the street and forget. Except his eyes were still open, locked on something past her shoulder. She followed his gaze.

The old lab building. Three stories of crumbling brick and boarded windows, half-hidden behind a chain-link fence. The same structure from the archive photos. The one that was supposed to be empty.

"Layla." Cole's hand landed on her shoulder. "I mean it. We go now or we don't go at all."

She shrugged him off and leaned closer to the body.