Chapter 26 · Traceless - Chapter 26: Level Minus Seven

Cole's tracker went off at three in the morning.

Not the soft ping he'd gotten used to. This was a drill through his skull, frequency climbing so fast his vision whited out. He rolled off the couch in Layla's apartment and hit the floor hard, one hand pressed to the base of his neck where the implant sat under the skin.

The pain didn't stop. It got worse.

He could feel it now, the thing Vera had warned him about. Not a finder. A homing beacon. And it was locking on.

Layla.

She was still passed out on the bed, her face slack, her breathing shallow. She'd been under for hours. Whatever memory fragment she'd pulled from that terminal had knocked her flat. Cole had carried her back up the vent shaft himself, her weight barely registering because the tracker had been quiet then. Dormant.

Now it was screaming.

He dragged himself to his feet and stumbled to the kitchenette. His hands shook as he yanked open drawers. Knives. Scissors. A corkscrew. Nothing sterile. Nothing that would work without turning this into a bloodbath.

The frequency spiked again.