Plunge into Darkness

The video clip ended, leaving the last frame burned into the screen: Lucius smiling down at a woman who should have been in a coffin.

My sister.

Elena was dead. I had seen the body. I had identified her in the morgue, her face pale and waxy, the bullet wound in her chest a final, violent punctuation mark on her life. I had buried her next to our parents. I had mourned her for three years.

But the woman in the video wasn't a corpse. She was breathing. She was older, thinner, her hair streaked with grey, but it was her. The same scar on her chin from when we fell out of the treehouse. The same way her hands curled when she slept.

"Pull over," I said. My voice sounded distant, like it was coming from underwater.

"We can't," Felix said, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. "We're exposed here."

"Pull over!" I grabbed the wheel, jerking it to the right.

The van screeched onto the shoulder, gravel spraying against the undercarriage. Felix slammed on the brakes, swearing.

"Are you insane? We have a ten-minute window before they reboot the grid!"

I shoved the phone in his face. "Look at it."

Felix squinted at the screen. He went still.

"That's Elena," he whispered. "But... how?"

"The morgue," I said, my mind racing back to that cold, sterile room. "The medical examiner. He was one of Lucius's men. He wouldn't let me touch her. He said it was 'contamination protocol'."

I had accepted it. I had been so broken by grief, so desperate for closure, that I had let them lie to me.

"They faked it," I realized. "They needed me to believe she was dead so I would stop looking. So I would focus on revenge instead of rescue."

"Why keep her alive?" Felix asked. "Lucius doesn't take prisoners unless they're useful."

"Leverage," I said. "He knew I would come for the key. He knew I would bring it to him."

I looked at the timestamp on the video. It was live.

"Where is this?" I demanded.

Felix took the phone. He tapped the screen, pulling up the metadata. His fingers flew across the glass.

"The IP address is masked," he muttered. "But the routing... it's local."

"Local where?"

"Here. In the city. It's coming from the old San Lazaro Hospital."

"That place has been condemned for a decade."

"Perfect place to hide a ghost," Felix said.

He handed the phone back to me. "Aria, this changes everything. If we go there, we're walking into a trap. A trap designed specifically for you."

"I know."

"Dante is gone. We don't have backup. We don't have resources."

"I don't care."

"We have the key," Felix pressed. "We can take down the entire network. We can finish the mission."

I looked at the small silver drive in my hand. It was the weapon that could destroy Lucius. It was what Dante had died for.

But it wouldn't save Elena.

I thought of Dante's last words. *Whatever it takes.*

He hadn't just meant the mission. He meant the people we loved.

"The mission is over," I said, pocketing the drive. "This is personal."

I opened the van door and jumped out. The night air was cold, biting.

"Where are you going?" Felix called after me.

"To get my sister back."

" alone?"

"You have the van," I said. "Get to the safe house. Upload the key from there. If I don't make it... at least the network burns."

Felix looked at me. He looked at the empty road ahead. Then he sighed, a long, defeated sound.

He reached under the seat and pulled out a heavy black case. He tossed it to me.

"You'll need this," he said. "It's the prototype railgun we stole from the armory. One shot per charge. Make it count."

I caught the case. It was heavy, reassuring.

"Thank you, Felix."

"Don't thank me," he said, revving the engine. "Just don't die. I hate paperwork."

He peeled out, the van disappearing into the darkness.

I stood alone on the side of the road, the railgun in my hand and my sister's face in my mind.

San Lazaro was five miles east. Through the woods.

I started running.

But as I moved into the trees, my phone buzzed again.

Another message.

*Subject: Invitation.*

It was a text file.

*I'm waiting, Aria. And I'm not alone.*

Attached was a photo.

It showed the hospital room again. But this time, the camera angle was wider.

There was someone else in the room, sitting in a chair in the corner. A man.

He was bandaged. He was bloody. He looked like he had been through hell.

But he was alive.

It was Dante.

Lucius hadn't just taken my sister. He had taken my heart.

And he was going to make me choose.