The desert burned behind them, a haze of smoke rising like an omen into the cloudless sky.
Grace sat in the back of the buggy, her eyes hollow, her heart pounding in rhythms she couldn’t control. The name Malachai echoed in her mind. A name that had once been a ghost in her mother’s journal had now taken form. Real. Breathing. Dangerous.
She had a brother.
And he wanted to become a god.
Nathaniel glanced at her through the rearview mirror, his knuckles tight on the steering wheel. They hadn’t spoken since the explosion. Not a word. There was nothing to say, yet everything to feel.
Quinn radioed in, “We’ve got company. Drones. High-speed, triangular formation, twelve o’clock.”
Ava’s voice came through next. “They’re not the government. Their encryption reads private. Same tech used by
