The drive home was quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that came before disaster.
Not the kind that made you reach for a weapon.
The good kind.
The kind that settled into your bones and whispered:
You survived.
Maya fell asleep ten minutes into the drive.
Kade didn't say much.
Neither did I.
Lucien's hand remained wrapped around mine the entire way.
Steady.
Present.
Real.
For once, nobody needed words.
---
The safehouse looked different in the dawn light.
Smaller somehow.
Less like a bunker.
More like a home.
Kade killed the engine.
"So."
He looked at me through the mirror.
"It's really over?"
The question hung in the air.
I thought about Viktor.
The council.
Project Ledger.
My parents.
Marcus.
Everything we'd buried beneath the quarry.
Then I nodded.
"Yeah."
The w
