The countdown didn’t feel like a timer anymore.
It felt like a heartbeat.
Someone else’s heartbeat, stuck inside her chest.
00:04:12
Bella stared at it, jaw tight, arms locked at her sides so she wouldn’t do something stupid. Like shooting the projection. Like shooting the man in the coat. Like shooting Leo.
“This is ridiculous,” she said under her breath.
No one replied.
The man in the long coat stood calmly at the edge of the projection circle, hands folded, watching them like a judge waiting for a verdict he’d already written. Patient. Detached. Inhuman.
Leo’s eyes stayed on the merging lines beneath them. Blue light crawled over the rooftop, drawing paths that split and met and split again. Still calculating. Still thinking. Still doing that thing where his face went blank
