Weeks of heightened vigilance stretched Wren's nerves thin in a way that felt, paradoxically, both familiar and entirely new — familiar in the vigilance itself, new in the particular quality of waiting for a threat with no face, no timeline, no clear demand that might at least offer the terrible clarity of negotiation.
"He's not going to make contact," Vasquez explained during one of their regular briefings, held now twice weekly in the compound's conference room. "That's precisely what makes him different from Vance, from Hensley. He has no interest in negotiating, no message he wants delivered. If Kane decides to act, it will be sudden, decisive, and without warning."
"So we just wait," Wren said, frustration bleeding into her voice despite her best efforts at composure. "Indefinitely.
