Khanna POV
The cold night air did little to cool the frantic energy surging through me. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a sharp, brittle clarity in its wake. We had managed to drag Jake and Ava out of the Blackspine Peaks and run until sheer exhaustion forced us to collapse in this dense, anonymous forest. We were wounded, depleted, and facing an impossible choice.
I watched Jake sleep. He was sprawled on the damp earth near a cluster of mossy roots, breathing deeply. The unconscious calm of his repose starkly contrasted the frantic, puppet-like control he’d displayed minutes earlier. He was alive, the nanotech successfully scrambled, but the cost—the erasure of his recent memories—was an open wound. He was a clean slate, a vulnerability I could not afford to keep close.
Ava, thankfu
