DEATH PLAYBACK

Chapter 19: Rising Dark

The flight to Chicago was the longest two hours of Jaxon's life. He sat in the back of Echo's private plane—a small craft that shouldn't have been able to land at a commercial airport but did, thanks to perception filters and falsified transponder codes—staring at the back of the seat in front of him and thinking about all the ways this could go wrong.

【You're doing that thing again. The spiral.】

"I'm not spiraling."

"Your heart rate says otherwise." Echo was sitting across from him, eyes closed but aware. "One-forty-two beats per minute. Cortisol through the roof. You're burning through adrenaline faster than your body can produce it."

"She's my daughter. Lily is nine years old. And Victoria Hale knows I'm connected to Sarah."

"Victoria knows many things. But she doesn't know about the twelfth system's host. Not yet. As far as she's concerned, Sarah is just your ex-wife—a loose end to tie up eventually, not a priority."

"And when does 'eventually' become 'now'?"

Echo didn't answer. She didn't have to.

Cross was on the phone, coordinating with Elena back at the cathedral. "Pull up everything on Sarah Reid's current location. Address, workplace, daily routine. And check for any unusual activity—anyone watching her, any new neighbors, any vehicles parked near her house that weren't there last week."

The plane touched down at a private airfield outside Chicago. Kira had a car waiting—black SUV, windows tinted, no plates visible. They loaded up and headed into the city.

Sarah lived in a modest two-story house in a quiet suburb. White picket fence, trimmed lawn, a bicycle with training wheels leaning against the porch. The kind of house Jaxon had dreamed about when he and Sarah were still together, back when the future seemed like something to look forward to instead of something to dread.

【I'm detecting surveillance. Two positions. White van across the street—old trick, but effective. And a sedan three houses down, engine running. They're not Victoria's people. They're Carter's.】

"Carter got here first?"

"Not first. Same time. He must have had people watching Sarah for months, waiting for the order to move."

"Can we get past them?"

【Not without being seen. But I have an idea. Remember how I said I can see through walls? Fuzzy, but functional? I can also distort perception in a small radius. Make us look like something else. A delivery truck. A utility crew. Something that doesn't register as a threat.】

"How long can you maintain it?"

【Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen if I push it.】

"Do it."

The SUV shimmered. From the outside, it looked like a UPS delivery truck making a routine stop. Jaxon, Cross, and Kira got out, looking like delivery drivers in brown uniforms that materialized over their clothes. Echo stayed in the vehicle, maintaining the illusion.

They walked up to Sarah's front door like they belonged there. Jaxon knocked.

Sarah opened the door. She looked tired—dark circles under her eyes, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a coffee stain on her shirt. When she saw Jaxon, her expression shifted from confusion to anger to something more complicated.

"Jaxon? What are you doing here? You look like—"

"Like a UPS driver. I know. Sarah, I need you to come with me. Right now."

"Are you out of your mind? You're wanted for murder. There are cops looking for you."

"Some of those cops want to kill you. And Lily."

Sarah's face went white. "Where's Lily?"

"She's at school. We have about two hours before she gets home. We need to be gone by then."

"Gone where? What's happening?"

Jaxon looked at his ex-wife—the woman he'd loved, the woman he'd failed, the woman who carried something inside her that could end the world or save it. "I don't have time to explain everything. But I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

Sarah stared at him for a long moment. Then she grabbed her coat and her keys.

"Lily's school is on Maple Drive. We're picking her up on the way."

They moved fast. Sarah in the SUV with them, directing Kira through streets she knew by heart. Cross was on the phone, warning Elena to prepare for incoming hostiles.

At the school, Sarah walked in like she owned the place and came out three minutes later holding Lily's hand. The little girl saw Jaxon and her face lit up.

"Daddy!"

Jaxon picked her up and held her tight. She smelled like crayons and apple juice, and for one perfect moment, everything else disappeared.

【Carter's team is moving. They spotted the SUV leaving Sarah's house. We've got about fifteen minutes before they catch up.】

"Kira, drive."

The SUV accelerated, and the quiet suburban street fell away behind them. Ahead, the highway stretched toward the airfield, and the plane that would take them somewhere Carter and Victoria couldn't follow.

But in Jaxon's arms, Lily was asking questions. "Daddy, why are you wearing brown? Where are we going? Is Mommy okay?"

"Mommy's fine, sweetheart. We're going on a trip."

"Like vacation?"

【Lie to a child. Classic parenting.】

"Like vacation," Jaxon said, and held her tighter.

"I hear you. But right now, Sarah and Lily need me functional, not introspective."

【She's talking from experience. Three hundred years of it. Listen to her.】

Echo nodded. "Just don't let the fighting consume you. I've seen bearers burn themselves out protecting loved ones. They won the battle and lost themselves."

"Then I'll fight harder."

"Survival is always good motivation. But the best is love. People fight harder for someone else than for themselves. Victoria knows this. She'll target them."

"I had good motivation."

Echo watched him. "You're learning to control the anxiety loop. Most bearers take months."

"Better," he said.

Jaxon thought about Lily—her laugh, the way she said "Daddy" like it was the most important word in the world, the drawing of a purple cat still folded in his wallet.

【Stop that. Your anxiety is feeding the playback system. Focus on something real.】

The plane banked hard over Lake Michigan. Jaxon gripped the armrest until his knuckles went white. He'd never been a good flyer, and two competing systems in his skull weren't helping. The Death Playback pulsed with residual energy, showing him flashes of things he didn't want to see—crash statistics, the last moments of passengers in wrecks, the cold dark water below.

Time to fix some of it.

The SUV turned onto Sarah's street, and Jaxon's heart rate spiked again. There was the house—white fence, trimmed lawn, Lily's bicycle by the porch. Home. Or what used to be home, before he'd ruined everything.

"Agreed," Cross said. "In and out. Clean."

"We're not fighting them," Jaxon said. "We're getting Sarah and Lily out. That's it. No engagement unless they force it."

【Four against three. Manageable. Especially since they don't know we're coming.】

"Elena's already on it. She's tapped into the neighborhood's security cameras—there are more of them than you'd think. Suburban paranoia is surprisingly useful." Echo held up her phone, showing a grid of camera feeds. "Two confirmed surveillance positions. White van at ten o'clock, sedan at two o'clock. Four operatives total."

"Cross is coordinating with Elena," he said, forcing his mind onto practical matters. "If Carter's people are watching Sarah's house, we need to know their positions before we approach."

She was right. Jaxon knew she was right. But knowing and feeling were different things, and right now his feelings were a Category 5 hurricane that no amount of logic was going to calm down.

"Getting there in time," Echo said from the back seat. "That's the only thing worth focusing on right now. Everything else is noise."

"I'm focused. I'm focused on the fact that my ex-wife has been carrying the most dangerous system in existence and I didn't know. I'm focused on the fact that my daughter lives in the same house as that system. I'm focused on—"

【You're spiraling again. Focus.】

The SUV tore out of the airfield and onto the highway, weaving through late-night traffic with a precision that suggested Kira had driven this route before. Maybe she had. Maybe Echo had briefed her during one of the many periods when Jaxon was too lost in his own thoughts to notice.

"Make it ten."

"Route's loaded," she said as Jaxon climbed in. "Fifteen minutes to Sarah's house if traffic cooperates. Ten if it doesn't."

Kira had the SUV running before the plane's wheels stopped spinning. She'd been silent throughout the flight, preparing herself for what came next with the focused intensity of someone who treated combat like a craft to be perfected.

The plane touched down hard—Echo's pilot wasn't interested in smooth landings, only fast ones. Jaxon stumbled onto the tarmac with his heart in his throat, every second that passed feeling like a countdown to disaster.