Chapter 17 – Bite Back
1038 Words
The night came on heavy and low, pressing against the windows like fog that refused to lift. The house glowed dimly in its new rhythm — the heartbeat pulse Kael had written thrumming under the walls, steady as a drum. The trap had worked. For now. But Maeve’s reach was longer than they’d thought.
Rori paced the living room, every step soft against the worn floorboards. The screens around them were dark, cords unplugged, routers physically severed. The silence was thick, alive, like the house itself was holding its breath.
Ren stood at the entryway, shoulder against the frame, eyes scanning the street through the slit between the shutters. He hadn’t stopped watching since sunset. Sandro sprawled on the couch, one arm draped over his eyes, bruises visible under his open collar. Kael sat at the kitchen island, laptop balanced on his knees, code scrolling in slow, deliberate lines.
“How long before she realizes we fed her ghosts?” Sandro asked, voice hoarse.
Kael didn’t look up. “She already knows.”
Rori turned from the window. “Then why hasn’t she hit back yet?”
Kael’s fingers paused on the keys. “Because she’s not angry. She’s impressed.”
Ren frowned. “That’s not better.”
“No,” Kael said, calm and clipped. “It’s worse. Anger is predictable. Admiration means she’s thinking.”
Rori crossed her arms. “Then we think faster.”
Sandro cracked one eye open. “Or we drink faster.”
She threw him a look. “You can drink when we win.”
He grinned weakly. “Motivation received.”
Kael finally closed the laptop, standing. His eyes were darker than usual, more tired than distant. “We can’t stay here. She knows the coordinates, the power grid signature, the heat patterns. This place is compromised no matter how well we patched it.”
Ren’s jaw tightened. “You want to move the kids again?”
Rori didn’t flinch. “I’ll move heaven and hell if I have to.”
Kael nodded slowly. “Then we leave by dawn.”
Sandro sat up, wincing. “And go where? She’s got eyes on half the Midwest.”
“Not where,” Kael said. “Who.”
Rori frowned. “What does that mean?”
Kael walked to the map tacked to the far wall — a messy scatter of circles and red lines from their last month of chasing ghosts. He tapped a small mark near Lake Michigan. “Oxalis has a partner lab here. It’s off-record. Black funding. Maeve uses it as her data farm.”
Ren’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve known this?”
Kael hesitated. “I suspected. I didn’t have proof until she tried to tunnel back into your house through a relay from that grid.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Rori asked.
Kael turned to her. “We burn it. Every server, every node. We cut the head before she grows another one.”
Sandro gave a slow whistle. “You’re talking about storming a ghost factory.”
Kael’s tone didn’t change. “Exactly.”
Ren pushed off the wall, expression unreadable. “That’s not a precision op. That’s a suicide run.”
“Not if we get there first,” Kael said.
Silence settled again. Rori watched the three men — Ren’s steel, Sandro’s fire, Kael’s quiet gravity — and felt the line between fear and resolve blur.
“This isn’t just about me anymore,” she said softly. “She’s building an army out of data. Every time someone uses a security app, every home system that thinks for itself — it’s feeding her. If we don’t stop her here, she’ll use SpecterNet to rewrite what it means to feel safe.”
Ren met her eyes. “And you’re sure burning a lab will stop her?”
“No,” she said. “But it’ll hurt her. And right now, that’s enough.”
Kael stepped closer. “Then we plan tonight. Move at first light.”
Sandro leaned back, smirking faintly. “Guess it’s another sleepless night with my favorite dysfunctional family.”
Ren shot him a look. “Try not to bleed on the blueprints this time.”
Sandro held up his bandaged hand. “No promises.”
Rori’s lips twitched despite herself. “You’re both impossible.”
Kael’s tone softened. “Necessary.”
They worked through the night — Kael building a digital skeleton key that would bypass Oxalis’s internal locks, Ren piecing together the assault pattern, Sandro sketching exits and cover routes with caffeine-stained fingers. Rori checked her gear, then checked it again.
By three a.m., exhaustion had become routine. Kael moved to stand beside her at the window. The sky outside was bruised with clouds, the horizon faintly glowing.
“You should sleep,” he said quietly.
“I can’t.”
“Because of Maeve?”
She shook her head. “Because of what I’ll have to do to stop her.”
Kael was silent for a beat. Then, gently: “You don’t have to be what she made you.”
Rori turned to him, studying his face in the dim light. “You think she made me?”
His gaze held hers, unflinching. “I think she woke you.”
Something passed between them — quiet, charged, dangerous in its simplicity. For once, Rori didn’t look away.
Ren’s voice broke through from behind them. “We move in two hours.”
Kael stepped back, the space between them cooling like metal after the forge. “Then let’s finish what we started.”
At dawn, the SUV rolled out of the neighborhood with the headlights off, Kael driving, Ren navigating by instinct, Sandro in the back seat with a half-smile and a half-loaded pistol. Rori watched the city fade behind them, the skyline shrinking in the rearview until all that was left was sky and road and purpose.
“Next stop,” Sandro murmured, “the end of the world.”
Rori didn’t answer. She just looked ahead — toward the lake, toward the lab, toward whatever waited.
Maeve wanted fear.
All she was going to get was fire.
And this time, Aurora Tsukino was the one hunting.
- Writer
