The world was unraveling.
It wasn’t just the usual flickers at the edges of my vision, the skips in time that made me question whether I had just blinked or lost an entire second of my life. No—this was different. Bigger. The walls around us pulsed, shifting like waves of data crashing against the fragile shore of reality. The system was reacting, rewriting, adapting.
Zero wasn’t moving. Not yet. He stood at the center of it all, watching, waiting. His face was unreadable, but his stance said everything. If I made the wrong move, if I hesitated for even a second, he would end this.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready for what that meant.
Kane didn’t hesitate. She never did.
“Elias,” she snapped, her voice sharp, urgent. “Failsafe. Now.”
Elias looked at her, his fingers hovering over the tab
