The morning sun crept weakly over the wasteland, painting everything in shades of blood and rust.
The reactor behind them smoldered like the last breath of a dying god.
Leon walked ahead, silent, his movements too smooth, too precise. The others followed at a distance — Raze, Nova, and Iko. None of them spoke, but the air between them was thick with unease.
Every few minutes, Leon’s skin flickered with faint red light beneath his veins.
Nova saw it. She saw everything — the tremor in his hands, the unnatural focus in his eyes, the way he didn’t blink anymore.
She touched her comm. “Raze, how’s he look to you?”
Raze’s voice crackled through. “Like a bomb waiting to go off.”
Nova’s jaw tightened. “Keep that to yourself.”
Raze snorted. “Kinda hard when the bomb’s leading the way.”
Th
