Ethan Pierce does not slow down.
The road leading to the Hawthorne estate is a ribbon of black glass under the night sky, slick with mist and lit only by the intermittent pulse of emergency reroutes flickering across his HUD. His hands are steady on the wheel, knuckles pale but controlled, breath measured to the count he learned long before adulthood was an option.
In another life, he arrived too late.
That thought is not allowed to finish forming.
Airspace warnings cascade across his display—restricted, denied, reclassified mid-flight. He ignores them all, cuts hard onto a secondary access route that no civilian map acknowledges, and guns the engine until the world narrows to speed and intent.
They have escalated faster than predicted.
Not Mercers. Not military. Something quieter. M
