(Ava’s POV)
Night erased the road in pieces.
Headlights carved brief tunnels through the forest, illuminating trunks and underbrush before swallowing them again. The SUV rattled over uneven ground, suspension groaning softly. No one spoke for several miles. The message still burned behind my eyes, every word etched there like a threat written in frost.
We see you.
You are no longer an anomaly.
Brian broke the silence first. “Show me again.”
I unlocked my phone, half-expecting it to be dead now, a hallucination born of adrenaline and fear. But the screen lit obediently. The messages remained. No sender ID. No metadata. No traceable network hop.
Brian stared, jaw tight. “That’s impossible.”
“Define impossible,” Mara said, eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror.
“This
