The forest was too quiet.
Not peaceful—dangerous.
The kind of quiet that came when every bird had flown, when predators waited in the branches, and the trees leaned just slightly toward you, as if listening.
Aurora knew that kind of quiet.
She'd learned it the hard way.
---
Echo hadn't spoken since Hollowpoint.
He walked beside her barefoot, his eyes wide, his arms clutched around himself like he was still inside that glass cell. Every few minutes, he flinched at something no one else could hear. Shadows. Sounds. Whispers that curled into his ears like smoke.
Jace kept his distance from the boy.
"I don't trust him," he muttered that night as they camped near a shallow stream. "There's something wrong with him."
"There's something wrong with all of us," Aurora said.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
But she still covered Echo with her coat when he shivered, and when he woke up screaming—voice raw like metal scraping metal—she held him, quietly, until he fell asleep again.
---
They made it to the ruins of Ravenhollow two days later.
Or what was left of it.
The city had been swallowed by vines and ash, the buildings crumbling like bones sucked dry. Cars were flipped. Streets were cracked. And nature had taken back what belonged to it.
But beneath the decay… there were signs of life.
A sigil scratched into a stop sign.
Red paint on the wall of a collapsed bakery: "The Black Veil Lives."
Jace spotted it first. "What the hell is that?"
Aurora's stomach clenched. "Resistance."
His eyes widened. "You mean—those vigilantes who blew up the Southern labs?"
"They're not just vigilantes."
"They're terrorists."
"They're survivors," she said quietly. "And they're the only ones crazy enough to fight back."
---
It took hours of walking through the ruins before the signal came.
A soft whistle—low, sharp, coded.
Aurora froze. Raised her hands. Replied with a whistle of her own. Three short, one long.
Silence.
Then—
A man dropped from the rooftop beside them.
Gun pointed. Expression blank.
He wore all black. Tattered scarf around his mouth. Tattoo under his eye: a line of barbed wire curling around a single word.
"Nevermore."
Aurora smiled grimly. "Still dramatic as ever."
The man's eyes narrowed. "Name."
"Aurora Raine."
"Bullshit."
She pulled up her sleeve.
Showed the half-burned brand beneath the skin.
The brand she earned back when she was Ash—the Black Veil's most ruthless assassin.
Recognition flickered in his eyes. Then fear.
"…Holy shit."
---
They were blindfolded and brought underground.
Jace cursed the whole way.
Echo said nothing. But Aurora knew he was listening.
The tunnels beneath Ravenhollow were deep. Older than the city itself. War bunkers turned into havens for the desperate.
When they finally removed the blindfolds, they were standing in what looked like a cathedral made of iron and light.
Metal scaffolding. Generator lights. Cots. Weapons. Screens showing satellite footage and infected zones. It was a hidden city, built on broken things.
At the center of it all stood a woman with a scar from lip to ear and eyes like wildfire.
She didn't smile when she saw Aurora.
She punched her.
Hard.
"You have some fucking nerve coming back here," she growled.
Aurora didn't flinch.
"Nice to see you too, Leda."
---
Leda was second-in-command now. And not happy.
"You disappeared. You burned your identity. You faked your death. You left us to rot, Ash."
"It's Aurora now."
"I don't give a shit what you call yourself. You abandoned us."
"I was trying to survive."
Leda leaned in. "So were we. You could've helped us finish what we started. But you vanished."
Aurora looked her dead in the eye. "Because I died. You just didn't get the funeral invite."
Leda's snarl turned to silence.
For a long moment, no one said anything.
Then Echo stepped forward, clutching her sleeve.
Leda's gaze fell on him—and her entire demeanor shifted.
Eyes narrowed. Face pale.
"What the hell is that?"
"He's a kid."
"No," Leda snapped. "He's a Variant."
The room went still.
People started reaching for weapons.
Aurora moved between them. "He's not dangerous."
"He's a ticking time bomb."
"He's still human."
"For now."
---
Later, in the infirmary, Aurora sat beside Echo's cot as he slept.
Leda stood behind her. Watching. Judging.
"You brought a Variant into our base."
"He's not like the others."
"They all say that before they explode someone's skull."
Aurora looked up. "They made him in Hollowpoint. He's their prototype. But he escaped. And I'm going to use him."
"Use him?" Leda repeated.
"I'm going to destroy the labs."
A beat.
Then—
Leda exhaled slowly. "You're serious."
"I've never been more."
"You have a plan?"
"I have a boy who burns."
---
That night, Echo woke up screaming again.
Only this time, it wasn't just a nightmare.
Every light in the infirmary exploded at once.
The floor trembled.
The walls cracked.
And from his mouth came a scream that wasn't human.
It was rage.
It was pain.
It was fire.
Aurora rushed to him, wrapping her arms around his shaking body, whispering, "It's okay, it's okay, I've got you, I'm here."
The others stood frozen in the doorway.
Watching the boy.
Afraid of him.
But Aurora?
She wasn't afraid.
Because she remembered the look on Luther's face when Echo tore through the glass.
She remembered the files. The warnings.
"Subject 001. Type: Variant. Power: Unmeasured."
And most of all—
She remembered what he told her.
"I'm what they're trying to make."
---
He wasn't just a child.
He was a weapon.
And in this broken, burning world?
He was hers.