The stolen boat drifted through the darkness.
Nikk didn't know how long it had been since Tia's body had gone still in his arms. Minutes? Hours? The engine had failed somewhere along the way, leaving them stranded in the underground river - just another group of fugitives lost beneath the city's steel veins.
But none of that mattered.
Not anymore.
Because she was gone.
Tia was gone.
No one spoke.
Kaya sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the water like it held answers. Bria and Ray were messing with the engine, trying to get it to work again.
But Nikk couldn't move.
Couldn't think.
Tia's body was still pressed against his chest but she wasn't there anymore. Just an empty shell.
And for the first time since they met, she looked exactly like what the government had always said she was.
A mistake.
A glitch.
A girl who never should've existed.
His hands tightened into fists.
A sick, raging feeling coiled into his chest, something deeper that grief, sharper than pain.
They had done this.
Novacore. Project Zero. The system that erased love, erased feelings, erased people.
They had stolen her from him.
Just like they had stolen Ace.
Just like they had stolen everyone.
And Nikk felt something he hadn't ever before.
Something dangerous.
Something that had been forbidden in this city for decades.
Something that consumed him from within.
Hate.
"I'm going back."
The words left his lips before he had even processed them. His voice was calm. Too calm.
Everyone's heads snapped towards him.
Ray frowned. "What?"
Nikk lifted in gaze.
"I'm going back," he repeated. Stronger this time.
Bria's eyes widened. "To Novacore? Are you insane? After everything? After—" She swallowed, looking at Tia's body. "You think she'd want you to do this?"
"I don't care what she would want." His voice came out sharp, final.
Bria recoiled like he had slapped her.
And maybe he had.
Maybe he had crossed the line. Maybe he was unraveling.
But none of that mattered anymore.
"She's gone." His hands clenched tighter. "So is Ace. And what for? So we could keep running? Keep hiding? Pretending like any of this means something?"
He stood, his movements stiff, almost mechanical.
"They took everything from us." He looked at each of them, his gaze cold, unforgiving. "And you all want to do what? Escape? Lay low? Live out your pathetic empty lives while they keep taking more?"
No one answered.
No one could.
Because he was right.
And they all knew it.
Nikk's jaw tightened. "I'm done running."
His voice wasn't angry anymore.
It was quiet. Hollow.
"I'm going to burn that city to the ground."
For the first time in years, no one argued.
Was it because Nikk, the voice of reason himself, had lost all reason?
No one had anything to say.
Because they all felt it.
The emptiness.
The sheer, overwhelming weight of loss.
Tia had been their hope. The one thing That made them believe this world could be different.
Now, she was just another body in a city that never cared.
And maybe Nikk was right.
Maybe it was time to stop hiding.
Maybe it was time to stop losing.
Maybe it was time for Novacore to bleed.
Nikk reached down, fingers grazing Tia's slender wrist, where her name was tattooed in cold, clinical font, one last time.
He laid her flat gently, pulled off his jacket, and laid it over her body.
He stood up.
Turned to his crew.
And spoke two words.
"Who's coming?"