From the tinted window of the black SUV, I watched the ferry dock. The sea breeze carried that same heavy scent of salt and diesel—the kind I'd learned to associate with endings.
And there she was. Shin.
She looked thinner. The sharpness of her stance was still there, but the calm confidence she once wore like armor had cracks now. She didn't know I was here—watching, waiting. She thought Leyte had closed everything, that the chapter we'd buried under orders and silence had ended.
But nothing ends cleanly in this world. Not Clayton. Not Meridian. Not us.
I leaned back in the seat, my fingers tracing the scar on my wrist, a reminder of what we lost to the program. The car's radio murmured a report in the background: Meridian Program Terminated — Sources Claim Internal Betrayal.
She stopped at the newsstand just as those words aired. I saw the stillness in her eyes. Confusion. Recognition. The need for answers.
She doesn't know, I thought. She doesn't know what really happened after Leyte—what I did to make sure no one could ever rebuild what Meridian started.
The phone in my lap vibrated once. A message flashed on the screen:
Target re-entry confirmed. Awaiting further instruction.
I exhaled slowly. "Cancel tracking," I typed back.
Because this time, I wasn't following orders.
Shin hailed a cab. I waited until it turned toward the main road before whispering to my driver, "Follow her—but not too close."
As the car moved, I glanced one last time at the restless sea. I should have been relieved seeing her alive. Instead, all I felt was dread tightening around my ribs.
If Shin had come back… then the past wasn't done with us yet.
And when she finally learned the truth about Clayton's remnants—
he'd know who ended it.
He'd know it was me.
The drive from the docks was silent except for the hum of the engine. Shin's cab weaved through the city streets ahead, the faint gleam of its taillights cutting through the drizzle.
I kept my gaze fixed on it, my thoughts clawing at the edges of restraint. She shouldn't have come back. Not now. Not when the ashes of Meridian were still warm, not when the remnants of Clayton's network were shifting beneath the surface.
"Ma'am, are we still following?" my driver asked, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.
"Yes," I said softly. "But keep your distance."
Shin's cab stopped at a corner. From the shadows, I saw her step out and hand the driver a few bills. Her eyes darted across the street—sharp, calculating. The same eyes that once read my intentions before I even spoke.
She disappeared into a narrow alley.
"Stop here," I ordered.
The tires hissed against the wet pavement as I stepped out, rain clinging to my coat. The alley was half-lit, water dripping from rusted gutters, the smell of metal and decay heavy in the air.
And then I saw it.
A faint light from an underground door—one I thought I'd sealed shut weeks ago. The old Clayton access route.
My pulse quickened.
If Shin had found that door… then he was closer to the truth than I'd feared.
I turned away, dialing a number I hadn't called in months.
"Lock down every remaining node," I said the moment the line connected. "No traces. If he gets inside, wipe it all."
The voice on the other end hesitated. "Even the core files, ma'am?"
"Especially the core files."
When I hung up, I looked back toward the alley, the faint silhouette of Shin already lost in the dark.
"You shouldn't have come back," I whispered. "You're walking straight into the fire."
The rain fell harder, masking the echo of distant footsteps. Somewhere deep beneath the city, systems flickered to life one last time—before going dark forever.
And with that, I knew: there would be no turning back, for either of us.
My phone rang—Clyde's name flashed on the screen.
I answered without hesitation, but the moment his voice cracked through the line, my stomach dropped.
"Ariel's gone," he said. "They got him."
For a second, I couldn't move. The world around me blurred—the static of the call, the hum of the generator, even my own heartbeat seemed to fade.
"What do you mean gone?" My voice came out sharper than I intended.
"They found his body near the old pier. He didn't make it."
The line fell silent except for Clyde's uneven breathing.
I gripped the edge of the table, the wood biting into my palm. Ariel—our medic, our calm in the chaos—gone. Just like that.
"I'm coming back," I said, already reaching for my jacket.
"Ellen, don't—"
But the call ended before he could finish.
Within minutes, I was in the car, the city lights slicing through the windshield as I drove toward our new hideout. Every turn, every red light felt like a test of how much rage I could contain.
When I finally arrived, Clyde met me at the entrance, his face grim.
"They knew where to find him," he said quietly. "Someone leaked it."
"Also, it seems he's following someone."
I stared at him, feeling the chill seep into my bones.
Inside, the team had gone silent—no one dared to look at me. On the table lay Ariel's gear, blood still marking the edges of shirt.
I clenched my fists.
If they thought Clayton's death ended this war, they were wrong.
Because tonight, I would make sure whoever came for Ariel would regret ever touching one of mine.
Three nights after Ariel's death, I was still digging through the ashes he left behind. Every file, every clipped note from his drive, every fragment of voice message that hadn't been erased. The man was meticulous—too meticulous for a field operative who was supposedly chasing a random lead.
But there was one folder—hidden under layers of decoy encryption—that felt different. Its label was nothing but a single underscore.
When I opened it, a short video blinked into life.
Ariel's voice, tired, low, and deliberate.
"Day fourteen. Still on her trail. I think I finally understand why Ellen wanted me to stop digging."
My stomach knotted.
The footage cut to the familiar rain-streaked windshield of a bus. Ariel was filming through the glass as they pulled into a port terminal. People moved about in the blur of headlights and smoke. Then, the camera shifted—and focused on a woman stepping off another vehicle, hood drawn up, duffel slung over one shoulder.
Shin.
My breath caught. She was supposed to still be in Leyte.
But the timestamp told the truth: three days ago.
He had already been back. And I had been the last to know.
The camera zoomed closer—Ariel following her through the terminal, whispering softly to his recorder.
"She's different. Doesn't move like she used to. Guarded. Either hiding something… or someone."
I froze the frame, studying the face half-caught in the light. The jawline, the eyes—they shared something. A subtle echo I'd missed before. I dragged the slider back, slower this time, and then I saw it: a side-by-side photo tucked into Ariel's notes—one old, one recent. A young Shin, a younger woman beside him, smiling in front of a church ruin in Tacloban.
Ariel.
Brothers.
The air seemed to go thin around me.
"Ariel…" I whispered, tracing the edge of the screen. "You followed your own blood."
It hit me all at once—why Ariel had been secretive, why he never called for backup, why his last transmission was encrypted even from our system. He wasn't chasing a target. He was trying to reach someone he still believed could be saved.
And I was the one who sent him straight into the line of fire.
The sound of boots echoed down the corridor. Clyde's voice broke the silence. "Ellen, Shin's here."
I turned slowly. Shin stood in the doorway, still in travel clothes, her expression unreadable—but her eyes were fire. There was a grief there that didn't speak, only accused.
"You knew," she said quietly. "Didn't you?"
I swallowed hard. "I didn't. Not until now."
He took a step closer, fists trembling. "You used him."
"No, Shin—"
"You sent him for a mission, right?"
Her shout rattled the walls. I saw the pain behind the rage—the disbelief of a sister who'd lost the only family she had left. I reached for him, but he jerked back, eyes wet, chest heaving.
"I didn't even get to bury him," she spat. "And you— you're still trying to justify it."
The weight of her words sank deep. For once, I had nothing to say. Nothing that could undo what my orders had cost.
She turned toward the door, but paused, just enough for her voice to shake the air like a blade.
"You took everything from me, Ellen. Whatever trust I had—whatever reason I had to come back—it's gone."
The door slammed. Silence returned, thick and heavy.
I looked back at the paused frame on the laptop—two people caught between loyalty and survival—and felt something inside me fracture.
Because the truth was uglier than I'd ever admit aloud.
I had sent Ariel to die.
And now, the only person who might have forgiven me was the one I had just lost too.
But what chilled me most wasn't Shin's anger.
It was the name scrawled in Ariel's last note—half-burned but still legible under the glow of my desk lamp:
"Blampher knows."
And under it, two words circled in trembling ink:
"He's coming."