The name still hovered in the air like smoke over kindling.
Hugo Vale.
It landed like a curse, heavy and ancestral. The kind of name that didn't need a title to command a room. It was its own sentence.
I raised my hands slowly—not in surrender, not in fear—but to freeze the moment. To hold the silence just a second longer, like maybe if I didn't breathe, I wouldn't have to say it.
But lies rot faster in the heat.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "He's my father."
The air seemed to thin.
Subject 3830 didn't move. But everything in her changed. Her stance shifted. Her spine locked. Her breathing went shallow. Her fingers tightened on the blade, not raised—but ready.
Behind me, the group coiled tight as a spring.
Sienna's hand slid from my leg, fingers brushing the fabric of her belt—where I knew we kept the rusted utility blade we'd salvaged from the crash. Not her first choice, but sharp enough to leave a scar.
