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Chapter Twenty-One
The white-hot surge split through my skull like lightning trapped in glass. I screamed, but no sound escaped. For a moment, I wasn’t in the safehouse anymore—I was everywhere.
Images flooded my mind—codes cascading like waterfalls, voices echoing from memory, my mother’s laughter layered with alarms, and then… silence.
Then a voice.
My own.
Override accepted. Origin Protocol activated.
The light dimmed.
I crashed to the ground, gasping, my skin hot, heart thundering.
Liam caught me before I collapsed fully. “Isla—look at me. Talk to me!”
Freya yanked me behind a desk as the firefight outside the room intensified. “She triggered the Origin Protocol. That was the key!”
Bullets tore through the air. Tamar ducked, clutching her data drive. “We need to move now!”
“I can’t—” I tried to stand, my legs rubber. “Something’s… different.”
Freya grabbed the baton from my hand, eyes wide. “It’s synced. The code’s live. She’s carrying it.”
I blinked. “Carrying
