Semua Bab Dear Ex Husband Wants Me Back: Bab 21 - Bab 30

Six hours.That was all the time we had before the missiles came.I stood on the beach, my pack gathered around me. Fifty-two children. Fifty-two Variants. They looked at me with eyes that had seen too much—experiments, cages, needles. But now I saw something new. Hope."The Dead Zone," Leo said, scrolling through his tablet. The screen glowed in the fading light. "Rose, nobody has ever gone there and come back. It's a graveyard of signals. Even satellites lose track.""Perfect," I said.Jaden stepped forward. His hands were shaking. "Mom, the Null boy... can we trust him?"I looked at the black-eyed child. He stood apart from the others, his arms wrapped around his thin body. He had been Vane's weapon. But he was also just a boy—lonely, broken, used.I walked over to him and knelt down."What's your real name?" I asked.He stared at me. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He hadn't spoken in years. The Archivists had cut out his voice box when he was five. He communicated throug

The Null boy spoke.One word. A whisper. Broken and raw, like glass being dragged across stone."Run."I didn't move. I couldn't. His eyes had changed. The bottomless black was gone, replaced by white—burning, blinding white. The void inside him wasn't empty anymore. It was full."What did you do?" I whispered.He looked at me. Really looked. For the first time, I saw a person behind those eyes. A scared, tired, beautiful person."I held too much," he said. Each word cost him. Blood dripped from his nose. "The void... it's not empty, Rose. It's a door. And I just opened it."Below us, the ocean turned red.Not the red of sunset. The red of blood. The red of magma rising from the deepest trench on earth. The water began to steam. Fish floated to the surface, cooked alive."The Dragon Protocol," I said. "Vane activated it."The Null boy—no, he needed a name. I couldn't call him Null anymore. But that was a problem for later. If there was a later.He grabbed my arm. His fingers were ice.

The first night on the new island was the quietest we had ever had.No alarms. No ships. No voices whispering through broken speakers. Just the sound of waves and the soft crackle of a fire.The children slept in a pile near the beach, wrapped in blankets we had salvaged from the wreckage. Fifty-two bodies curled together like puppies. Jaden was in the middle, his arm around Astra. Even Kai slept nearby, his back against a rock, his red eyes closed.I sat apart from them, watching the stars.Real stars. Not the fake ones from the Sanctuary's dome. Billions of them, scattered across the sky like salt on black glass.Leo walked over and sat beside me. He handed me a coconut with a hole cut in the top."Drink," he said. "You haven't eaten in two days."I took the coconut. The milk was sweet. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was."Leo," I said. "What happens now?"He was quiet for a long time. Then he pointed at the sky."I've been mapping the stars," he said. "We're south of the equator.

Wren didn't let go of my hand for the rest of the day.She followed me everywhere. When I checked the boat's engine, she stood beside me. When I talked to Sable about the next location, she pressed against my leg. When Jaden tried to offer her a piece of dried fish, she hid behind my back."She's attached," Kai said."She's traumatized," I replied.Same thing, sometimes.Sable pulled out the map and pointed to the next symbol. "This one is farther. Half a day's sail. An old lighthouse on a rock stack. There's a boy there. Name is Finn. He's fifteen. He can breathe underwater.""Breathe underwater?" Jaden's eyes went wide."Modified gills," Sable said. "The Council tried to make deep-sea workers. Most died. Finn survived."I looked at the sky. Clouds were gathering in the west. "We need to move fast. Storm coming."Sable nodded. She fired up the engine, and we pushed away from the black sand beach.Wren sat beside me on a wooden crate. She still didn't speak. But she was watching. Lear

The sea was calm the next morning.Too calm.After the storm, the ocean had turned glassy and still. No waves. No wind. Just flat gray water stretching in every direction. The boat barely moved.Kai checked the engine. "Fuel is low. We have maybe two more hours before we're drifting."Jaden looked at the map. "The next symbol isn't far. Maybe an hour if we had wind.""We don't have wind," I said.Wren tugged my sleeve. She still wasn't talking, but she pointed at the water.I looked down.Something was swimming beneath the boat.Big. Dark. Moving in slow circles."Everyone stay still," I whispered.Kai froze. Jaden held his breath. Wren pressed against my leg.The shape circled once. Twice. Three times.Then it surfaced.A head. Human-sized. Covered in scales the color of deep ocean. Two eyes, solid black, blinked at me. Then a body rose from the water — not human, not fish, something in between.A Variant."Who are you?" I asked.The creature tilted its head. Its mouth opened. A voic