Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 141 - Chapitre 150

Natasha turned toward the screen. One hundred twenty-eight. Then one hundred thirty-five. Aaron’s face had lost some color. “Aaron?” “I’m all right.” “You don’t look all right.” “I said—” Another warning sounded. One hundred forty-three. Elias reached for the controls. “That is enough.” The connection disappeared. Natasha felt Aaron leave her mind so suddenly that for a moment she could not breathe. Then the laboratory returned completely. Aaron leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Natasha pulled the sensors from her forehead before Elias could stop her and moved to his side. “Aaron.” His eyes opened. “I’m here.” Hargrove checked his pulse while Elias studied the neurological monitor. Natasha looked at the timer. “Twenty-four seconds?” Liora nodded. Twenty-four seconds. Not minutes, but seconds. And Aaron’s heart had reacted that strongly. The fear from the connection was still fresh inside Natasha. She did not know where his emotions ended and hers began an

The Hollows did not charge. Natasha had done this before. She once did on smaller roads at the Arsenal highway, against groups that should have torn through human soldiers but instead moved aside. This time, however, she could feel something deeper beneath their reaction. The network. Far away, something was aware of her. Natasha spoke clearly. “Move aside.” For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the first Hollow stepped backward. Another followed. The center of the horde began separating. Bodies moved toward both sides of the highway until a narrow passage appeared between them. It widened slowly. Soldiers behind Natasha watched in complete silence. Aaron came to stand near her. But the Hollows did not react to him. Their attention remained fixed entirely on Natasha. Several lowered their heads. It was recognition of authority. Natasha did not like how natural it felt. Victor approached only after the road had opened completely. He stared down the corridor created

Victor did not allow Eden’s convoy within firing distance of the Omega vehicles. The moment the first armored transport entered the valley, Arsenal units shifted position. Claire redirected two defensive teams toward the southern approach while Dax’s heavy-weapons crews rotated their mounted guns without receiving any order to fire. No one needed one. Eden stopped several hundred yards away. For nearly a minute, nothing happened. The valley remained filled with kneeling infected, human military vehicles and two forces that had every reason to distrust each other. Natasha stood near the center of it with Aaron, Rowan, Caleb and Leon. Adrian emerged from the lead Eden vehicle. He wore no protective suit. No visible body armor. Only dark tactical clothing beneath a long coat, surrounded by armed guards and several people Natasha recognized from Eden’s scientific levels. His confidence irritated her immediately. Even now. Even here. He walked into a valley where thousands of

Nyra’s shot caught the first Night Hunter as it cleared a broken wall. The creature struck the road outside the technical station, and Natasha stepped around its body with Aaron beside her. Beyond the armored vehicles, more shapes were moving through the ruins. Dax hurried past them toward his waiting weapons crew while Victor’s orders cut through the gunfire. “Hold your assigned lines. Confirm your targets before firing. Anything following the Prime commanders stays out of your sights unless it attacks.” Claire took the radio beside him and separated the reports coming from the eastern and western positions. Instead of competing for the same channel, the unit leaders began answering in turn. Silas had pulled his scouts behind the eastern barrier. Garrick’s soldiers covered the extraction lane behind them. On the western road, Dax reached the mounted weapon as its crew finished turning toward the advancing Night Hunters. Natasha stopped behind the forward vehicle with Caleb and Leo

Natasha tried to feel the chair beneath her and found a different body instead. Someone was crouching beside a bed, reaching for a child who would not come out. She felt the strain in that person’s knees and the fear behind the whispered instructions. Before she could understand whose memory she had entered, it broke apart beneath a surge of hunger. Another life pressed against hers. A man sat in stalled traffic, turning up an emergency broadcast while rain struck the windshield. Then Natasha felt a soldier’s hands against a steel door, holding it closed as frightened people pushed from the other side. She tried to remember where her own hands were and could find only the pressure of those strangers’ fingers. The fragments carried different weather, unfamiliar voices and streets far beyond Colorado. They came through the same network, crowded together with the commands that had buried them. Natasha wanted to hold one long enough to discover whether the person inside it could still a