The wood beneath Nia’s feet vibrated as the low rumble of the boat’s engines seemed to pulse directly through the soles of her shoes. Her legs—the very legs that had been dead to the world for nearly a decade—remained miraculously solid, anchoring her against the cold, damp wind whistling off the water.
«You,» Nia whispered. The word carried no weight, instantly swallowed by the surge of the tide against the pilings. «Dr. Vance.»
The surgeon’s smile expanded, thin and entirely devoid of warmth. In the harsh glare of the deck lights, the deep lines around his eyes made him look less like a healer and more like a butcher who had traded his scalpel for a ledger. «You were always my favorite patient, Nia. So obedient. So wonderfully predictable in your grief.»
Beside her, Alejandro raised his firearm, his grip firm despite the tremor of tension coursing through his shoulders. Brutus dropped into a low, terrifying crouch at his side, a continuous growl rolling in the dog’s chest. «Don’t press it, Vance,» Alejandro warned, his voice dropped an octave, dripping with lethal intent. «You won’t survive the splash.»
«Neither will she,» Vance replied mildly, his thumb hovering over the red toggle of the detonator. «Nor the child. Nor your brave little hound. There are four hundred pounds of commercial explosive rigged directly under the joists beneath your feet. A single click, and we all become shark bait.»
The boy didn’t flinch. He stood behind Nia, his small hand reaching out to grab the hem of her jacket. His fingers were ice-cold, but his grip was surprisingly fierce.
Nia’s mind raced, frantically sifting through the layers of deceit. «You lied to me,» she said, her voice rising above the crash of the waves. «For seven years, you told me the nerve damage was permanent. You kept me trapped in that chair!»
«I kept you alive,» Vance corrected sharply, the smugness briefly slipping from his face to reveal something bitter and sharp beneath. «Do you have any idea what the syndicate would have done to you seven years ago if they knew you could walk? If they knew you possessed the physical capability to retrieve what your sister hid? The paralysis was your armor, Nia. I forged it for you.»
«And the watch?» Nia tightened her fist around the cracked silver casing in her palm, the metal edges biting into her skin. «My sister’s picture. The boy said she built the ledger. He said she was on this boat!»
Vance chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. «The dead tell no tales, my dear, but they leave magnificent breadcrumbs. Your sister did build the ledger. But she didn’t do it alone.»
Suddenly, a heavy metallic clunk echoed from the stern of the boat.
Before Alejandro could adjust his aim, the canopy light on the speedboat flickered and died, plunging the end of the pier into thick, suffocating darkness.
«Down!» Alejandro roared, lunging toward Nia just as a high-pitched whine cut through the humid night air.
It wasn’t a gunshot. It was a localized electromagnetic pulse.
Every electronic device on their persons died instantly. Alejandro’s radio popped and went silent; the tactical lights along the pier vanished, leaving only the pale, ghostly glow of the moon. Beneath them, the low hum of the speedboat’s engine sputtered and seized.
A heavy splash sounded from the dark water beside the pier, followed by the wet, slapping sound of someone scaling the wooden ladder at the edge of the dock.
«Vance!» Nia yelled, dropping low onto the slick planks as her balance wavered in the sudden obscurity. She reached out in the dark, her hands searching for the boy, but her fingers swept through empty air. He was gone.
«Nia, don’t move!» Alejandro’s voice sounded three feet to her left. A match struck, the tiny yellow flame illuminating his sharp features for a fraction of a second before he held it up.
The dock was clear. Dr. Vance was no longer standing at the helm of the boat. The vessel itself was drifting away from the pier, caught in the strong coastal current, completely dark and unmanned.
«Where is he?» Nia demanded, pushing herself up onto her feet once more. The physical exertion was beginning to take its toll; a dull, throbbing ache was creeping up her lower spine, a terrifying reminder of the fire that used to consume her nerves. «Where did the boy go?»
«He didn’t go down the stairs,» Alejandro said, sweeping his dying match in a arc. «He went into the water.»
«He didn’t go down the stairs,» Alejandro said, sweeping his dying match in a arc. «He went into the water.»
«He jumped?» Nia rushed to the edge of the pier, staring down into the churning, black ocean.
«He didn’t jump alone,» a new voice called out from the shadows of the boathouse at the base of the cliff.
Nia and Alejandro spun around. Standing near the wooden entrance was a tall figure shrouded in a tactical jacket, holding a heavy suppressed rifle lowered toward the ground. The yellow glow of a flare suddenly hissed to life in the stranger’s left hand, flooding the dock with intense, crimson light.
The light reflected off a familiar silver mask covering the upper half of the stranger’s face.
«You’ve been playing the wrong game, Nia,» the masked figure said, their voice artificially modulated, deep and robotic. «Vance wasn’t here to blow the dock. He was here to collect you before the real ledger activated.»
Nia stepped forward, ignoring Alejandro’s hand on her arm. «What are you talking about? Who are you?»
The figure tossed the burning flare onto the wooden planks between them. «The watch in your hand. Look at the timestamp on the back of the photograph.»
Nia raised the silver watch to the crimson glare of the flare. Her trembling fingers turned the antique casing over. Scratched crudely into the rusted steel was a date: OCTOBER 14, 2026.
Nia’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes darted back to the figure. «That’s… that’s three weeks from today.»
«Your sister didn’t die eight years ago, Nia,» the masked figure whispered, taking a slow step toward her. «And she didn’t die six months ago, either. The woman you buried was a duplicate. Your sister is alive… and she is the one who put you in that chair to protect you from what comes next.»
Before Nia could process the impossibility of the words, a sharp, deafening blast echoed from the top of the cliff above them.
The resort terrace erupted into a massive ball of orange flame, raining shattered stone, burning debris, and heavy iron girders straight down toward the docks.
«Run!» Alejandro screamed, grabbing Nia around the waist as a multi-ton section of the cliffside wall plunged directly toward the pier where they stood.