Zora groaned in the trunk, cuffed and gagged. She was still bleeding, but not enough to kill her. Hayamei made sure of that. Death would've been mercy.
Hayamei's mind wasn't on her though.
It was on the picture Na'Nami left behind.
That smile. The eyes.
She'd seen them before.
Long ago.
⸻
"We have to find her now," Aiyana said, pacing the length of the living room, blade in hand. "This isn't random. This is psychological. They want us to panic."
Hayamei didn't speak.
She was in the kitchen, slowly peeling the crayon drawing from the fridge, fingers trembling.
Ghost leaned against the doorway, arms crossed.
"She's not just bait," he said. "She's the message."
Aiyana turned to him. "From who?"
He looked at the drawing again.
The woman's face.
The eyes.
"I think it's from Eris."
⸻
That name dropped like lead.
Hayamei froze. Her heart felt like it stopped.
"...That name ain't been said in ten years."
Ghost's voice was low. "Then we're ten years too late."
⸻
Eris.
She wasn't family.
She wasn't an agent.
She wasn't a ghost like Ghost.
She was something else.
She had worked under their father briefly—before being exiled for "uncontrollable behavior." But the truth was uglier: she volunteered for the darkest of his experiments. She injected herself with every enhancement, took every neural implant, pushed her body and mind to the edge.
She wanted power—not control. Chaos. Pain. Blood.
And when she snapped?
She burned down an entire lab with twenty children inside it.
Hayamei remembered the report. She remembered the way her father whispered about Eris like she was a myth, not a woman.
But that smile...
She remembered it now.
⸻
Ghost grabbed the keys. "She's not just sending a warning. She's telling you the game has changed."
"No," Hayamei whispered. "She's restarting it."
⸻
Aiyana pulled a sat phone from her bag and typed in a code Hayamei hadn't seen her use before.
A direct line.
To someone dangerous.
"We need backup."
Hayamei frowned. "Who are you calling?"
Aiyana looked her dead in the eyes. "Someone who hates Eris more than we do."
⸻
Meanwhile, in the trunk—
Zora was regaining her strength.
She was using her own blood to pick the lock on her cuffs.
And in her boot?
A burner phone.
Already buzzing with a message from someone else.
"Get out. New orders. Hayamei isn't the mission anymore. The girl is."
Zora's eyes widened.
So that's what this was now?
The target had changed.
She kicked at the trunk.
Twice. Then again.
The latch broke.
⸻
The trunk popped open just as Ghost stepped out the front door.
He raised his gun—too late.
Zora dove out and rolled, disappearing into the alley with blood dripping from her ribs.
Aiyana ran outside, but Hayamei didn't follow.
She stood in front of the fridge, crayon drawing still in hand, staring at the word "Mommy?" like it was written in gasoline.
Then she turned.
"I know where Eris is."
Ghost looked back. "Where?"
Hayamei didn't blink.
"She's in the place my father trained us all to forget."
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