Rain hammered against the glass walls of the helipad as the chopper blades whirred, slicing through the storm. Below, the city sprawled like a dying circuit board sparks, sirens, and smoke rising from the chaos Unit Thirteen had unleashed.
Ava Kane stood near the edge, soaked and trembling, her hand still bleeding where she'd ripped the tracker out of her arm. Adrian was alive. Changed. And now standing across from her like a ghost that refused to stay buried.
His eyes glowed faintly not human, not entirely him anymore.
"Step back," she warned, though her voice faltered. "You shouldn't be here."
"I told you I'd come back," Adrian said softly, rain dripping from his hair. "Just not like this."
"You shouldn't have survived."
He smiled faintly. "Neither should you."
Lightning cracked overhead. The helicopter waited behind him, blades chopping the air Lysandra's escape route. Her voice echoed faintly from the comms, cold and amused.
"Touching reunion. But the world doesn't wait for sentiment."
Ava's grip tightened on the pistol. "Lysandra, stop this."
"Stop evolution?" Lysandra laughed. "You of all people should understand the world doesn't evolve through mercy. It evolves through survival."
Adrian turned toward the sound, jaw clenched. "She's using the serum to rewrite entire populations. The Ghost Protocol wasn't containment it was replication."
Ava's breath caught. "You mean"
"She's planning to activate it globally."
A surge of realization hit her like a wave. The codes in her father's journal the ones she thought were incomplete weren't formulas for cure. They were keys. Deactivation triggers hidden in genetic sequences.
"Then it's not too late," Ava whispered. "We can still stop her."
Adrian stepped closer, voice low. "You'll need me for that."
She hesitated part of her still seeing the man she once trusted, part of her seeing the thing he had become. His pulse beat irregularly, too strong, too fast. The serum was consuming him.
"Adrian you're dying."
He almost smiled. "Not yet."
The helipad doors burst open. Black-suited soldiers stormed in Lysandra's private guard. The world tilted into chaos again.
Adrian moved first inhumanly fast, disarming two men before the third could even raise his rifle. Ava ducked, firing at the control panel to seal the elevator shaft.
The last soldier lunged. Adrian caught him mid-strike, twisting until the man's weapon clattered away.
"Go!" he shouted. "Get the core!"
Ava sprinted through the fire door, heart pounding, following the flickering emergency lights down the corridor. She reached the central lab glass walls shattered, power flickering. In the center, the containment core pulsed with blue light Eden's heart.
She reached for it.
And then Lysandra's voice came again, calm, cruel:
"Do you really think your father wanted you to destroy his masterpiece?"
Lysandra stepped from the shadows, lab coat torn, eyes gleaming with triumph.
"You're the next phase, Ava. He perfected you."
Ava froze, disbelief tearing through her. "You're lying."
"Am I?" Lysandra held up a vial a twin to the one Adrian had once carried. "You've felt it. The strength. The healing. The hunger. You're not just his daughter. You're his legacy."
Ava's pulse thundered. She looked down at her hand the cut she'd made earlier was already closing.
The serum was inside her.
"No"
"Yes," Lysandra whispered. "You're not human anymore, Ava. You're evolution."
Before Ava could speak, the door exploded inward. Adrian bleeding, burned, eyes glowing brighter. He stumbled into the room, weapon raised.
"Step away from her!"
Lysandra smiled, stepping closer to the core. "So predictable."
She pressed her hand to the console. The containment lights flared alarms screamed. The activation countdown began.
CODE GENESIS — SEQUENCE INITIATED
Adrian fired. Lysandra fell, a look of cold satisfaction frozen on her face as the alarm kept counting down.
Ava rushed to the console. "I can stop it but I need both keys!"
Adrian staggered beside her, blood mixing with rain and light. "Use mine."
She looked at him really looked at him and saw what it cost him to stay alive this long.
"If I use yours," she whispered, "you'll die."
He smiled faintly. "Then it ends how it should."
"No."
"Yes." He took her hand and pressed it against the console. "Legacy isn't blood. It's choice. Make yours count."
Tears blurred her vision. "Adrian"
He leaned in, just close enough for her to feel his breath. "Finish what he started."
Then he shoved her hand down on the core.
The chamber erupted in white light.
For a heartbeat, everything went still the storm, the sirens, even time itself.
Then the shockwave hit a pulse of light and sound that rippled across the skyline, silencing every signal tied to Eden's network.
When the smoke cleared, the lab was gone. The helipad cracked. The city below was quiet for the first time in years.
Ava stood alone among the ruins the serum burned out of her veins, her pulse faint but steady.
She looked at the sky.
And for the first time, it wasn't just survival.
It was beginning again.