Read ahead to discover what happens after this moment.

The silence was the first thing I noticed. Then, the smell—not the sterile scent of the laboratory, but the faint, familiar smell of dust and old paper. I opened my eyes, the bright white light of the lab gone, replaced by the warm, dim glow of a library at night.

I was sitting in a chair, but I wasn't tied down. My head throbbed, but the electric fire in my brain had faded.

"You're awake," a voice said.

I turned. Gabriel Varrick was sitting in a chair across from me, his face drawn, his eyes tired.

"Where am I?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"We’re in the archive," Gabriel said, gesturing to the rows of shelves surrounding us. "The library vault. You were found in the parking garage, half-dead, two days ago."

"Two days?" I whispered, the timeline shattering. "What happened to Lily? What happened to the lab?"

"The lab is gone," Gabriel said, his voice hard. "They emptied it before we could get there. But they left you behind. I think they wanted you to be found, Claire. I think they wanted you to lead us to this room."

"Why?"

"Because they know you have the key," he said, gesturing to my sleeve.

I reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing against the encrypted card. I hadn't realized I was still holding it.

"I don't know what this is," I said, pulling the card out.

Gabriel took it, turning it over in his hand. "This isn't a key-card, Claire. It’s a physical data storage device. It’s the backup for the entire Syndicate project. If this exists, it means the purging of the lab was a failure for them. They need this card to restart their data stream."

"Then we destroy it," I said, standing up.

"We can't," Gabriel said, his face darkening. "It’s encrypted with a biometric trigger. If we try to smash it, the data is automatically broadcast to every news outlet in the country. It’s a dead-man’s switch. The Syndicate doesn't want it destroyed; they want it intact. And they know it’s here, in this library."

"Then we have to get it out," I said, my panic rising again.

"We can't get it out," Gabriel said, listening to the muffled sounds of footsteps in the library above us. "They’re already here."

The reality hit me—I had been brought here as a lure, and Gabriel had followed me into the trap. We were in a vault, in a library, in the middle of the city, and the Syndicate was closing in.

"We need a plan," I said, my voice steadying. "We have the data. We have the element of surprise. And we have the map of the library."

Gabriel looked at me, a flicker of something like respect crossing his face. "You’re a nanny, Claire. You’re not a spy."

"I'm the woman who saved your daughter’s life," I said. "And I'm not going to let them have the final word."

I pulled out the map of the library I had memorized during the renovation project. "There’s a tunnel, behind the main archive shelf. It leads to the subway station. If we can reach it, we can vanish."

"And the card?"

"We take it with us," I said. "And we make them chase us until they’re the ones who have nowhere left to run."

As the sounds of the Syndicate enforcers grew louder, Gabriel stood up, his face set in a mask of grim determination.