Chapter 83: The Beast at the Door

The fragile peace I’d found was a thin sheet of ice over a dark, churning ocean. For two days, I’d honored it. I’d gone to Zenith, worked with Felix, shared a coffee with Millie. I hadn’t opened the encrypted partition on my hard drive. I hadn’t checked a single feed or traced a single packet of data related to Marlee. It was an act of faith, a promise to myself that I was changing. But on the third night, the ice began to crack. It wasn’t a premonition, not exactly. It was the cold,...