Ava's boots echoed low and steady in the tunnel as she walked back toward Bai Manor—Ren just behind her, quiet as ever.
The reclaimed shopping plaza was now marked and logged in her bracer, the system syncing every few steps. Clean scan. No beast traces. Another node locked under her name. It felt good.
But the moment she stepped into the last stretch of corridor, her bracer buzzed.
Twice.
Sharp.
Not normal.
Her system's alert came through faint—just a flicker of a hidden line she hadn't accessed in days.
[PING – BAISHADOW BACKDOOR – SYSTEM CROSS-SYNC TRIGGERED][L.BAI – LIVE STATUS FEED: ACTIVE (HIDDEN)]
Ava froze.
Ren, a pace behind, stopped too. "Miss Zhang?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she tapped into the sync panel that wasn't her's—Lucas's personal command, after their last linked update. It had been buried deep, behind a firewall of "Lucas-level paranoia."
But she hadn't deleted it.
Because Ava didn't delete things that might keep someone alive.
