Mari didn't wait for traffic to thin out. She slammed her foot down, throwing the sedan forward with a violent jolt that violently whipped Adrian back against the leather seat.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Mari!" Adrian yelled, gripping the overhead handle so hard his knuckles popped as the car fishtailed into a dangerously narrow gap.
"Seatbelt, dammit," she snapped, her eyes locked on the cracked asphalt ahead with terrifying focus.
Beside her, Sera didn't bother complaining. She slammed her palm against the dashboard, her knuckles stark white, watching Mari's tense profile with sharp, burning eyes. "You're driving like someone's bloody hunting you."
"Someone will be," Mari muttered, her heart hammering a frantic, deafening war drum against her ribs.
The air inside the cabin felt instantly electric, thick with the suffocating weight of things left unsaid. Every second wasted was a second closer to the abyss. Mari flicked her gaze to the dashboard clock.
10:14 a.m.
Dr. Lena Hart's laboratory sat on the northern edge of the city, a brutalist concrete fortress tucked behind the university annex. In her past life, Lena had spent her final hours screaming into a dead microphone about localized electromagnetic anomalies. Today, she'd likely be hunched over a microscope, entirely oblivious to the fact that her future executioners were already drawing breath.
Mari cut a vicious left, tires screaming in agony against the pavement, narrowly clipping a delivery van by inches.
"You're going to get us killed before the world even ends, you lunatic," Adrian muttered from the back, though his voice lacked its usual mocking edge. He was watching the way her shoulders locked, the calculated, lethal precision in every twitch of the steering wheel.
"Shut the fuck up, Adrian, and watch the rearview," Mari commanded.
They hit the highway bypass, the towering glass skyline of the city shrinking behind them like a dying memory. The sun beat down mercilessly, casting blinding glares across the windshield. But beneath the normal hum of morning traffic, that low subterranean vibration returned—thrumming viciously up through the chassis, rattling the loose change in the console.
Sera caught her breath, her eyes widening. "Did you feel that?"
"Earthquake?" Adrian guessed, leaning forward sharply between the front seats.
"No," Mari said flatly, her voice dropping into a dark register. "The veil is thinning early, and it's bullshit."
They pulled up to the security gates of the research annex two minutes later. A lazy security guard barely glanced up from his tablet inside the booth.
Mari didn't even tap the brakes. She aimed the sedan right at the automated arm with reckless abandon.
"Hold on!" she snarled.
The car smashed through the plastic barrier with a sharp, explosive crack, sending white fragments bouncing viciously across the hood.
Sera's eyes went wide with shock. "Mari, are you out of your goddamn mind—?!"
"We don't have time to sign guest logs."
Mari parked crookedly across two spaces right outside the main glass doors, killing the engine before it could fully stop, and throwing her door open with a bang.
"Stay in the fucking car," she ordered over her shoulder.
"Like hell I will," Sera snapped, unbuckling and stepping out right behind her without a second of hesitation. Adrian followed immediately, his expression grim and tight as he took in the quiet, sterile facade of the building.
"If we get arrested for this stupidity," Adrian muttered, frantically adjusting his jacket, "I'm billing you for legal fees."
"You won't have to," Mari said, drawing a cold piece of metal from her pocket as she marched toward the doors. "Because by tomorrow, money won't exist, you idiot."
She swiped a stolen master-key card—lifted from a researcher's desk in a timeline she refused to repeat—and forced the heavy double doors open with a brutal shove.
The air inside smelled sharply of ozone, stale coffee, and cheap bleach.
"Lena!" Mari's voice echoed down the sterile white corridor like a gunshot.
From somewhere down the hall, a door clicked open. A woman with wild, ink-stained hair and glasses sliding dangerously down her nose poked her head out, looking deeply annoyed.
"Who authorized—Mari?" Lena blinked, clutching a clipboard to her chest like a shield. "What the hell are you doing here? Security is going to—"
"Pack your hard drives, your notes, and every damn sample of anomalous tissue you've cataloged this week," Mari said, closing the distance between them in three long, predatory strides. She grabbed Lena by the shoulders, her grip fierce, unyielding, and desperate.
Lena gasped, dropping her clipboard as it clattered loudly against the linoleum. "What? Are you out of your goddamn mind?! My work—"
"Is going to be burned to bloody ash in eight hours if you stay here," Mari whispered, her voice dark, absolute, and terrifyingly cold. "Move your ass."
Lena stared deep into her eyes, the professional anger draining instantly from her face, replaced by a sudden, chilling realization that made her breath catch.
"You..." Lena breathed, her voice trembling violently. "You know about the fucking rifts."
"I know everything," Mari said, releasing her and spinning toward the exit with lethal urgency. "Now grab your gear. We ride in two minutes, or we die here."