Three days later.
It took Julian Vance three full days to drag himself and his parents forty miles through the freezing, mutant-infested ruins of the city.
They hadn’t traveled openly. They spent hours hiding in abandoned buildings whenever mutant packs passed, moving only when the roads were clear.
By the time they reached the base of Catrin’s mountain, they didn’t look like billionaires anymore. Eleanor had lost one of her expensive boots in a snowdrift and had her foot wrapped in bloody rags. Richard was leaning heavily on a broken tree branch, coughing up dark phlegm. Julian’s face was windburned, his hands black with frostbite.
They had survived purely on adrenaline and the desperate, burning belief that Catrin would eventually cave.
"Halt!"
A harsh voice cut through the howling wind.
Julian looked up. Through the swirling purple fog, the two-mile barricade loomed like a fortress of its own. Spiked steel barriers blocked the road. Standing behind them were five massive Aegis mercenaries, wrapped in thermal winter gear, aiming heavy assault rifles directly at Julian’s chest.
"We’re here for my wife!" Julian gasped, holding his frozen hands up. "Catrin Vance! Tell her I’m here!"
Commander Jax stepped out from the guardhouse. He held a steaming thermos of hot coffee. He took a slow sip, looking down at the pathetic, shivering family.
"Name’s Briar now," Jax corrected smoothly. "And she knows you’re here. We tracked your body heat two miles down the road."
"Then open the gate!" Eleanor shrieked, her voice raspy and broken. "We are dying out here!"
"That sounds like a personal problem," Jax said, echoing Catrin’s exact words from days ago.
Julian’s eyes darted around frantically. He saw a heavy, military-grade intercom box mounted on the steel barricade. It had a direct, hardwired line up to the Ark.
If Catrin wouldn’t listen to reason, he would use the only weapon he had left.
Jax started toward him, but Julian had already slammed the button. He didn’t threaten. He didn’t demand. He instantly burst into loud, pathetic tears.
"Nico!" Julian screamed into the speaker, his voice cracking with artificial heartbreak. "Nico, it’s Papa! Papa is so cold, baby! Please, tell Mommy to open the door! Papa misses you so much!"
Jax frowned, lowering his thermos. "Step away from the box, Vance."
"Nico, please!" Julian sobbed louder, ignoring the rifles pointed at him. "They’re going to let us freeze! Tell Mommy you want Papa!"
Inside the warm, lavender-scented living room of the Ark, the intercom blared.
Julian’s desperate, crying voice echoed off the polished titanium walls.
Catrin was sitting on the leather sofa, a cup of Earl Grey tea resting on her lap. Across the room, Quinn and Nico were sitting on the rug, intensely focused on a racing game on the massive flat-screen TV.
When Julian’s voice cracked through the speakers, Nico froze.
The little boy dropped his controller. His kart spun off the digital track, but he didn’t notice. He looked up at the ceiling speaker, his green eyes wide with confusion.
"Mommy?" Nico asked, his bottom lip quivering slightly. "Why is Papa crying? Is he locked out?"
The entire room went completely still.
Quinn’s grip on her controller tightened so hard the plastic creaked. Elias, who had been tinkering with a drone at the kitchen island, slowly put his wrench down, his face darkening.
This was the trap. Julian was trying to weaponize a four-year-old’s empathy.
Catrin didn’t panic. She didn’t look angry, and she didn’t lie. She calmly set her teacup down on the glass table and walked over, kneeling on the soft rug right in front of her son.
She took Nico’s warm, chubby hands in hers.
"Papa isn’t locked out, baby," Catrin said. Her voice was incredibly gentle, but firm enough for him to understand. "Do you remember when the bad doggies started coming, and Mommy said we had to leave the big house?"
Nico nodded slowly. "Yeah."
"Well, Mommy asked Papa to come with us. But Papa made a choice," Catrin explained, holding his gaze. "Papa loved his office and his money more than he wanted to come with us. He didn’t want to leave his stuff behind."
Nico tilted his head, processing this. Because Julian had always been an absent father, constantly traveling for work and leaving Nico with nannies, the explanation made sense to the little boy.
"He wanted to stay at work?" Nico asked.
"Exactly," Catrin smiled softly. "And because he made that choice, he isn’t a safe person for us to be around anymore. Our family is right here. Just us."
Nico looked at the speaker one more time, the confusion fading from his eyes. He wasn’t traumatized. He was just a little disappointed, like a kid who was told a toy was broken.
"Okay," Nico mumbled.
Elias didn’t miss a beat. He smoothly slid off his stool and dropped onto the rug next to Nico, pulling a small, glowing glass jar from his lab coat pocket.
"Hey, little boss," Elias whispered loudly, completely ignoring the static of Julian still crying on the intercom. "You want to see something crazy? I found a plant downstairs that literally eats metal. Watch this."
Elias dropped a tiny iron screw into the jar. A glowing purple vine snapped forward like a snake and swallowed it whole.
Nico gasped, his eyes going wide with pure delight. "Whoa! Do it again, Uncle Elias!"
Julian was completely forgotten.
Catrin stood up. Her gentle, motherly warmth instantly vanished, replaced by a freezing, absolute ruthlessness. She walked over to the security console on the wall.
"Jax," Catrin said into the microphone. "Put him on the external speaker."
Down at the barricade, the intercom clicked. Catrin’s voice boomed out into the freezing mountain air, loud enough for Julian and his parents to hear perfectly.
"That was a nice try, Julian," Catrin’s voice echoed. "But your son is currently busy feeding metal to a mutant plant. He says hello, by the way."
Julian stopped crying. The pathetic facade dropped instantly, replaced by a twisted, ugly rage.
"You absolute psycho!" Julian screamed at the speaker. "He is my son! You can’t keep him from me! I still have the security override codes for the Vance accounts! I can lock you out of everything! You need me!"
Catrin’s laugh was cold and sharp.
"Julian, look around you," she said. "The banks are ash. The servers are melted. Your override codes are as useless as the designer coat you’re freezing in. I don’t need a single thing from you. You have absolutely no leverage left."
"I am your husband!" Julian roared, slamming his fist against the barricade.
"I left the divorce papers on the dining table, remember?" Catrin replied smoothly. "Jax."
"Yes, Boss?" Jax answered over the radio.
"If he touches the intercom again, shoot him in the knee."
"Understood."
Jax stepped forward, racking the bolt of his heavy assault rifle. The sharp clack made Richard and Eleanor flinch violently.
"You heard the lady," Jax growled, aiming the rifle directly at Julian’s kneecap. "Walk away, Vance. Before I make sure you can’t."
Julian stared at the heavy barrel of the gun. He looked up the mountain, staring at the thick purple fog hiding the impenetrable fortress.
The leverage was gone. Catrin was truly untouchable up there.
"This isn’t over," Julian hissed, his teeth chattering from the cold and the fury. "You think you’re safe in that metal box? Someone is going to crack it open. And when they do, I’ll be there to take what’s mine."
He grabbed his mother’s arm and practically dragged her away from the barricade, limping back down the mountain road into the purple wasteland.
Jax watched them go, taking another sip of his hot coffee.
Inside the Ark, Catrin turned the intercom off. She walked back to the sofa and picked up her tea. It was still perfectly hot.
"Are they gone?" Quinn asked, keeping her eyes glued to the TV screen as she drifted her digital kart around a corner.
"They’re gone," Catrin said, taking a sip.
Julian was a coward, but cowards were dangerous when they were backed into a corner. He would survive, and he would come back. Catrin knew that.
But for now, the fortress was safe. The food was hot. And her son was laughing on the rug with his new family.
Catrin smiled. Let Julian freeze in the wasteland. She had a racing game to win.