Chapter 55 Damian
Damian
The night pressed heavy as we rolled down the county road, headlights cutting across fields gone wild with weeds. Out here, there were no neighbors, no curious eyes—just miles of silence and the smell of earth. Exactly the kind of place Luthor would use to hide a hub.
Cyclone sat up front, laptop balanced on his knees, the glow lighting his face. “She was right,” he muttered. “Thermal scans show heat pockets scattered across the barns. Generators running inside. No way this is abandoned.”
River grinned from the back seat, bouncing his knee like a restless kid. “Finally. A real fight.”
Roger shot him a flat look. “Keep your head. If this is the middle of the pipeline, it’s not going to be guarded by amateurs.”
I said nothing, my hands tight on the wheel. My chest still ached from the truth we’d all seen—Morgan wasn’t guessing anymore. She was ahead of us. And that meant she was closer to Luthor’s fire than I’d ever wanted her to be.
We killed the headlights a mile out, rolling slow down a dirt track until the barns loomed up against the horizon. Old wood. Rusted tin. But the glow bleeding from the cracks was too clean, too strong. Power was flowing through those buildings, and power always meant people.
Cyclone closed his laptop and checked his gear. “Thermals show at least a dozen inside. Maybe more. And trucks. Big ones.”
River cracked his knuckles, a grin sharp on his face. “Just tell me which door.”
I parked behind a line of overgrown hedges, cutting the engine. The silence that fell was thick, broken only by the tick of cooling metal and the soft rasp of Roger chambering a round.
I looked at each of them, my voice low but steady. “This is it. We move fast, we move clean, and we shut this down before it spreads further. No mistakes.”
River smirked. “When do we ever make mistakes?”
Cyclone rolled his eyes. “Don’t answer that.”
I checked my weapon one last time, forcing my focus onto the barns. But deep down, all I could think was that Morgan had led us here. And if she was right about this place being the middle of the chain… then the end was somewhere even darker.
And she was already too close to it.