Chapter 60 Jonah
Jonah
Location: Forested Ravine — Eastern Europe
Time: Unknown
The air changes before the light does.
It warms—just slightly. Carries moisture. Pine and damp earth instead of oil and rust. My lungs burn as they expand too fast, ribs protesting the movement.
I breathe anyway.
Pain doesn’t get to decide this moment.
I stop without meaning to.
Marin nearly runs into me again.
“You feel it too,” she whispers.
I nod.
We take three more steps.
Then the tunnel ends—not with a wall this time, but with sky.
Gray, overcast, fractured by jagged silhouettes of trees. Morning light filters through branches like it’s unsure whether we deserve it.
I stagger forward and brace a hand against the rock wall, lungs dragging in air that feels too big, too open. The light is too bright for eyes that haven’t seen daylight in years.
I’m above ground.
For the first time in years, I’m not enclosed by concrete or steel or someone else’s plan.
I don’t celebrate.
Celebration gets you killed.
Marin steps out beside me, eyes wide, chest rising fast. She presses a hand over her mouth like she’s afraid the sound of breathing might draw bullets.
“Holy—” She stops herself. Swallows. “We made it.”
I don’t answer.
I look at the green.
Feel the ground with my hands.
I hug the first tree I come to anyway.
The ravine slopes downward on one side, sharp rock giving way to mud and fallen leaves. Trees crowd in close—dense enough to hide movement, sparse enough to offer lines of sight if you know how to read them.
I scan automatically.
Left: rocky outcrop, climbable but exposed.
Right: tree line, thicker cover, slower movement.
Behind us: nothing visible—but the tunnel mouth yawns open, dark and patient.
“They’ll find this,” Marin says quietly.
“Yes,” I answer. “Eventually.”
They always do. The trick is deciding what they find first—and what they never see at all.
“So what now?” she asks.
I meet her gaze.
Now, I don’t wait to be hunted.
I choose the terrain.
“We move,” I say. “But not straight.”
I pull the guard’s jacket tighter around myself, adjust the collar, hide my face. I’m glad Marin was allowed to keep her shoes—and that I was able to take the guard’s.
Then I tear a strip from the jacket lining and toss it into the tunnel entrance, letting it snag where it’s easy to spot.
Breadcrumb.
Malenkov taught his hunters to follow certainty.
I give them confidence wrapped in lies.
We angle downslope, slow and deliberate, leaving shallow tracks where mud wants to keep secrets. I snap a low branch and scatter pine needles across our trail.
Noise.
Confusion.
Human error.
Manufactured.
“Can you climb?” I ask.
She hesitates—then nods. “I can try.”
“That’s enough.”
We reach the base of the ravine and start up the opposite side, hands slick with mud, muscles burning. Halfway up, I divert—cutting sideways along a narrow ledge that disappears behind a stand of firs.
We crouch there, breath ragged.
Listening.
Nothing yet.
But I know Ronan.
I know the way Lena’s mind works when a map suddenly gains color.
They see this place now.
And they’ll know exactly what I’m doing.
Marin leans close, voice barely a breath. “You’re not running.”
“No,” I say. “I’m buying time.”
“For what?”
I look through the trees at a world that looks deceptively calm.
“For Malenkov to believe he’s still in control.”
Because the worst thing I can do right now—
Is disappear.
I straighten, shoulders squaring despite the tremor running through me.
Somewhere out there, Ronan Pierce is watching a white line turn into daylight.
Somewhere else, Malenkov is staring at a sealed door and wondering how the dark slipped through his fingers.
And here I am.
Above ground.
Exposed.
Free enough to move, for the first time in too long.
Dangerous enough to matter.
I take one more breath of cold forest air.
Then I step forward.
Because survival is no longer the goal.
Now—
I’m part of the hunt.