Chapter Two: Ten Hours Until the End

Mari didn't wait for traffic to thin out. She slammed her foot down, throwing the sedan forward with a jolt that slammed Adrian back against the leather seat.

"Jesus Christ, Mari!" Adrian yelled, gripping the overhead handle as the car swerved into an open gap.

"Seatbelt," she snapped, her eyes locked on the road.

Beside her, Sera didn't bother complaining. She caught the dashboard, her knuckles white, watching Mari's profile with sharp, intense eyes. "You're driving like someone's hunting you."

"Someone will be," Mari muttered, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

The air inside the car felt suddenly electric, heavy with the weight of things left unsaid. Every second wasted was a second closer to the abyss. Mari checked 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 days 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 currently drawing breath.

Mari cut hard left, tires screeching against the asphalt, narrowly clipping a delivery van.

"You're going to get us killed before the world even ends," Adrian muttered from the back, though his voice lacked its usual mocking edge. He was watching the way her shoulders locked, the calculated precision in every twitch of the steering wheel.

"Shut up, Adrian, and watch the rearview," Mari commanded.

They hit the highway bypass, the towering glass skyline of the city shrinking behind them. 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 up through the chassis, rattling the change in the console.

Sera caught her breath. "Did you feel that?"

"Earthquake?" Adrian guessed, leaning forward between the front seats.

"No," Mari said flatly. The veil is thinning early.

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 stop. She aimed the sedan right at the automated arm.

"Hold on," she warned.

The car smashed through the plastic barrier with a sharp crack, sending white fragments bouncing across the hood.

Sera's eyes went wide. "Mari—!"

"We don't have time to sign guest logs."

Mari parked crookedly across two spaces right outside the main glass doors. She killed the engine before it could fully stop, throwing her door open.

"Stay in the car," she ordered.

"Like hell," Sera snapped, unbuckling and stepping out right behind her. Adrian followed, his expression grim as he took in the quiet, sterile facade of the building.

"If we get arrested," Adrian muttered, adjusting his jacket, "I'm billing you for legal fees."

"You won't have to," Mari said, drawing her keys as she marched toward the doors. "Because by tomorrow, money won't exist."

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.

The air inside smelled of ozone, coffee, and cheap bleach.

"Lena!" Mari's voice echoed down the sterile white corridor.

From somewhere down the hall, a door clicked open. A woman with wild, ink-stained hair and glasses sliding down her nose poked her head out, looking deeply annoyed.

"Who authorized—Mari?" Lena blinked, clutching a clipboard to her chest. "What are you doing here? Security is going to—"

"Pack your hard drives, your notes, and every sample of anomalous tissue you've cataloged this week," Mari said, closing the distance between them in three long strides. She grabbed Lena by the shoulders, her grip fierce and unyielding.

Lena gasped, dropping her clipboard. "What? Are you out of your mind? My work—"

"Is going to be burned to ash in eight hours if you stay here," Mari whispered, her voice dark, absolute, and terrifyingly cold. "Move."

Lena stared into her eyes, the anger draining from her face, replaced by a sudden, chilling realization.

"You..." Lena breathed, her voice trembling. "You know about the rifts."

"I know everything," Mari said, releasing her and spinning toward the exit. "Now grab your gear. We ride in two minutes, or we die here."