The plane landed hard.
Metal screamed against frozen ground, skidding across white nothingness before finally giving in. Snow billowed up around the fuselage like smoke from a battlefield, swallowing the sound, the heat, the motion. When everything stopped, the silence that followed wasn't peaceful—it was watching.
No one spoke at first.
The north was endless. Flat, blinding, cold in a way that felt intentional. Mountains of ice loomed far off like frozen sentinels, and beneath it all, something old slept. Or waited.
Tanya was the first to move.
She stepped down from the plane, boots crunching into ice, and immediately froze—not from the cold. Her hand went to the device strapped to her wrist. The radar screen spasmed violently, lines screaming across the display in erratic bursts.
"What is it?" Zane asked, already scanning the horizon.
Tanya's face had gone pale. "Nothing," she said. Then corrected herself. "And that's the problem."
The radar wasn't detecting movement. Or heat. Or signals.
It was reacting to presence.
"Zero isn't awake," Luna said quietly, stepping beside her. "We shouldn't be tripping anything yet."
"I know," Tanya replied, fingers tightening. "That's why this is bad. My radar's acting like if we take one more step forward, we die."
No alarms. No coordinates. Just a screaming instinct encoded into metal and math.
Zane swore under his breath. "So we explore carefully. Short radius. In and out."
"I'm coming," Luna said.
"Not all of us," Siara cut in.
She stood near the plane, wind tugging at her jacket, eyes flicking once—just once—toward Richard.
Richard hadn't moved since landing.
He sat against the wing, head bowed, breath uneven. The cold didn't seem to touch him. Frost curled along the metal near his fingers, reacting to something under his skin. The chip Phantom had planted inside his skull pulsed faintly, invisible but alive.
Siara walked closer.
For a moment, the world narrowed. The others drifted away—Tanya, Zane, Luna heading out toward the distant ice formations, following the radar's screaming caution.
It left just the two of them. Wind. Steel. Snow.
"You're shaking," Siara said.
Richard laughed softly, bitter. "I don't feel it."
She crouched in front of him. Her face was sharper now than it used to be—less softness, more resolve. But her eyes betrayed her. They always did.
"You don't have to do this alone," she said.
"That's the problem," Richard replied. He finally looked up at her. His eyes were darker than before. Hollowed. "I don't know if it's me anymore."
Siara reached into her jacket, fingers brushing the hidden serum vial—her father's last insurance. Phantom wanted it. Needed it. And she knew, deep down, that Richard was the key to why.
Before she could speak, pain detonated behind Richard's eyes.
He screamed.
Not out loud—inside. His body jerked, fingers clawing at his head as if he could rip the thought out by force. The chip flared.
Richard.
The voice wasn't sound. It was command.
Phantom.
The air around him warped, pressure folding inward. Snow lifted from the ground, swirling unnaturally. Siara stumbled back as Richard stood—too fast, too wrong.
"Siara," Richard gasped, teeth clenched. "Run."
She didn't.
His body snapped toward her, eyes unfocused, movements jerky like a puppet fighting its strings. Phantom surged through him, overriding muscle, intent sharpening into violence.
"You have the serum," the voice spoke through Richard's mouth. "Give it to me."
Siara drew her revolver in one smooth motion.
"Like hell," she said—and fired.
The shot wasn't meant to kill. She aimed low, calculated. The bullet tore through Richard's shoulder, spinning him back. Blood hit the snow in violent red streaks.
Richard roared—not in pain, but fury.
He moved.
Siara barely had time to react. He was on her in seconds, strength inhuman, movements feral. She ducked under a swing that would've shattered bone, rolled, came up firing again. Each shot slowed him, not stopped him.
"You think I want this?" Richard snarled, voice splitting between himself and something else. "You think I chose this?!"
He grabbed her wrist, crushing strength biting deep. Siara screamed—but didn't drop the gun. She drove her knee into his ribs, felt something crack, twisted free, and slammed the butt of the revolver into his jaw.
They separated, breathing hard, blood staining the ice between them.
Phantom pushed harder.
Richard's scream turned animal. The ground beneath him fractured, ice splintering outward as power surged uncontrollably. He lunged again—
—and stopped.
His body locked mid-motion. Veins along his neck glowed faintly, then dimmed. His eyes cleared, horror flooding back in as control snapped into place.
"Siara," he whispered.
His legs gave out.
She caught him before he hit the ground.
For a moment, she just held him, forehead pressed to his, shaking—not with fear, but rage.
"You don't get to take him," she said into the freezing air, voice low and deadly. "Not him. Not again."
Somewhere beneath the ice, something shifted.
And far away, Tanya's radar screamed louder than ever.
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