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It would also probably require her moving to a completely different part of the world, not to mention the nightmare of creating a new identity when everyone’s ident was loaded and locked inside the same system.

The penalty for being caught would be steep.

As a full-blood, her entire species was officially extinct.

She’d be a legal non-entity.

For the same reason, she’d either be handed over to an organics science team, or end up as a lab rat in some other underground facility, probably for the rest of her life. That, or they’d try to turn her into a weapon like Tai, or even breed her. Nick didn’t even want to think about the horrors she’d likely experience if the wrong person found out what she was.

Forrest said she wasn’t at direct risk yet, but it was only a matter of time.

They both clearly understood that.

Even now, she had to pay exorbitant fees on the black market every quarter to obtain hybrid blood that would allow her to pass her regular check-ins. For every routine exam, she had to pay to get her blood contaminated with hybrid and human components, and it had to be consistent enough across each test that they didn’t suspect foul play.

Without Forrest there to look out for her, she’d likely be caught even sooner.

He offered her a pipeline into the black markets while operating as “Keori” that she’d probably struggle to replicate on her own.

Anyway, that was hardly the point.

If Forrest was leaving, so was she.

Nick didn’t even question that. It seemed obvious.

Moreover, he wondered if Forrest’s real reason for leaving might have more to do with his mother than otherwise. They way they embraced when they met up in Antibes, and the way they spoke to one another, using seer hand gestures and switching languages fluidly, definitely suggested they were extremely close.

Nick glanced at the four men in black outfits who’d met them on the dock.

He had to assume they were Mi6.

Or military.

Walker knew at least one of them well enough to embrace him, too. The others he seemed friendly with, as well. Nick wondered again how they would have managed any of this without Forrest’s help. Nick still fought with a tinge of resentment of the guy, mostly because he’d once been married to Wynter, but also because he was just annoyingly fucking competent.

The rest of them hung back while Walker made his greetings on shore.

None of them had slept all that great, although every one of them looked significantly more rested and less wrung-out than they had while they’d been in that van.

It had been strange as fuck to step out of the top of that hatch, after winding around debris in the corpse-choked waters of the Mediterranean.

Compared to what they’d seen around New York and the edges of the North Atlantic before the sub picked up speed, the place was a graveyard.

It made Nick almost appreciate that animals had mutated and found ways to adapt and survive in other parts of the ocean.

Following along the coast in that heavily-shielded submarine had been downright disturbing.

Nick noticed the sub hadn’t waited around for them, either.

As soon as they’d all climbed out of the hatch, the vehicle closed itself up and moved quickly through the locks out of the dome and back out onto the water. Nick didn’t have to ask what direction they would be heading. The Mediterranean grew more contaminated and toxic the further east one went.

They’d be going west, back towards the Atlantic, likely as fast as they could.

It really hit Nick just how far out of their way the ship’s crew had gone for them, and then he had yet another reason to be grudgingly grateful to Forrest Keanu Walker.

“You’re starting to like him, aren’t you?” Wynter asked quietly.

She tugged on Nick’s arm as she said it, her voice faintly teasing.