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Jude

H e stepped out of the trees like he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment.

Same build.

Same walk.

Same dead eyes.

He wore a plain jacket, dark jeans, a calm expression that would’ve looked harmless to anyone else.

But I knew better.

I’d known since Syria.

Since that mirror.

Since the moment I saw him smile.

The air thickened between us as he crossed the clearing—slow, deliberate, like he was savoring every step. A predator who thought the kill was already his.

He stopped ten feet away.

Close enough for me to smell the faint trace of aftershave.

He smiled again.

Just like before.

“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me,” he said, voice smooth and patient.

“I didn’t,” I said calmly.

“You always were the smart one.”

I didn’t reply.

Didn’t give him anything else.

Let the silence work against him for once.

He circled me slightly, eyes dragging across my face, my shoulders, like he was trying to dissect me with nothing but a glance.

“Interesting choice,” he mused. “Coming here alone. No weapon. No backup. Brave.”

I tilted my head, letting just a trace of ice slip into my voice. “Or bait.”

That smile twitched.

But his eyes stayed on mine.

“I studied you,” he said. “Watched how you moved, how you lied, how you broke people down. But I never got to finish my report.”

I took a step forward. Controlled. Steady.

“You don’t get to define me.”

“I already did,” he whispered. “In that bunker. You looked at me first. That meant something.”

“It didn’t.”

He blinked.

The smallest flicker of something human.

Then it was gone.

And in that moment, I realized something.

I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

He wasn’t a ghost or a shadow or a monster under my bed.

He was just a man.

Broken. Obsessed. Alone.

I took another step forward, forcing him to flinch.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said. “You’re going to try something. And you’re going to fail. Because you were never in control.”

He opened his mouth.

But before he could speak—

“Down!”

Cyclone’s voice cut through the trees like thunder.

I dropped just as a flash-bang cracked across the clearing.

Light. Sound. Chaos.

The Auditor reeled back, shouting, reaching for something in his coat—but he was already too late.

Cyclone hit him like a freight train.

And the trap?

Snapped shut.