Page 62 of Hunt Me

“No—” The word comes out broken. “Dad, the brakes?—”

Her hands claw at nothing, fighting invisible restraints.

“Iris.” I shake her shoulder gently. “Wake up.”

“Mom!” She screams it, thrashing hard enough to nearly throw herself off the bed.

I grab her, pulling her against my chest. “Detka, you’re dreaming. Wake up.”

Her eyes snap open, wild and unfocused. For a second she doesn’t recognize me, every muscle coiled to fight.

“It’s me.” I keep my voice low, steady. “You’re safe.”

The fight drains out of her in a rush. She collapses against me, breathing like she’s just run a marathon.

“Fuck.” Her whole body trembles. “I’m sorry, I?—”

“What were you dreaming about?”

She goes completely still in my arms. I feel the exact moment she considers lying.

“My parents.” The words come out flat, hollow. “The accident.”

I stroke her hair, waiting. She’ll tell me or she won’t, but I won’t push.

“It wasn’t you.” Her voice cracks. “I found out yesterday. Spent months thinking you were involved, that your family—” She breaks off with a bitter laugh. “It was the government. Project Nightshade. My parents were threats that needed neutralizing.”

Something cold settles in my chest. “You witnessed it.”

Not a question. I can feel the truth in how rigidly she holds herself.

“I was sixteen.” She doesn’t look at me, just stares at some point beyond my shoulder. “In the back seat. They were arguing about something classified, something my mom wanted to expose. Then the brakes failed on Route 95. We hit the median at seventy miles an hour.”

Her breathing turns shallow, quick.

“The car flipped. Three times. I remember counting.” A shudder runs through her. “I was pinned in the wreckage for two hours listening to my mother drown in her own blood.”

I tighten my grip on her, processing the horror of what she’s describing. “How did you survive?”

She shrugs, the movement jerky and wrong. “Dumb luck. Back seat crumpled differently. I walked away with a broken arm and a fractured rib.”

“While your parents?—”

“Dad died on impact. Steering column through his chest.” Her voice stays eerily detached, clinical. “Mom lasted longer. Hemorrhaging internally, punctured lung. She was conscious the whole time, choking on blood while we waited for help that took too fucking long.”

I hear the rage beneath the flatness now, buried deep but still burning.

“She told me.” Iris’s fingers curl into my chest, nails digging in. “Used her last breaths to warn me it was a setup. That I needed to be careful, to not go digging into what happened.”

A bitter laugh escapes her.

“Which naturally made me want to dig. Spent years in government databases trying to piece together why they’d kill two intelligence analysts with twenty years of service between them.” She finally looks at me, those ice-blue eyes burning with something dark and savage. “Found nothing. Every file sanitized, every witness statement perfectly aligned with mechanical failure. I was sixteen and traumatized—who’d believe me anyway?”

“So you buried yourself in code instead.”

“Built walls.” She pulls back slightly, putting distance between us even while still in my arms. “Got good enough that no one could touch me, that I could touch anyone. Became Phantom because ghosts can’t be killed.”

The pieces slot together—her obsession with control, her need to be untouchable, the way she hacks like she’s fighting for her life.