He watched the security feed blink out, one screen at a time.
Not with surprise.
With precision.
The surveillance room on Level B was supposed to be off-limits—even to him. But nothing in this building was truly off-limits when you held the keys no one else knew existed.
He leaned back in the leather chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin.
Adrian moved too early.
The girl—Layla James—wasn't supposed to find the file for at least another month. That was the plan. That was the schedule. But plans were fragile, and Blackwood blood always carried the same flaw:
Impulse.
He tapped the keyboard, pulling up the audio logs. Rewound to the elevator. To her voice.
Sharp. Controlled. But cracking in the right places.
She didn't know what she was yet. What she could become.
He flipped a switch on the console, activating a secondary channel. A new screen blinked to life. A man in tactical gear appeared on the monitor, standing in a narrow alley lit by the faint orange glow of a streetlamp.
"Status?" the Handler asked.
The man tilted his head, earpiece glinting. "They escaped through a sublevel access tunnel. I've rerouted teams to intercept at street level."
"Don't intercept. Watch."
There was a pause. "You're letting them go?"
"Adrian's too smart to get caught. And the girl…" He let the sentence hang in the air. "I want to know what she does with fear. Whether she runs—or hunts."
The soldier didn't respond. Just nodded once and stepped away from the camera's field of view.
The Handler rose from his seat, straightening his jacket. It was late, but the night always brought clarity. Patterns shifted. Pieces moved. And some pawns became queens—if they survived long enough.
He walked to the cabinet in the corner of the room and unlocked the bottom drawer.
Inside was a thick folder stamped with a single name:
JAMES, LAYLA — SUBJECT-07
He flipped it open.
Inside were photographs from years ago. Surveillance shots of a child stepping off a school bus. A teenage girl sitting alone in a hospital waiting room. A woman staring too long at a closed adoption file.
On the final page—handwritten in red ink:
> MONITORED SINCE AGE 9
UNCONFIRMED LINK TO INCIDENT 108.
MOTHER'S DEATH: NOT ACCIDENTAL.
SUBJECT TO BE RE-EVALUATED UNDER PROJECT ECHO.
He closed the file and turned off the monitor.
This wasn't about Adrian anymore.
This was about her.
And Layla James had just become the most dangerous variable in their system.