Chapter 20 - INTO THE LIGHT (THE END)
We scrambled up the narrow vertical escape shaft just as the lower levels of the facility flooded with white suppression foam and heavy blast doors slammed shut with deafening force.
I hauled Leo through the surface hatch just as the sun began to break over the horizon, painting the industrial skyline in warm shades of gold and orange. The morning air hit our faces—crisp, fresh, and real.
We stood together beside my unmarked sedan, watching a distant plume of smoke rise harmlessly from the sealed subterranean vents as the old Westbridge node finally collapsed into history.
Leo looked up at the open sky, shading his eyes against the brilliant morning light. He wasn't holding a matte-black military device anymore. His hands were empty, his fingers loose and unburdened in his pockets.
"What happens now, Detective?" he asked, his voice softer, carrying the hesitant, tentative pitch of an actual ten-year-old boy experiencing the world for the very first time.
I opened the passenger door, smiling as I looked down at him.
May you like
"First, we get pancakes," I said. "And after that... we figure out what it means to be a kid."
Leo offered a small, hesitant smile—the first real, untraced smile of his life—and climbed into the car. As I slid into the driver's seat and pulled away from the ruins, the city woke up around us, and for the first time in a very long time, the ledger was balanced.
