AARON Guilt rose up again, sharp and unwelcome. The thought that I would not even pause to help people who might need it, people who might already be dying, just so I could protect my own family burned deep in my chest. It was the kind of heat that felt earned. Deserved. It stung for a moment. Then it faded. I had warned them. They had known the risks when they stayed behind. We all had. And I knew, with a certainty that surprised me with its calm, that if our roles were reversed, they would have done the same thing without hesitation. They would use my mistake to buy their own family time to escape. There was no cruelty in it.I did not wish them harm. I simply refused to let my family fall to it. My focus shifted back to the display. I watched the tiny figures moving across the camera feed, hoping, silently and uselessly, that they would make it back to the Mobile Hauler. At the same time, a backup plan was already forming in my head, slotting together piece by piece in case they failed. Routes. Timings. What I would abandon first. Elena stood in my peripheral vision. She was staring straight at me, not at the screens. “How far do you think it is?” she asked. “From the tracks to here,” I said without looking away, “about a hundred yards. Give or take.” “That is not what I meant.” Her voice was steady, but there was an edge under it. “From the window to the road.” I turned and looked at her. It hit me then, clean and undeniable, that she was running the same survival math I was. Distances. Angles. Chances. How many seconds it would take to move. What could be carried. What would be left behind. A small smile crossed my face before I could stop it. Maybe I was not a terrible person after all, if she was thinking the same way. “Six feet,” I said. “You go first, then Lucas. I follow right after.” She nodded once, already committing it to memory. “Car is at seventy-five percent,” she said. “I checked when we stopped.” “Hope we do not need it.” My eyes stayed on the screen as the four of them cleared the train. Nathan kept the rifle aimed toward the freight cars, his posture rigid. He walked backward while the other three moved slowly toward the Mobile Hauler, every step measured, every pause deliberate. Five long minutes passed. Every second stretched tight with fear, pulled thin enough that it felt like it might snap. Victor reached the steps first. He backed into the cabin, and the suspension dipped as the Mobile Hauler shifted under his weight. I stepped forward as Marcus Hale came into view. He limped badly as he climbed, keeping his weight off his ankle, jaw clenched hard enough that I could see the muscles jump. Blood covered his face, streaked and drying, seeping from long scratches across his forehead. My breath caught when I saw his eyes. Both were swollen shut. Something awful had happened to them. Marcus made it inside with Victor and me guiding him, easing him down into a chair before his legs could give out. Elliot stumbled in next, nearly missing the doorway. His sleeve was soaked red, the fabric dark and stiff with blood. His face was locked behind a mask that barely held back crushing pain. Elena was already moving. She rushed to the restroom and came back with rags, her hands quick, precise, practiced in a way that made my stomach tighten. Nathan sprinted up the steps and began typing commands into the nearest screen. The door had not even finished closing before the Mobile Hauler jolted through a series of short, sharp movements. The system pulled us off the roadside and onto the road we had just used, tires gripping hard. Our Compact Cruiser took the lead as the Mobile Hauler drove backward, dragging us away from danger without ever turning around. No one spoke. The inside of the Mobile Hauler felt tighter by the second. The slide sections were not deployed, and the walls seemed to press inward, heavy with breath and fear and the smell of blood. Seraphina whispered under her breath as she worked on Marcus, a low stream of focused murmurs that sounded half like prayer, half like curse. Elena stayed beside her, washing blood from the rags and passing them back again, her movements efficient, her face unreadable. Nathan knelt on the floor. The rifle was locked into his shoulder, steady and ready, while his eyes stayed glued to the monitors. He watched the train, the industrial buildings, the burning skyline that blocked the view of the Westhaven Unity Dome. All the screens showed were thick columns of smoke climbing into the sky. Fire leapt above rooftops. Gunfire cracked in sharp bursts, echoing even through the walls. I moved to the front of the Mobile Hauler and focused on Elliot. He lay on the couch beneath the windscreen, breathing shallow, teeth clenched hard enough that his jaw trembled. I did not fully know what I was looking for, but I saw it clearly enough when I found it. A jagged hole sat high on his shoulder, just above the armpit. Blood seeped from it steadily, dark and persistent. I pulled him forward slightly and searched for an exit wound. There was none. A towel came from the growing pile Elena had stacked nearby. I pressed it into the wound, leaning my weight into it, hoping pressure would slow the bleeding. Elliot’s face was pale, almost gray. I could not believe he had made it back at all. The silence had stretched too long. It pressed on my ears, thick and unbearable. I broke it.“What the hell happened out there?” I asked. “How did you survive the machines?” A laugh bubbled up from Marcus. I turned toward the sound. His shoulders shook, his head tilted back toward Seraphina, the motion sending fresh blood down his cheek. She did not look up. Her focus was razor sharp as she worked, tweezers pinched between her fingers as she dug at something lodged in his skin. “Stop moving,” she snapped.