The sirens screamed first.
Red light fractured the sky as Dominion warships cracked through the clouds, their engines burning blue fire. On the ground below, in a shadowed alley of Sector 9, Serai Velan didn't flinch. Her heartbeat stayed calm—too calm. Her veins pulsed with the familiar hum of reversal energy.
She had exactly 9.3 seconds left before the sweep drones scanned the zone.
The stolen data chip pressed cold against her palm. She slid it into the band of her jacket and closed her eyes.
> "Feel it, Serai," her mother's voice echoed from memory. "Time isn't a line. It's a breath. Hold it. Change it."
She inhaled sharply.
The world blurred.
Time paused.
Just for a blink. Just long enough to vanish before the drones reached her shadow.
---
Across the city, Kael Ryven watched her from the surveillance feed.
He wasn't supposed to feel anything. He wasn't supposed to care. But the moment her figure blurred into light—when the antimatter in her blood responded to nothing known—he knew:
> She wasn't human.
She was something else.
She was… the target.
His orders were clear: Track. Capture. Recode.
But Kael had never seen anyone reverse time with breath.
She was dangerous.
She was beautiful.
She was his first deviation.
---
Back in the alley, Serai opened her eyes.
The drones were gone. The air was still.
But something was watching her.
She turned—and locked eyes with a man on the rooftop.
Black armor. Glowing veins. Cold fire in his stare.
The Dominion's ghost.
And her pulse betrayed her.
> For the first time in her life, her power didn't work.
Time didn't move.
Only Kael Ryven did.
---
To be continued...