The moment Ethan’s face appeared on the security monitor, Sienna forgot the alarms, the smoke and the infected man pounding against the glass behind her.
Her fiancé was alive—but something inside him was changing.
The injured scientist tightened her grip around Sienna’s wrist.
“The virus doesn’t erase memories,” she warned. “It turns the strongest one into an instinct.”
Sienna looked at the pulsing signal on her phone. It pointed toward an isolated stretch of river outside the city—the same place where she and Ethan had first met.
Someone had released him knowing exactly where he would go.
Sienna took an experimental suppressant from the laboratory and drove toward the river. Before leaving, she checked the security logs one final time. The missing virus had been removed using her own FBI credentials.
Someone was framing her.
At the river, Sienna followed broken branches and muddy footprints toward the water. Then Ethan stepped from between the trees.
His skin was pale. Dark veins covered his neck, and one of his eyes had turned cloudy. Sienna raised her rifle.
“Don’t come any closer!”
Ethan continued walking.
His trembling hand disappeared inside his jacket. Sienna placed her finger against the trigger, convinced he was about to attack.
Instead, Ethan slowly pulled out the small velvet box that had once held their engagement ring. He dropped to one knee and opened it.
The ring was still inside.
Tears filled Sienna’s eyes as the man she loved stared at her from behind the infection.
“You kept it…” she whispered.
A red laser suddenly appeared on Ethan’s chest.
Sienna threw herself toward him just as a suppressed shot struck the stone behind them. She dragged Ethan into an abandoned boathouse and injected the suppressant into his arm. His violent trembling gradually slowed.
Inside the ring box, beneath the velvet lining, Sienna discovered a hidden memory card.
She inserted it into her phone.
The recording showed Ethan being forced into the laboratory by armed men. Standing beside them was Grant Mercer—Sienna’s own FBI partner. But the final image was even worse.
The injured scientist who had warned Sienna about the virus was standing next to Mercer, completely unharmed, only minutes before the explosion.
Ethan’s eyes briefly cleared.
“It wasn’t an accident,” he struggled to say. “I was the bait.”
Headlights appeared through the trees. Three black vehicles were approaching the boathouse from different directions.
Sienna finally understood the truth.
Ethan had not escaped because the virus was leading him to its next victim.
He had fought through the infection because he remembered the only person he still trusted—and he had come to warn her that the real attack was about to begin.
