Chapter 7: Afterimage

Marcus woke up choking on dust that tasted like burned metal and old pennies.

His eyes opened to darkness and a pulsing ache behind his forehead, like someone had hammered a nail into his skull and left it there as a reminder. He tried to sit up and the world spun—hard—dragging his stomach with it.

He swallowed bile and forced himself to breathe through his nose.

The air was damp. Cold. Not the snapping Black-Zone cold, but underground cold, the kind that seeped into bone and stayed.

A faint green emergency light flickered somewhere to his left, just enough to paint the edges of things: broken concrete, exposed rebar, a tangle of cables like spilled intestines. The chamber—the gate, the metal frame, the shimmering wall—was gone.

Or maybe moved.

Or maybe the world had decided it never existed.

Marcus blinked hard, and for a heartbeat he saw white tile again—clean hallway, bright strobe, the words SUBJECT WING burned into his vision like an afterimage from staring at the sun.

Then it was concrete and dust again.

He pushed himself up on his right hand. His left forearm—where the shock net had burned him—throbbed angrily. The bandage was torn, darkened by grime. His fingers tingled like they’d fallen asleep.

He checked his pistol by reflex.

Still there. Still loaded. Good.

His shotgun was gone.

Ellie—

The thought hit like a fist.

Marcus surged to his feet too fast, dizziness crashing over him. He braced against a jagged wall and forced himself to scan the space.

He wasn’t alone.

Nura lay on her side near a collapsed beam, coughing weakly. Her suppressor pistol was clutched in her hand like she’d fallen gripping it. A line of blood ran from her hairline down her cheek, dark in the green light.

Across from her, Brother Amir—the broad-shouldered man—was on one knee, head bowed, one hand pressed to his ribs. He looked up when Marcus moved, eyes sharp despite pain.

And Laleh—

Marcus’s breath caught.

Laleh stood near what used to be the exit corridor, staring at a hole in the concrete where the wall had sheared away. The edges of the hole were glazed, like the rock had melted and re-hardened.

She looked… smaller. Not physically. In posture. Like a person who’d gambled on faith and watched the table flip over.

Marcus stumbled toward her. “Where is she?”

Laleh didn’t turn.

Marcus’s voice rose, cracking. “Where is Ellie?”

Nura coughed and rasped, “Not here.”

Marcus felt a cold emptiness open in his chest. “No.”

Amir grunted, trying to stand. “She closed the gate. That was the point.”

Marcus whirled on him, pistol halfway raised before he stopped himself. “Don’t talk about her like she’s a tool.”

Amir’s eyes narrowed. “In the Zones, everything is a tool. Including you, Runner.”

Marcus took a step forward, rage buzzing in his skull. “Say that again.”

Laleh finally turned. Her face was pale under the green light, her calm cracked in thin lines around the eyes.

“She is not dead,” Laleh said quietly.

Marcus froze on the words. “What?”

Laleh’s gaze held his. “If she were dead, the Door would have burst through. You felt it. You saw it. It was coming.”

Marcus swallowed, throat raw. “Then where is she?”

Laleh looked back at the melted hole in the wall like it might answer.

“Inside,” she whispered.

The word echoed in his skull and wouldn’t stop.

Inside the seam. Inside the place behind physics. Inside the thing that had reached for her.

Marcus’s hands shook. He forced them into fists. “We’re getting her back.”

Nura laughed once—dry, pained. “Sure. Let’s just stroll into the Black Zone and ask politely.”

Marcus ignored her. He stepped closer to Laleh. “You said you’ve seen what happens when she’s taken. That means you’ve seen her come back. That means there’s a way.”

Laleh’s eyes flickered. “There is.”

Marcus latched onto it like a rope. “Tell me.”

Laleh hesitated, and Marcus hated her for it.

Before he could speak again, Amir coughed hard and spit blood into the dust.

“Before we have a conversation,” Amir growled, “we should leave this place. Remnant troopers were in the chamber when it collapsed. If they survived, they’ll be hunting.”

Nura shifted, wincing. “He’s right.”

Marcus looked around again, listening.

The silence here was deeper than ordinary underground quiet. No distant city hum. No dripping water. Even the air felt held, like the corridor itself was waiting to see what they would do.

Still… he heard it, faint and irregular.

Footsteps.

Far off.

Echoing through tunnels.

Not theirs.

Marcus’s pulse spiked. He motioned to the others. “Move.”

Laleh stepped away from the melted hole and led them through it into a new space beyond. Marcus followed, gun up, scanning.

The other side looked like an old transit access tunnel—wide enough for a maintenance cart, lined with thick pipes and cable trays. The floor sloped gently downward into darkness. Emergency lights flickered at intervals, creating pockets of visibility separated by black.

“We dropped into the old lines,” Nura said, voice tight.

Marcus kept his eyes forward. “Toward where?”

Laleh answered without looking back. “Toward a node that can pull her back.”

Marcus’s heart hammered. “A node.”

“A thin place,” Laleh corrected. “Where the seam is close enough to touch without being swallowed.”

Amir snorted, bitter. “If it hasn’t moved.”

Marcus glanced back at the melted hole behind them. “It moves now.”

Laleh’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”

They walked fast, favoring the darkness between lights. Marcus’s knee protested with each step, pain flaring from the earlier shock and the rooftop impacts. He kept moving anyway. Pain was a price. He’d paid it before.

Every so often, his vision would flicker—just a blink—and he’d see a different tunnel: clean tile, a blue line on the floor, a sign in bright letters.

RECOVERY WARD

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Then it would snap back to rust and grime.

Nura noticed him falter once. “You okay?”

Marcus lied automatically. “Fine.”

Nura’s eyes narrowed. “You’re seeing bleed.”

Marcus kept walking. “What?”

“Seam bleed,” she said. “After exposure, reality… leaks.”

Amir grunted. “Some don’t handle it. They walk into walls. Or off ledges. Or into the seam.”

Marcus’s jaw tightened. “Not me.”

Laleh glanced over her shoulder. “You were touched more than you realize.”

Marcus stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Laleh didn’t answer, which was becoming her favorite way to ruin his day.

They reached a fork in the transit tunnel—left passage half-collapsed, right passage clear. Someone had painted arrows on the wall in faded white, guiding foot traffic.

Beside the arrows was the Cult symbol.

Marcus stopped, suspicion flaring. “You mapped this.”

Laleh nodded once. “Yes.”

“Because you’ve run this route before,” Marcus said.

Laleh’s eyes held steady. “Many times.”

Marcus felt anger twist up again. “And you didn’t tell me you were taking us into a cult transit system.”

Laleh’s voice stayed calm. “Would you have come if I had?”

Marcus didn’t answer.

Because the truth was: yes. If the choices were Remnant capture or Door consumption, he’d have walked into a cult temple wearing a blindfold.

Laleh pointed right. “This way.”

They moved.

The footsteps behind them grew louder.

Still distant, but closing.

Marcus’s runner instincts kicked in. “They’re tracking us.”

Nura’s mouth tightened. “Probably through Ellie.”

Marcus stopped dead. “What?”

Nura looked away. “She’s… a beacon. Even when she’s gone.”

Amir nodded grimly. “The seam knows her. Everything that hunts the seam knows her.”

Marcus’s stomach twisted. “So we’re leading them to her.”

Laleh’s gaze snapped to him, hard. “We are going to a node that can pull her back. If the hunters come, we fight. Or we die.”

“Nice plan,” Marcus muttered. “Very inspiring.”

They passed through a section where the tunnel walls were tiled—old subway station architecture, cracked and stained. A sign hung crooked, letters half-fallen.

LINE 3 — EASTBOUND

Marcus’s vision flickered again, and for a heartbeat the sign looked pristine, lights bright, people moving beneath it. He heard laughter—real laughter—then it was gone.

He swallowed hard. “Keep it together,” he muttered to himself.

Laleh slowed beside a sealed service door. A keypad panel sat beside it—dead. She reached into her coat and pulled out a small metal keycard.

Marcus watched her hand. “You have access.”

Laleh slid the card through a slot hidden beneath grime. The panel beeped once, dimly. The door released with a heavy clunk.

Marcus stared. “That’s Remnant tech.”

Laleh met his eyes. “The Remnant did not invent keys. They only pretend they own doors.”

She opened the door and led them into a stairwell.

The stairwell descended.

As they went down, the air grew colder again—not Door-cold, but seam-cold. Marcus’s breath fogged.

At the bottom was another door, this one reinforced with thick bars and a viewing slit. A faint glow seeped from the cracks around it.

Laleh paused, hand on the handle.

“This is the node?” Marcus asked.

Laleh’s voice dropped. “Yes.”

Nura shifted, weapon ready. “If the Remnant beat us here—”

“They didn’t,” Laleh said.

“How do you know?”

Laleh’s expression tightened. “Because they fear this place.”

Marcus didn’t like that.

Laleh pushed the door open.

Warm light spilled out—not electric-white, but amber, like lamplight.

The room beyond was wide and circular, like an old station hub. The ceiling was high, supported by thick pillars. Old vending machines lined one wall, rusted and gutted. Benches sat in rows, dusty but intact. In the center of the room, a shallow pit had been carved into the floor, surrounded by a ring of metal posts connected with braided wire.

A ritual circle.

Marcus’s jaw clenched. “Of course.”

But this wasn’t just cult theater.

The air inside the circle shimmered faintly, like heat haze. And beneath it, Marcus felt the pressure of something close—like standing near a deep well and sensing the drop.

Laleh approached the circle. She set the incense bowl on the floor and lit it again with a practiced motion. Smoke curled upward and immediately twisted, spiraling toward the shimmer.

Amir made a sign over his chest—quick, old habit.

Nura didn’t. She watched the circle like she watched guns: with respect and distrust.

Marcus stepped closer and felt his ears pop slightly, like changing altitude.

“What is that?” he asked.

Laleh’s voice was soft. “A thin place. The veil is weak here.”

Marcus swallowed. “You can reach her.”

Laleh nodded. “If she is close enough. If she is not… already rewritten.”

The word hit Marcus like ice.

“Rewritten,” he repeated.

Laleh looked at him. “Inside, the Door speaks in truths that become law. If she listens too long, she stops being Ellie and becomes… function.”

Marcus’s hands shook. He forced them steady. “Then we don’t let that happen.”

Laleh’s gaze softened, just slightly. “That is why we need you.”

Marcus froze. “Me?”

Laleh nodded toward the circle. “Your tether held her here for a moment. You anchored her when she sang.”

Marcus’s throat tightened. “I just… held her hand.”

Laleh shook her head. “You claimed her as human. That matters.”

Nura snorted. “Poetry.”

Laleh’s eyes flicked to her. “Physics.”

Marcus stared at the circle shimmer. “So what do I do?”

Laleh stepped into the ring, careful not to cross the inner pit. “You speak to her. Call her back.”

Marcus’s mouth went dry. “How? Through that?”

Laleh’s voice was steady. “Yes. But you must be willing to be seen.”

Marcus felt his chest tighten. “Seen by what?”

Laleh didn’t answer immediately. That was never a good sign.

Amir answered for her, blunt. “Seen by the Door.”

Marcus’s skin crawled. “No.”

“You don’t have a better plan,” Nura said quietly.

Marcus glared at her. “We find another node. Another—”

“There aren’t many,” Laleh cut in. “And time is not on your side.”

Marcus’s mind flashed with Ellie’s face reaching back, forming his name as the gate collapsed. The panic in her eyes. The trust.

He swallowed hard.

“Fine,” he said. “Tell me exactly what happens.”

Laleh took a slow breath. “You step into the ring. You take the incense smoke into your lungs. You let the thin place touch you.”

Marcus stared. “That sounds like getting high.”

Nura muttered, “It is.”

Laleh ignored her. “Then you call Ellie by her name. Not her designation. Not her function. Her name. And you offer her a reason to return.”

Marcus felt something twist inside him—fear and anger and a want he wasn’t ready to name.

“A reason,” he echoed.

Laleh’s gaze sharpened. “If all you offer is ‘come back because I want you,’ the Door will mock you. It will show you your own hunger and use it. You must offer her something stronger than fear.”

Marcus’s voice went rough. “I don’t do speeches.”

“Then do truth,” Laleh said softly.

Footsteps echoed in the stairwell behind them.

Closer now. Multiple sets.

Nura’s head snapped up. “They’re here.”

Marcus’s pulse spiked. “Remnant.”

Amir drew a weapon from under his coat—compact, clean. “Positions.”

Marcus looked at Laleh. “We don’t have time.”

Laleh met his eyes, calm in a way that made Marcus furious. “Then step in now.”

Nura moved to the stairwell door and pressed her ear to it. She whispered, “Not just Remnant.”

Marcus’s spine chilled. “What do you mean?”

Nura’s voice tightened. “The steps… wrong rhythm.”

Like synchronized marching.

Marcus’s stomach dropped. “Mirrors.”

The handler.

Or whatever wore the handler.

The Door wasn’t just behind them anymore.

It was hunting them in front.

Laleh’s voice cut through the rising panic. “If the mirrors enter this node, they can use it to widen the seam. They will turn a thin place into a mouth.”

Marcus glanced at the circle shimmer, then at the stairwell door.

Decision compressed into a single point.

He stepped into the ring.

The moment his boot crossed the braided wire boundary, the air changed. It wasn’t colder or warmer—it was sharper, like the world gained edges. The amber light seemed brighter, and the shadows deeper.

Laleh lifted the incense bowl and held it under his nose.

“Breathe,” she commanded.

Marcus wanted to refuse. Wanted to shove the bowl away and do this the runner way—guns, movement, exits.

But Ellie wasn’t in a place guns could reach.

He inhaled.

The smoke slid into his lungs like warm spice and distant fire. It tasted sweet at first, then metallic, then like rain on stone.

His vision blurred.

The room blinked.

For a heartbeat, the benches were full of people—families, commuters, children with backpacks. A train announcement played overhead, cheerful and normal.

Then the people turned their heads toward Marcus at once.

All of them.

Their eyes were silver.

Marcus jerked back with a gasp, and the vision shattered into amber light and dusty benches again.

Laleh’s hand steadied his shoulder. “Do not run from what you see,” she whispered. “Call her.”

The stairwell door behind them shook as someone hit it.

Nura raised her weapon. “Open this door and you die,” she called, voice hard.

A calm voice answered from the other side—too calm.

“Open the node,” it said. “Or we will open it for you.”

Marcus’s stomach clenched. The handler’s cadence—layered and wrong—leaked through the words like oil.

Laleh’s eyes flashed. “Now, Marcus.”

Marcus faced the shimmer in the circle pit.

It pulsed faintly, as if responding to his breath.

He swallowed and spoke into it.

“Ellie.”

His voice sounded too loud in the room, too human.

The shimmer quivered.

Marcus took another breath of incense.

The world blinked.

He was standing in a white hallway.

No dust. No grime. Fluorescent lights humming overhead. A blue line painted on the floor.

A door ahead labeled:

SUBJECT SEVEN — OBSERVATION

Marcus’s left hand was whole in this vision.

All ten fingers.

He stared at them, heart hammering, and a voice behind him whispered, amused:

“You remember.”

Marcus spun.

The handler stood there—maskless now—face shifting like liquid trying to hold a shape. It chose a familiar one.

Rosa.

Rosa’s eyes stared at him with disappointment that cut deeper than any knife.

“You always run,” the handler-Rosa said softly. “Even from yourself.”

Marcus’s breath came ragged. “Where’s Ellie?”

Rosa smiled sadly. “You know where she is.”

Marcus’s jaw clenched. “Show me.”

The handler-Rosa stepped aside.

At the end of the hallway, Ellie stood barefoot in a hospital gown, small and pale. She looked up at Marcus, silver eyes bright.

Relief punched through him so hard his knees almost buckled.

“Ellie,” he breathed, stepping toward her.

Ellie didn’t move. She stared past him.

“Marcus,” she whispered.

Her voice was wrong.

Not in tone. In… distance. Like she was speaking from very far away.

Marcus reached out.

The hallway stretched.

The distance between them doubled with every step he took.

A cruel trick.

The handler-Rosa’s voice drifted near his ear. “She is inside. You are outside. There is no bridge.”

Marcus snarled, “I’m the bridge.”

He forced himself to stop chasing Ellie down an impossible hallway.

Instead, he did what Laleh had told him.

He offered a reason.

“Ellie,” Marcus said, voice steadying, “you asked me if I’d still be there.”

Ellie’s eyes flickered.

Marcus’s throat tightened. “I’m here. I’m still here. And I’m not leaving you in that place.”

The hallway lights flickered.

Ellie’s face softened, just slightly.

The handler-Rosa laughed quietly. “Promises.”

Marcus ignored it. He kept his eyes on Ellie.

“You are not Subject Seven,” he said, forcing the words into existence like stakes in the ground. “You are Ellie. You’re a kid who hates loud noises and doesn’t know how to sit still unless you’re scared.”

Ellie’s lips trembled.

Marcus felt his chest ache. “And I don’t know what you are—fine. Maybe you’re hope, like you said. Maybe that’s worse than a monster.”

Ellie’s eyes brightened.

Marcus swallowed hard. “But I’m tired of jobs that end with bodies. I’m tired of running for people who don’t deserve it. I’m… tired.”

The hallway blinked, and for a fraction of a second Marcus was back in the amber station node, incense in his lungs, Nura shouting something distant.

Then the hallway returned.

Ellie took one small step forward.

The distance didn’t stretch this time.

Marcus’s heart slammed.

“Marcus,” Ellie whispered again, and this time her voice sounded closer.

The handler-Rosa’s smile faltered.

Marcus leaned into it. “Come back,” he said, voice rough. “Not because you have to save the world. Not because they made you. Come back because you’re not theirs.”

Ellie’s hand lifted, trembling, reaching toward him.

Marcus reached back.

Their fingers almost touched.

Then the handler-Rosa stepped between them like a curtain falling.

“Enough,” it hissed, voice layered now, no longer pretending. “You contaminate.”

Marcus’s vision jerked as if yanked.

He felt something cold clamp around his thoughts.

A word formed in his skull, heavy as stone:

Return.

Marcus’s knees buckled in the vision.

He grit his teeth and forced his mind onto Ellie’s hand, Ellie’s eyes, Ellie reaching—

A gunshot cracked.

The vision shattered like glass.

Marcus gasped and fell backward onto the dusty station floor.

Amber light. Cold air. Laleh gripping his shoulder.

Nura was firing at the stairwell door, shots popping through the crack as the hinges splintered. Amir braced himself against the door with his shoulder, face red with effort.

The door began to give.

Marcus’s lungs burned. His head throbbed.

Laleh’s voice was urgent. “Did you reach her?”

Marcus choked, “Yes—”

Another hit slammed into the door from the other side.

The metal buckled inward.

A hand appeared through the gap.

Translucent.

Wrong.

Not a Remnant glove.

A mirror hand.

The handler wasn’t coming alone.

The Door had found the node.

Marcus’s chest tightened. “I touched her—almost.”

Laleh’s eyes sharpened. “Then she heard you.”

Marcus struggled to his feet, legs unsteady. “Can you pull her through?”

Laleh’s jaw clenched. “Not without opening wider.”

Nura shouted, “Door’s failing!”

The stairwell door tore inward with a shriek.

A Remnant trooper stumbled through first—helmet cracked, eyes wild—then froze as if something behind him held him by the spine.

Behind him, in the doorway gap, the handler stepped in.

Not wearing Rosa’s face now.

Wearing no face at all—just a reflective surface that shifted like a mirror deciding what to show.

It chose Marcus.

Marcus stared at himself, smiling with his own mouth.

“Runner,” the handler-Marcus said softly. “You found a thin place.”

Nura fired, and the bullet slowed midair, hanging like a bead of metal between them.

The handler-Marcus flicked two fingers.

The bullet dropped straight down, clinking harmlessly on the tile.

Amir swore. “It’s inside the node!”

Laleh’s voice turned sharp, commanding. “Seal the ring!”

“How?” Marcus demanded.

Laleh’s gaze locked on him. “With a sacrifice.”

Marcus felt his stomach drop. “No.”

Laleh didn’t blink. “If it anchors here, the Door will widen this thin place until it becomes a permanent gate. Then New Haven, the Green Zones—everything—will have a mouth opening beneath it.”

Nura shouted, “Choose fast!”

The handler-Marcus stepped closer, calm, delighted. “You can keep calling for Ellie,” it purred. “Or you can stop me. You cannot do both.”

Marcus’s mind spun.

Ellie had reached back.

She’d heard him.

That meant she was close enough to return—if he could keep the node from becoming the Door’s tool.

But if the node fell, there’d be no world left to return to.

He looked at Laleh. “What’s the sacrifice?”

Laleh’s eyes softened with something that looked like regret. “A tether.”

Marcus’s blood turned to ice. “Me.”

Laleh nodded once. “You already touched the seam. You’re already bleeding into it. You can anchor the ring closed from the inside edge.”

Marcus’s mouth went dry. “And Ellie?”

Laleh’s voice dropped. “If you hold it, she can follow your line back.”

Nura snapped, “Or she can follow your line into the dark.”

Marcus stared at the shimmer in the circle pit. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

He thought of Ellie’s last look.

His own rule: finish the job.

The uglier truth: some jobs didn’t finish clean.

The handler-Marcus smiled wider. “Come on,” it whispered. “You already belong.”

Marcus raised his pistol and fired at the nearest pillar instead—metal casing, old bolts—anything. The shot rang loud, echoing.

He wasn’t trying to kill the handler.

He was buying one second of chaos.

He grabbed Laleh’s incense bowl and hurled it into the circle pit.

Smoke exploded into the shimmer, twisting violently.

The handler-Marcus’s head snapped toward it, attention drawn.

Marcus lunged into the ring again, grabbing the braided wire boundary with his bare hand.

Pain flared—sharp, immediate—as if the wire wasn’t metal but a living nerve.

He clenched his teeth and roared, “ELLIE!”

The shimmer surged.

The room blinked.

For a fraction of a second Marcus saw Ellie again—her hand still reaching, her eyes wide—

And then the handler’s voice slammed into his skull like a door being kicked in:

RETURN.

Marcus screamed through it, forcing his own words into the pressure.

“Ellie—follow my voice!”

He felt the ring bite into him, cold and electric. His vision whitened at the edges.

Laleh shouted something—prayer or command—while Nura and Amir opened fire again, trying to slow the handler’s approach even though bullets meant nothing.

The handler-Marcus stepped toward the ring boundary and stopped, as if the wire line was a cliff edge.

It tilted its head.

“Brave,” it murmured. “Stupid.”

Marcus’s knees shook. The ring demanded more from him with every breath. He felt his memories tug—loose threads being pulled toward the seam.

He saw Rosa’s face, then didn’t know why it mattered.

He saw a needle, then couldn’t remember the taste of relief.

He saw a clean hallway and realized he knew the way through it.

That scared him more than monsters.

“Marcus!” Laleh shouted. “Hold!”

Marcus gritted his teeth and held the ring boundary, feeling the shimmer resist.

And then—just for a heartbeat—Ellie’s voice cut through the pressure, distant but real:

“Marcus…?”

His chest clenched. “Yes! I’m here!”

The handler-Marcus’s smile faltered, a hairline crack in its confidence.

Ellie’s voice came again, closer: “I can see… the line.”

Marcus’s throat burned. “Follow it. Come to me!”

The shimmer surged, brightening.

A small hand appeared in the pit—Ellie’s hand, pale and trembling, emerging from nothingness like reaching through water.

Marcus’s heart slammed. He reached toward it—

And the handler-Marcus hissed, voice turning sharp and hungry:

“No.”

It raised one hand and the air between it and the pit tightened like a fist.

Ellie’s hand jerked backward, yanked by invisible force.

Marcus roared, fury exploding. “LET HER GO!”

He threw his whole weight into the ring boundary, gripping the braided wire until his palm split, blood wetting the metal.

The shimmer screamed—silent, but felt.

For a heartbeat, the handler-Marcus staggered as if hit.

Ellie’s hand surged forward again—fingers splayed, desperate.

Marcus reached—

Their fingertips brushed.

A spark of cold shot up Marcus’s arm and into his skull, and suddenly he wasn’t in the station.

He was between.

A corridor of folded light, endless doors along the sides, each door labeled with words he couldn’t read but somehow understood: HUNGER, HOPE, MEMORY, FUNCTION.

Ellie stood there, small and shaking, and behind her, the vast presence of the Door loomed like a shadow with no source.

Ellie looked at Marcus with terror and relief tangled together.

“Marcus,” she whispered, “it won’t let me go… unless you come in.”

And Marcus realized, with sick clarity, what the handler had done.

It hadn’t just chased Ellie.

It had set a trap for him too.

Behind him, in the real world, the station node trembled on the edge of tearing open.

Ahead of him, Ellie waited in the seam, hand in his.

And the Door whispered, patient and endless:

Return.

Marcus took one shaky breath and stared at Ellie, seeing the truth in her eyes:

This wasn’t a rescue.