M stared out of the window, the city lights stretching endlessly before him. He knew Hana was out there, moving through the streets like a shadow. She was clever, but he couldn’t afford to lose her. The FBI's resources were vast, but Hana’s intelligence was sharper.

“We need her location,” Evans muttered beside him, frustration lacing his voice.

M didn’t respond immediately, his mind working through every possible angle. "We'll get it," he said calmly. "But we can’t think like investigators anymore."

Evans furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"

"She’s too smart for that. She's anticipating every traditional move. We’re chasing her the wrong way."

"So, what then? We just wait for her to make a mistake?" Evans asked, shaking his head. “We don’t have time for that, M.”

M turned to him, his expression serious. "We don't wait for her to make a mistake. We need to force her into a corner where she has no choice but to slip up."

Evans stared at him for a moment. “How? What’s the plan?”

M's gaze drifted back to the window. "We feed her false information. Plant it somewhere she’ll find it. Somewhere she thinks we’d never let her see. We give her the wrong scent, and when she follows it, we’ll be waiting.”

Evans raised an eyebrow. “She’s got the Soul Ledger. We don’t know how far she’ll go with it.”

“Exactly why we need to move fast,” M replied, his voice steady. “The more names she writes, the more reckless she becomes. She might think she’s unstoppable, but power like that... it’s corrupting. She’ll slip.”

Evans looked skeptical but nodded. “Alright. So where do we start?”

M glanced at the surveillance monitors, scanning the footage again, as if searching for something they had missed. "Her journal," he said suddenly.

“What about it?” Evans asked, moving closer.

“It’s not just random thoughts, like I said before. There’s a pattern here. Hidden names, coded into the words. She’s been making kills right under our noses.”

Evans frowned and leaned in. "You think she’s writing the names in a way we can’t see?"

M nodded. “Exactly. But the moment we decipher this pattern, we’ll know her next move.” He turned to another agent standing nearby. “Get me a team of cryptographers on this journal now. I want to know every detail, every possible code she could be using.”

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The agent nodded and rushed off. Evans let out a slow breath, rubbing the back of his neck. “Even if we break the code, she’s still ahead of us.”

“Not for long,” M replied. “Once we know how she’s writing, we’ll know who’s next. That’s when we’ll be able to predict her.”

Across the city, Hana sat in the backseat of the ride-share car, her mind working as fast as it ever had. The wind whipped against the window as they drove through the dimly lit streets. The cameras in her apartment were obvious now, but she had left them with a trail of breadcrumbs — enough to make the FBI think she was still there.

She glanced at her wristwatch, calculating the time until they discovered she was gone. Not long now.

The Soul Ledger rested in her bag, heavy, its presence impossible to ignore. It called to her, urging her to use its power again. She knew it was dangerous, but the thrill of control was intoxicating. More than that, the sense of justice she was exacting, the wrongs she was righting with every name written, justified it.

Her fingers brushed against the spine of the Ledger through the fabric of her bag. Just one more name. One more to set things right. But not yet. Not until the moment was perfect. She needed to be far away when the FBI figured out what she had done.

As the car pulled up to the curb of a quiet alley, Hana checked her surroundings. She stepped out without a word to the driver and disappeared into the shadows, blending with the night. Her destination was a safe house, a place known only to her. It was where she would finish her plan.

Back at the FBI headquarters, M stood over the cryptographers working furiously on Hana’s journal. It was only a matter of time before they cracked the code. He could feel it. Hana had left them a trail, and soon they would follow it right to her doorstep.

Evans was pacing behind him, his phone glued to his ear, giving orders to agents stationed around the city. "We need eyes everywhere," he said. "The second she surfaces, I want to know."

M watched the cryptographers intently. “How long?” he asked, his voice low.

One of them glanced up. “We’re close. She’s using a cipher—one that disguises names as phrases. It’s complex, but we’ve seen similar methods before.”

M nodded, folding his arms across his chest. “Work faster. We don’t have time.”

The hours ticked by, and the tension in the room grew thicker. Finally, one of the cryptographers looked up, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. “We’ve got it.”

M stepped forward, scanning the decoded message. His jaw tightened as he read the hidden names. Each one represented another soul Hana had claimed with the Ledger. But there was one name that stood out. His eyes narrowed as he read it again.

“She’s planning something big,” M said. “Bigger than we thought.”

Evans looked over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

M didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned to the agent beside him. “Get me everything you have on this name. I want background, associates, every detail.”

The agent rushed off, and M turned to Evans. “She’s going after someone important.”

Evans frowned. “Who?”

M handed him the decoded message, watching his reaction. Evans’s eyes widened as he read the name at the top of the list. “She wouldn’t…”

“She would,” M said grimly. “And if she succeeds, we’re all in trouble.”

Evans cursed under his breath. “How do we stop her?”

M’s mind raced. “We can’t let her get to this person. We need to intercept her before she has the chance to write another name.”

“But where is she?” Evans asked. “We still don’t know her location.”

M’s eyes flickered with determination. “We will soon. She’s left us enough to track her. It’s only a matter of time.”

Evans nodded, his jaw clenched. “Then let’s move. We can’t let her get any further.”

As the team mobilized, M kept his focus on the mission. He knew Hana was dangerous—far more dangerous than any of them had anticipated. But this time, he wouldn’t let her slip through his fingers.