"Either you come with me," he said, "or you disappear before they do it for you."
Elira stared at the burner phone in his palm, the screen dark like the eyes of every man who had tried to own her. She didn't move. Didn't speak.
Azriel didn't push.
"I need a decision, Vale."
"You already know mine."
He gave a grim nod.
Minutes later, the wind cut through them as they slipped through the west gate of the campus, Elira in all black, the USB drive tucked against her spine in a secret compartment she'd sewn into her jacket months ago. Azriel moved like a shadow beside her, one hand constantly checking the weight of the pistol under his coat.
She hadn't asked where they were going. Not because she didn't care — but because if she stopped moving, even for a moment, she might look back.
At 3:00 a.m., they were supposed to take her.
At 2:41, she disappeared herself.
The safehouse was beneath a condemned library in the outskirts of the city. The elevator groaned like a dying god as it lowered them six floors underground, deeper than she thought possible.
The door opened to something out of a spy thriller — dim lighting, iron walls, maps and monitors everywhere. But it was the man leaning against the table that made her freeze.
"Miss Vale," the stranger said, smiling like a serpent. "We meet again."
Azriel stepped forward before she could.
"Caelum," he warned. "Not tonight."
Caelum Moreaux. Azriel's younger brother.
Everything about him was honeyed danger — tailored black shirt, gold rings, hair tousled like he'd just rolled out of sin. His eyes sparkled with mockery and menace.
"I didn't know we were inviting ghosts," Elira said coldly.
Caelum chuckled. "I didn't know you still bled, sweetheart."
Azriel placed a hand between them. "Focus."
Caelum sighed, pushing off the table. "You brought her. That means she knows."
"She's the target," Azriel said. "She deserves the truth."
Caelum walked slowly to the nearest monitor, tapping it once. A digital map bloomed open. Dots. Names. Threads.
"What you found on the USB is just the surface," Caelum explained. "Chimera wasn't about experiments. Not only."
Elira folded her arms. "Then what was it?"
Azriel answered. "Creating weapons that could think. Disappear. Infiltrate. Survive anything."
"Girls like you," Caelum said.
She flinched.
"Subjects were abducted," Azriel continued, "conditioned. Some were trained to kill. Others to blend in. Most didn't survive."
"Vale did."
"She wasn't meant to."
An alert flashed on the monitor. Red.
Caelum leaned in. "They've breached the chapel ruins. Found the second box."
Elira's stomach dropped. "They'll trace me."
Azriel was already moving. "They'll do worse. They'll burn everything."
Before he could speak again, the door burst open.
A man stormed in — broad-shouldered, scarred, his presence more weapon than human. His eyes locked on Elira.
"About damn time you got here," he muttered.
She blinked. "Talon?"
"Didn't recognize me?" His voice was low, gravel soaked in steel.
Her chest tightened. "I thought you were dead."
"I was. Then I got better."
He turned to Azriel. "You I remember."
Azriel didn't flinch. "I bet."
Talon crossed the room and handed Elira a black case. "Everything you'll need. Flashbangs, blades, burner IDs."
"And what's the plan?" she asked.
"Burn them first."
They moved before dawn.
Caelum split off to create a false trail. Talon secured their exit routes. Azriel and Elira went straight to the place marked in the extraction file:
Blackmoor Orphanage.
Where Chimera had started.
The building stood like a corpse dressed in bricks — abandoned, rotting, but still watched.
She remembered this place. Not just from the files. From screams. Cold floors. A red door.
Azriel motioned her down as a patrol passed by. Their breaths clouded in the cold.
Elira stared at the orphanage. "There's a sublevel. They kept us in the dark."
Azriel nodded. "We'll go through the morgue."
"Of course we will."
Inside, it smelled of rust and regret. The halls groaned. Paint peeled like skin. But she remembered the layout.
They reached the red door.
Azriel touched it once. Then looked at her.
"You don't have to go in."
She stepped forward.
"I do."
Inside, they found metal cages. Restraints. A broken camera still pointed at the far wall.
And in the center — a fresh box.
Not wrapped. Not hidden.
Waiting.
Elira approached.
Inside: a single braid of hair. Her mother's.
And a note.
"Last chance, little monster. Come home."
Her vision blurred. Then sharpened like a blade.
"I'm done running."
"We know," said a voice.
She turned.
Figures stepped into view. All in black. Masks of glass.
Azriel was already drawing his pistol.
Talon's voice crackled through her earpiece. "They're jamming the signal. I can't reach you."
She whispered back, "Then stay out. This is mine."
The masked men raised their weapons.
The fight was brutal.
Azriel and Elira moved with the cold precision of seasoned predators. He shot low — kneecaps and throats — buying her the space she needed. She surged forward, blade in hand, slicing through sinew and bone.
A man came at her with a baton; she ducked, slammed her knee into his ribs, then drove her knife through the seam in his mask. He dropped like stone.
Azriel took a hit to the shoulder but kept moving, elbowing one attacker into the wall, firing point-blank. Blood sprayed across the cage bars.
Two more rushed them.
Elira threw a flashbang.
White light. Screams.
She tackled one from behind, wrapping a wire around his throat and yanking back. The other came for her, but Azriel shot him in the knee, then the head.
It wasn't clean. It wasn't elegant.
It was war.
And when it was done, Elira stood in the silence.
Azriel bleeding from his arm.
The braid still in her hand.
"We have to go," he said.
She nodded.
But just as they turned—
A voice echoed through the room. Mechanical. Familiar.
"You think this is the end?"
A screen in the wall flickered to life.
Her mother. Still alive. Eyes dull. Lips moving.
A whisper: "Run."
A countdown began on the screen.
:59
:58
A bomb.
Azriel grabbed her wrist. "Go!"
They ran.
Through the sublevel. Through the pain.
As fire exploded behind them, chasing them up the stairs.
They didn't stop.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't speak until they collapsed in the dirt outside, the orphanage in flames.
Elira gasped. "She's still alive."
Azriel stared at the fire. "And now they know you are too."
From the treeline, Caelum emerged.
Smoke in his hair. Blood on his shirt.
He smiled like the devil.
And behind him—
A girl.
Blue-coded.
Another ghost returned.
Elira met her eyes.
And knew:
This war was just beginning.
To be continued...