From the air, the Grimm Estate resembled a painting too carefully preserved to be alive. Gothic towers of grey stone rose from the grounds, their sharp spires softened by ivy that clung like veins around a corpse. Gardens bloomed in geometric precision, hedges cut so straight they looked carved with razors. Not a petal was out of season. Even the gravel paths gleamed pale under the dusk, swept to perfection by hands that never showed themselves. To anyone circling above, it was a sanctuary of wealth and influence, perhaps a political institute with old money behind its walls. A facade of refinement, of permanence, of power dressed in civility.

But the VTOL didn't land on the manicured lawns or the sweep of the central courtyard.

The craft banked hard, tilting its passengers against their harnesses as it slid into a hidden ravine at the estate's edge. The trees and gardens fell away behind them. Concrete rose instead, swallowing the aircraft whole. The sky vanished in an instant, as if it had been erased.

There was no sound of landing gear, no thrum of engines straining. The descent was smooth, too smooth, until even that faint vibration ceased and the world seemed to stop.

Max's fingers tightened on the armrest. His stomach didn't drop, his ears didn't pop. The absence of sensation was worse than turbulence. It felt like gravity itself had been stolen from the room, like they were adrift in a body that wasn't moving yet wasn't still.

The silence stretched too long.

Dan gave a laugh that cracked on its own nerves. "Did we actually land," he said, glancing around, "or did the world just give up and stop moving?"

Victor, slouched with his arms crossed, didn't bother looking at him. His eyes stayed fixed on the floor, and his voice was dry. "We're not in London anymore."

A soft chime answered him. The rear hatch hissed, releasing a gust of air that stung the nose. It was cold, recycled, scrubbed of anything resembling life.

Beyond the threshold stretched a corridor of black steel, walls curving into a throat that sloped downward. Faint runes glowed along the seams, their light dull and red, beating in unison like a pulse. There were no windows, no markings, nothing to suggest direction. Just a path, deliberate and endless, beckoning deeper.

Two Grimm operatives stepped forward, their armour a pale contrast to the corridor's shadows. They unlatched Liz's pod from its rig with practiced ease, guiding it onto a magnetic dolly. The glass dome caught the red rune-light, painting her face with the colour of a heartbeat. For a moment Max thought he was watching a coffin carried into burial, the faint pulse on the glass like a mockery of life.

He leaned forward in his harness without meaning to. His chest burned, not with the rage he was used to, but with something sharper, smaller, and infinitely worse — fear.

Alyssa's voice cracked through the air. "Where are they taking her?"

A new shadow filled the hatch. Kane. He wore his matte-black armour with the same precision he always had, every strap in place, every plate spotless as if nothing in the world had dared to scuff it. His helmet hung at his belt, and his face was calm in a way that didn't reassure. It was the calm of someone who had trained emotion out of existence.

"Cryo-Vault Six," he said evenly. "Reinforced. Isolated. Sealed against psionic bleed."

Alyssa stepped into the corridor, fists clenched. "She's not a bomb."

Kane's eyes flicked toward her, then slid back to the pod gliding away. His reply was so quiet it might have been to himself. "Not yet."

The words hit like an iron bar. Alyssa froze. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a second before shutting again. Chloe's breath stuttered beside Max. She clutched Liz's necklace so tightly the chain had begun to carve into her skin.

Max pushed against the harness and stood, but his legs didn't carry him further. He wanted to chase the pod, to tear it back from the steel throat that was swallowing it whole. But even standing there, he felt the weight pressing down, the air thick with runes older than language. The walls themselves weren't just steel; they were laced with something that watched, waiting for anyone foolish enough to resist.

"Welcome to the Burrow," Kane said, his tone flat as the metal under his boots. "The Grimm Institute's true headquarters. Officially, this place does not exist."

No one answered him.

The hum of the magnetic dolly filled the silence as Liz disappeared deeper, swallowed by red light and steel walls.

Max's jaw tightened. Every instinct screamed to follow, to light the fire and burn his way down until nothing stood between him and her. His chest surged with heat, but it coiled inward instead of flaring. The fear stayed sharper. More exact.

The hatch behind them closed with a final click, shutting away the last trace of the surface.

Victor's voice carried from behind him, quiet but clear in the sterile air. "Feels like we're walking into a lung that's forgotten how to breathe."

No one argued.

Kane turned and began walking, expecting them to fall in behind him without hesitation.

Max swallowed the dry air, stepped into the corridor, and followed. Each footfall sank him deeper, like nails hammered one by one into a coffin lid.

Not into London. Not into a fortress.

Into a place that had never been meant for the living.

***

The corridor did not feel like a hallway. It felt like something alive, a throat swallowing them deeper with every step.

Steel walls curved too close on either side, the angles too smooth, too deliberate. Overhead, strips of white light pulsed in slow rhythm, steady as a surgical monitor. The red runes embedded at the seams glowed faintly as they passed, their colour bleeding into the air like veins threaded through flesh.

The temperature dropped the further they went, though the air itself stayed crisp and dry — not the damp chill of underground stone, but the processed sterility of machinery. It tasted like nothing. Not earth, not metal, not even dust. Just an emptiness scrubbed too clean.

The silence pressed as heavy as the air. No scuff of machinery, no buzz of power lines. Only the soft footfalls of their group and the quiet hum of the pod dolly gliding ahead with Liz encased in her glass womb.

Victor rubbed his arms, muttering. "They ever heard of heating? Place feels like a morgue that forgot to stop taking customers."

Dan gave a weak chuckle that didn't hold long. "Guess comfort's not high on the design brief." His eyes kept flicking upward, toward the ceiling, scanning the corners like he expected something to peel open and drop on them.

Alyssa wasn't looking up. She'd fixed her gaze directly overhead, following the path of small black domes that slid silently along tracks above. Each one carried a glowing glyph that pulsed red like a pupil contracting. Some gave off a faint, insectile hum, a noise too low to be mechanical.

Her voice cut sharp into the silence. "Are those cameras… following us?"

The domes drifted with them, their glyphs blinking in sequence. For a moment, Max thought he heard more than sound — a faint echo in his bones, like the whisper of a language not meant for human throats.

He didn't answer.

Because he could feel it. This wasn't surveillance in the ordinary sense. The walls themselves carried echoes, imprints layered into the steel. Old signatures. Dormant, but not dead. Something hateful buried in the circuitry of the place, breathing slow in time with the red glow.

Chloe walked at the rear, one hand locked around Liz's necklace, the chain wound so tight around her fingers the skin had split in pale lines. She hadn't said a word since Kane's remark at the landing bay.

Max glanced back once. Her lips were parted, like she wanted to speak but couldn't find the shape of words. When she finally did, her voice was so soft only he caught it.

"Jack hated cold places," she whispered, eyes hollow.

He slowed a fraction, enough that her next words didn't slip past.

"He said hospitals felt like dying." Her throat clicked as she swallowed. "This feels worse."

Her gaze didn't lift from the pod gliding further away.

Max wanted to answer, but the words wouldn't come.

They reached the first checkpoint — a shimmer of translucent blue across the passage, humming faintly, more presence than barrier. Kane walked through without slowing. The field peeled open for him, runes flaring, then sealed again once the rest followed.

Alyssa scowled at the light still burning behind them. "Okay, so let me get this straight — we're under London, walking through magic walls with creepy glowstick gates, and no one's going to explain what the hell we're actually walking into?"

Her voice echoed in the steel throat.

Kane didn't look back. "You're walking into what's left when control is the only thing that matters."

Alyssa blinked. "That's supposed to be reassuring?"

"It isn't," Kane said. "It's a warning."

She gave a short laugh, humourless. "Great. Maybe print that on a brochure."

Victor's jaw tightened. "Feels like we're going deeper than a vault."

Kane finally tilted his head just enough to answer. "You are."

The slope steepened almost imperceptibly. The air thickened, as though reluctant to move. Shadows gathered even where the lights burned steady. Max felt the pressure against his chest — not heavy enough to crush, but constant, like something testing his breath.

None of them spoke after that.

They walked in silence, the hum of the pod and the glow of the runes the only markers of time, until the passage widened and the ceiling lifted.

What opened before them was not a room.

It was a hollow carved out of the earth on a scale that made Max's breath catch.

***

Alyssa blinked. "That's a lot of drama! That supposed to be comforting?"

"It's not," he said. "It's a warning."

She scoffed. "Great. Maybe next time put that on the brochure."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The corridor sloped lower. Almost imperceptibly, but Max could feel it – the shift in weight. The way the air grew thicker. More reluctant to move.

Victor's jaw tightened. "Feels like we're going deeper than a vault."

"We are," Kane said without turning. "That's the point."

They emerged suddenly into a junction – four corridors branching outward, all identical, all humming faintly. In the centre, a set of transport platforms hovered above a pit ringed by glowing rails. There were no tracks – just hovering monorails pulsing with light, waiting in perfect silence.

Above it all, etched into a column of polished obsidian, was the Grimm Institute seal: a scroll crossed by a sword, flanked by wings like a bat's. Beneath it, in silver: Veritas Per Scientiam.

Truth through knowledge.

Victor tilted his head up. "Subtle."

Kane glanced over his shoulder. "Truth doesn't need subtlety. It needs containment."

Dan stopped walking. He stared at the obelisk, his eyes tracing the silver lettering.

"Feels like a threat," he said.

"It is," Kane replied.

He turned and stepped onto one of the platform lifts. It pulsed beneath his boots and began to descend. The others followed.

As the floor began to fall, Max caught one last glimpse of the seal vanishing above them. Not being left behind.

Watching.

The platform dropped in silence. No sound. No motion.

Just gravity shifting beneath their feet and something deep and ancient awakening in Max's chest – the Soulfire coiled tighter, like it already hated what waited below.

***

The throat of steel widened into a cavern that felt too deliberate to be underground.

A perfect circle stretched into shadow, its walls clad in black stone latticed with faint runes. Platforms hovered in the open air, anchored by invisible fields that pulsed with the rhythm of a held breath. Transit rails curled in spirals across the cavern, glass-sided cars waiting in silence, still as predators before a strike.

At the centre rose an obsidian obelisk, its face etched with the seal of the Institute: a scroll crossed by a sword, flanked by bat-like wings. Beneath it, silver letters gleamed: Veritas Per Scientiam. Truth through knowledge.

Victor let out a low whistle. "Well. Subtle as a brick to the face."

Kane ignored him. "Truth doesn't require subtlety. It requires containment."

Max wasn't listening. His gaze was fixed on the podium spanning the obelisk's base. Empty. Waiting.

Then the air bent.

Not with noise, but with pressure — as though gravity had turned a fraction heavier. The lights overhead warped. The heat in Max's chest flared, then recoiled like it had touched something older and hungrier.

Dr. Helmut Grimm stepped into view.

He did not arrive with spectacle. His presence unfolded like a surgical incision.

A high-collared coat, lined in crimson, fell perfectly across his frame. White gloves sheathed his hands, but the skin beneath was too thin, the bone pressing faintly against it. His face was pale, not with illness, but with something taken — carved out until only the shell remained. A black line ran from jaw to collar, pulsing faintly as though remembering fire.

Max's vision shifted without choice. He saw Grimm's halo.

A Contractor.

It burned red — dense, complex, a psychic affinity beyond question — but it was wrong. It flickered, fractured, full of holes where something had torn through the soul and left the wounds unhealed.

Liz glows the same colour, Max realised, gut turning cold. But hers is whole. Pure. His is—broken.

Grimm's eyes met his. And Max knew instantly: the man had already plucked that thought from him.

"Mr. Jaeger," Grimm said, his voice smooth, clipped, pleasant as glass. "Late, but not unexpected."

Max straightened, fire pulling taut inside his ribs like a bowstring. "Didn't realise I was on the guest list."

A faint curve touched Grimm's mouth. "Anomalies rarely RSVP."

His gaze slid from Max to the others. Dan stiffening. Alyssa glaring. Victor narrowing his eyes. Chloe tightening her grip on Liz's necklace. Grimm read them all with the same patience a surgeon reserves for a table of charts.

But Max didn't let the moment pass. He took a step forward, voice low and raw, every word pressed out between clenched teeth. "You've got a lot of explaining to do. I don't trust you. And I don't like the way you're looking at her." His chin flicked toward Liz's pod, still gliding deeper into the cavern. "That's my daughter in there, not a specimen."

For a second, the words echoed, hanging too loud in the sterile air.

Grimm held the silence until it hurt, then brushed it away with the faintest exhale, as though dismissing a nuisance. "Trust is a luxury you cannot afford, Mr. Jaeger. And explanations," his gloved hand flicked faintly as if brushing dust from the air, "will come when they matter. Not before."

Max's fists tightened. He felt the Soulfire clawing upward, desperate to burn. "That's not good enough."

"Of course it isn't." Grimm's voice carried no heat, no defensiveness. Only certainty. "That is why you are here."

The faintest flicker crossed his eyes again — that hidden red spark, alive under ice.

Max's breath hitched as his chest constricted, his fire smothered again before he could shape it. Not crushed violently, but as if a hand had closed over a candleflame and simply refused to let it breathe.

"You mistake tension for power," Grimm murmured. "Anger for strength. But anomalies rarely understand the leash until it pulls tight." His gaze sharpened. "And yours has barely begun to tighten."

Max wanted to lunge, to burn, to do something — but the weight in the air locked him still. Grimm didn't raise a hand. He didn't need to.

His gaze moved from Max to the others.

Dan stiffened when those pale eyes swept over him. Grimm gave no words, no judgement — only the kind of silence that left the young man looking smaller by the second.

Alyssa shifted, scowling, her voice too sharp, too loud in the cavern. "Stop staring at us like we're lab rats."

Grimm regarded her with the calm of a man diagnosing a fracture. "You carry grief like a weapon you can't yet lift. The weight will break you — or it won't. Neither outcome is yours to choose."

Dan shifted, voice low but steady, surprising even himself. "She's not a weapon. She's a girl. Same as Liz."

Grimm's gaze flicked toward him — not hostile, but weighing, as though measuring whether the statement was courage or delusion. Dan held his ground, though Max saw the tremor in his jaw.

Alyssa blinked, caught between anger and hurt. Her mouth opened, then shut again, and she folded her arms tight across her chest.

Victor stepped in, tone dry. "And me? What's my diagnosis? Chronic sarcasm?"

For the first time, Grimm's eyes narrowed by a fraction. "Doctor Drake. Your reports on Malayan tigers were precise. Almost obsessive. You thought no one cared enough to read them."

Victor froze. "...Those were buried in field archives."

"Everything leaves a pattern," Grimm said softly. "Even in the jungle. Even when you believe you're alone."

Victor tried for a smirk but it faltered. "Guess I'll stop writing about cats."

Alyssa frowned at him. "Wait. You're a real doctor? Like, actual doctor?"

Chloe, silent until now, whispered: "No way."

Victor said nothing. His jaw had locked tight, muscle twitching under the skin.

Grimm let the silence settle. Then his eyes locked on Max again.

"She is not the origin," he said, glancing once at the pod gliding into the dark. "She is a result. The variable is you. She is what reality creates when it is forced to balance something that should never have existed."

Max's chest burned. The fire flared hot, spilling into his hand before he could stop it — a flash of blue across his knuckles.

He took half a step forward.

Kane appeared next to him, blocking his path. He didn't raise his weapon, but the way his hand lingered near the hilt made the warning clear: one more step and even Max's fire might not be fast enough.

Grimm clapped his hands once, sharp, surgical. "Dormitory Seven awaits. Rest. I will send for you when your anger has cooled into clarity."

He turned, his coat slicing crimson into the black. Two bodyguards in white armour fell in step behind him. An elevator slid open, silent as a tomb, and closed the same way.

Gone.

Max stared at the space where he had stood, fists still clenched, fire still caged and flickering uselessly inside his chest. For the first time since Liz fell, what burned there wasn't rage.

It was colder. The kind of fear that doesn't freeze. The kind that waits. The kind that plans.

***

The room was too clean.

Not just polished but curated. Engineered. Every surface gleamed in soft white, not quite glossy, not quite matte. Bunks were made with surgical precision, edges sharp enough to draw blood. The air smelled like nothing. Not antiseptic, not filtered pine. Just... emptied. Scrubbed down to zero. Even their own breath seemed stolen, scrubbed clean before it left their lungs — like the room was already rehearsing their absence.

A simulated window hummed on the far wall. Outside it, an endless sunrise played on loop – sunlight spilling over a digital forest that probably hadn't existed in decades. Birds chirped on mute. Clouds glided in perfect time.

Chloe sat beneath it, knees drawn up on the lower bunk, her back straight, face blank. She hadn't blinked since they entered.

Alyssa walked over and pressed her palm to the window. "Not even warm."

No one responded.

Max stood near the corner, arms folded, head low. His coat hung heavy with dried blood and flight-sweat. His thoughts were slower now, but sharper. Less panic. More calculation. Too many variables. Too many unknowns.

Is this the part where I lose her anyway?

Dan was in the washroom, the sound of quiet retching muffled by the partition.

Victor hadn't sat down. He stood near the door like a watchdog, arms crossed, back to the wall.

"This feels like a holding cell," he said. "Just with better lighting and marketing."

Alyssa threw her jacket onto one of the bunks. "What gave it away? The invisible cameras, or the suicide-forest screensaver?"

Dan emerged from the washroom, pale but upright. He started toward Alyssa, hesitated, then stayed back – hovering a few paces away. She didn't seem to notice.

Chloe finally spoke. Her voice was soft, but not uncertain. "Do they really think they're saving anyone down here?"

The room went still.

Max didn't answer.

He couldn't.

Not when he was starting to wonder if Grimm had already written their fates in some file weeks ago. Not when Liz was locked in a vault three stories below ground, and Max couldn't tell if she was getting safer – or becoming the thing they were scared of.

The silence settled like dust.

Then a soft chime rang at the door. It slid open with a hydraulic sigh.

A woman stepped in, hauling a silver equipment case behind her that looked heavier than it should be. Her build was wiry, compact, efficient – like someone who didn't waste motion. Dark skin. Hair in greying braids pulled into a tight bun. Surgical robes worn over reinforced soulfield armour. Her sleeves were rolled up.

She looked around the room, raised one eyebrow, and said flatly:

"Well. Everyone looks like shit. Perfect. Saves me the trouble of small talk."

Dan blinked.

Alyssa tilted her head. "And you are...?"

"Dr. Sade Adisa," she said, setting the case down with a thud. "Biometric Integration. Soulfield Stabilization. Occasional babysitting."

She glanced around. "Which of you's the firestarter?"

Max raised a hand slowly.

Adisa gave him a once-over, unimpressed. "You don't look like someone who rewrote the rules of soul resonance, but hey – neither did the last Contractor. He exploded."

Alyssa narrowed her eyes. "You're joking. Right?"

"Depends," Adisa said. "Do you want me to be?"

She popped the case open. Inside: slivers of soulstone pulsing with faint light, a tray of sterile vials, and several small metallic discs etched with spirals. Each one gave off a low, steady hum.

She clapped her hands once, sharp and businesslike. "Alright. We've got a lot of unknowns and exactly zero margin for screwups. So, unless someone here secretly majored in metaphysical neurosurgery, you're gonna listen carefully, not panic, and absolutely not try to be a hero."

She looked straight at Max. "That especially means you, firestarter."

Max gave a faint grunt. "No arguments here."

Adisa rolled her eyes. "You say that now."

She turned to the girls.

"Now. Who's first?"

***

Dr. Adisa crouched beside the case, fingers moving with practiced speed. Each soulstone fragment she lifted pulsed faintly – like miniature hearts. She checked readings, adjusted thin dials on the side of a disc, and muttered numbers under her breath that sounded like they belonged to a different field of science entirely.

Alyssa watched her for a moment, arms crossed. "So you the one who's gonna mess with our souls or what?"

Adisa didn't look up. "Nope."

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"I'm the one who keeps your insides inside if you mess them up yourself." She lifted a soul-disc and tapped it with her thumb. It chirped once. "Big difference."

Victor let out a soft snort from near the door.

Dan looked between them, confused. "Wait, but Max is the one doing the... power thing, right?"

Adisa looked at Max for the first time, really looked. Her eyes narrowed. "You can see halos?"

Max hesitated. "Sometimes. I'm guessing that Red's mind. Silver's body. Gold... soul. That right?"

"Close enough," she said. "Most people can't see anything. The ones who do usually need implants, or training, or at least a near-death experience. You? You just... look and see."

She picked up another disc. "Hell of a thing."

Alyssa glanced at Max. "So what colour am I?"

Max frowned. "You haven't lit up yet. But I can feel something. Coiled. Tight. Like it's been waiting."

Adisa cut in. "That's what worries me."

Chloe finally turned from the fake sunrise. "Why?"

Adisa stood and faced them fully. "Because what Max did with Daniel and Doctor Drake shouldn't be possible. No Contract. No pact. No price." She tapped the side of her skull. "That breaks every known law of infernal resonance."

Victor shifted. "So... what does that mean in practice?"

"It means," Adisa said, "this is uncharted territory. We're guessing. If it works, you walk out of here stronger. Changed. If it doesn't... we try to put the pieces back together. Assuming they're still recognizable."

Chloe's eyes widened slightly. "That's—"

"Honest," Adisa said. "This isn't a game. This is soul work. If you flinch halfway, it shatters you."

Alyssa folded her arms tighter. "Sounds like you're trying to scare us off."

"I am."

"Good," she said. "Because I'm still here."

Dan stepped toward her, concern written all over his face. "You don't have to rush this—"

"I'm not rushing," she snapped. "I'm done waiting. I watched Jack bleed out while I hid behind a hospital bed. I'm not hiding anymore."

Chloe stayed quiet, but Max saw her hands tremble. One of them gripped Liz's necklace like a lifeline. Her knuckles had gone white.

Max stepped forward, brow furrowed. "If we wait... if I could just talk to—"

Adisa raised a hand, sharp. "No. You light the fuse. That's all. Whatever comes next—belongs to them."

Alyssa stepped forward, jaw set. "Then light me."

Max didn't move. Not right away.

Part of him wanted to argue. To stop her. This wasn't some training montage where grief turned into strength. This was her gambling her life – and maybe her soul – on a power he didn't even understand.

She's still a kid, he thought. This is reckless. Dangerous. Maybe even selfish.

But the look in her eyes shut him up. She wasn't being reckless. She just wasn't willing to feel helpless ever again.

Adisa didn't blink. "I need to check your vitals first."

She pointed to the exam chair.

Alyssa didn't move for a second.

Then she exhaled – long, slow – and sat.

Chloe didn't follow. She stayed right where she was, still staring at the necklace, fingers twisting the chain tighter and tighter.

Max glanced between them, then to Adisa.

She gave him a nod. "Vitals first. Then we can make a decision."

The hum of the soulfield monitors began to rise.

And the room got heavier.

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