It began on a Tuesday.

The night Max didn't come home.

He'd stayed late – new protocols, grief counselling, endless forms. Then Ethan called. One beer turned into four. Then whiskey. He passed out on the office couch.

He didn't go home.

And when he stumbled in the next morning, he came through the back door into the kitchen.

He smelled it immediately.

Not just stale – sour. Like rust. Damp leaves. Like something dead beneath the floorboards.

Then – glass shattered. He turned from the sink— And froze.

Liz stood in the doorway. Pale. Shaking. Drenched in sweat. Her T-shirt clung to her skin like she'd just crawled out of a fever dream. Scratches laced her arms and neck – thin, precise, like from fingernails or wire. Her lips were cracked. Her eyes… God.

Her eyes were full of something he couldn't understand. Not fear.

Terror. Raw. Animal.

"Liz?" he whispered.

She opened her mouth.

No words. Just a rasp—then her knees gave out.

Max lunged.

He caught her just before she hit the floor, arms locking around her limp frame. Her whole body convulsed against his chest. She was ice cold and burning at the same time.

"Liz— hey— what—?"

Then she looked at him. And he wished she hadn't.

Because for a moment he thought her eyes weren't hers anymore.

Something else was looking through them. Something ancient. And starving.

She opened her mouth— And screamed. Not a scream a teenager should make.

Too deep. Too wide. Like her body was just the mouthpiece for something buried far below.

Max clutched her tighter. She thrashed – spasmed – her nails tearing down his arm until blood welled.

He didn't let go.

"Liz! It's me! It's Dad, I've got you—!"

She didn't hear him.

Or maybe whatever was inside her did – and laughed.

A sound that tore through the walls. Not just fear – agony. Her back arched, muscles seizing, and her hands flailed blindly as if swatting away invisible knives. Blood sprayed from a split in her tongue.

Max froze.

Then he moved – tried to hold her down, to stop her hurting herself. But she fought like she didn't see him. Didn't know him. Like he was one more monster in a world full of them.

He carried her out of the room himself. Called emergency. Rode in the ambulance, his hand crushed between hers, not even wincing when she bit him halfway to the hospital.

The first diagnosis was stress. Then night terrors. Then sleep paralysis.

By the end of the week, they had five different guesses – and no answers.

She didn't wake properly.

Not really.

She'd surface. Speak. Smile weakly. Then fade again. As if her body was still here but her soul was slowly stepping away.

Max barely left the hospital.

He stopped shaving. Ate vending machine food. Slept in a foldout chair beside her bed. Every time she twitched or mumbled, he was there. Holding her hand. Whispering to her.

"I'm here, baby. Just hold on. Please."

The nurses were kind. At first.

Then concerned.

Then increasingly distant.

Because Liz kept waking with fresh wounds.

Scratches that came from the inside of her mouth. Bruises in finger-shaped patterns. Once, she almost drowned in her sleep – lungs full of fluid, no explanation.

The doctors whispered when he passed. One accused him. Quietly. Then retracted it. They installed cameras. Nothing was caught. Just Liz, still as a corpse until she bled again.

Max tried everything.

Specialists. Priests. Psychiatrists. Hypnosis. Sleep labs.

He sold the car. Cashed out the pension. Mortgaged the house.

Then the call came.

A neurologist in Sydney. A facility in Singapore. Experimental unit. Advanced neuro-sleep tech. And – unofficially – a demonologist. Fringe. Unproven.

Max didn't care. He signed the release forms the next morning.

Liz was moved under sedation.

Max followed. Because it was the end.

Singapore had been the last hope. The doctors didn't say it outright, but Max had seen it in their eyes. They had no more answers. No more time.

He'd called everyone.

Liz's friends flew in – Jack, Alyssa, Chloe – thinking it was just another visit. None of them knew the truth. Not yet. That in three days, the machines would be turned off. That this was goodbye.

He hadn't told them.

Couldn't.

So he called their parents. Said what needed saying. Bought the tickets himself.

Quietly. Desperately.

And then – he broke the world.

He summoned Aamon.

He didn't remember all of it. Just the blood. Killing a man. The symbols. The feeling of being hollowed out and filled with fire. Something old and furious answering his call.

He made the Contract.

And it answered.

That same night – something else came.

He remembered it in fragments. Jack was by Liz's bedside, brushing her hair back, whispering to her. Alyssa and Chloe were in the hallway, getting tea. The room was quiet. Peaceful, almost. And for a moment, Max had dared to believe it might work. That love might reach her where medicine couldn't.

Then the lights blew out.

Not flickered. Not dimmed. Blew out. Every bulb shattered in a single instant – glass raining from the ceiling tiles like sleet.

Then the air changed. A pressure shift. Like gravity forgetting where down was.

And something came through the vents.

Not walked. Not burst. Just… appeared.

A ripple in the paint. A shimmer of shadow. A presence, more felt than seen.

Max turned – too slow.

It moved like hunger. No sound. No warning.

Jack didn't even scream.

He just twitched. Bent. Crumpled inward like paper caught in flame. His body hit the hospital floor in silence.

Then the wall behind him turned red.

A single arterial spray. Perfect. Deliberate. A signature.

By the time Max reached him, Jack was already gone.

Chloe's scream split the hall. Alyssa yanked her back. The nurses fumbled, too slow. Max killed the thing.

But it was already too late.

Again.

Grimm covered it up. Called it an accident. Cardiac arrest. Trauma-induced seizure. A lie dressed up in paperwork.

Max didn't argue. Didn't protest. He was already burning.

He never forgave himself.

And then Mammon came. He came to take Liz, kill him. Kill them all.

And in the depths of the ruined Grimm Institute after the fire came – Mammon showed Max the truth.

The truth of Liz's soul.

He showed Max the inside of the cage.

The years of torment. The grinding mental violation. The demon coiled around her soul like a parasite. Its voice inside her thoughts. Its claws inside her dreams. A thousand nights of drowning in silence while the thing wore her like a coat.

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And Max had felt it all.

The pain. The powerlessness. The slow, gnawing despair. The hatred. The shame.

He collapsed under it. He wept.

"My baby…" he choked. "You're in so much pain."

His hands clenched until his nails tore flesh.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry—"

And in the middle of that hell, a voice answered him.

Small.

Tired.

Liz's.

"You weren't there, Dad."

The words hit harder than any flame.

Max crumpled.

And didn't move for a long time.

…………………

The fire shifted again.

Not like breath, not like memory.

Like punishment.

It ground across his skin like teeth, reshaping the world into agony and ash – a carousel of memory, every flame a sin he couldn't take back.

Dan came first.

Trapped in a circle of scorched symbols, back arched, golden light exploding from his eyes. Screaming. Convulsing. Blood foaming at his lips. His paramedic's badge melted onto his chest.

Max watched the moment play again – his own hand reaching out.

Awakening him.

Not knowing what it would do.

Not caring.

Then Chloe.

Buried under steel and stone. A failed exorcism. Max yelling, "Phase through – you'll make it!" as rubble caved in. Her eyes wide with pain. Bones shattered. Her legs twitching where they shouldn't have.

She barely made it out alive.

Next came Victor.

Stripped naked, chained to a bloodstained slab. Torture tools gleaming. Kimaris whispering filth into his ear while Ethan – Ethan – watched from the shadows.

Max's gut twisted.

He saw it. The moment they took Victor. The comms he ignored. The delay that cost everything.

A voice broke the silence – Victor's voice, flat and low.

"I trusted you."

It didn't come from his mouth. It came from the fire.

"You left me behind."

Then Ferron stepped forward.

Not Ferron the fighter. Ferron the friend.

But masked. Broken. Howling.

Max saw himself again – holding Ferron down. Driving the blade in. Killing him.

"No choice," Max whispered.

"LIAR," the fire hissed.

Zagan's voice – sickly sweet – followed. "You always had a choice."

Ferron's voice was quietest of all. Hollow. Resigned.

"You ended me."

Max staggered back – but the fire offered no escape.

It simply changed shape.

Singapore. A hospital room.

Jack stood beside Liz's bed. Gentle. Hopeful. Holding her hand, brushing her hair back.

Max had asked him to come. Had begged him. "Maybe she'll hear your voice," he'd said. "Maybe love will bring her back."

Then the lights died.

The demon came.

Jack bent the wrong way. Spine shattered. His body folded like paper. Blood sprayed in a clean line across the white walls.

And Chloe's voice rose like a blade.

"You invited him."

Alyssa stood beside her now. Eyes glowing with fury.

"You used us."

Dan appeared next. Bleeding from both eyes, shaking.

"Everything we did," he choked, "was to cover for your guilt."

Max's fists trembled. The fire coiled tighter.

"I did it to save her," he said.

"LOUDER," the fire screamed.

Max fell to his knees.

"I did it to save her," he said again, louder now. "Every risk. Every fight. Every lie."

The flames hissed.

"And Ethan?" a voice whispered. "Your best friend. The one who sat in your living room. Who held your grief like it was precious."

The fire contorted. Became Ethan's face.

"He killed April."

Max's heart stopped.

"And you trusted him with Liz."

"No," Max breathed.

"You told him everything. About the Contract. About your daughter. About your soul."

The flames surged, sick with accusation.

"You let the man who murdered your wife get close to your daughter," they spat.

Max clutched his head, falling forward.

The ash scorched his lips. His hands blistered. Something ruptured in his chest.

And then – Liz's voice.

"You let him near me, Dad."

Max didn't move.

"You let all of them near me. You called it love. You called it protection. But you weren't protecting anyone."

The world shook. The flames turned black at the edges.

"You were reckless."

"You were dangerous."

"You weren't there."

Max's voice cracked as he whispered:

"I know."

"I know."

And still – he didn't defend himself.

He looked up, face raw, shaking.

"I did it to save her," he said.

The flames paused.

Like they were listening.

Max stood.

Shaking. Bleeding. Eyes full of something past pain.

He looked into the fire – into every choice, every failure.

And said it one last time.

"I DID IT TO SAVE MY DAUGHTER."

A long silence.

Then: "I'd do it all again."

His voice didn't tremble now. It didn't apologise.

"I would do anything to save her."

…………………

The fire recoiled.

The mask cracked.

A jagged fracture split down the centre – and through it, the Hellfire pulsed. Not chaotic. Not cruel.

Pure. Like light through grief.

Max didn't look away.

He burned.

And he didn't let go.

The world didn't collapse this time.

It… breathed.

The smoke peeled back. The cinders faded to snowflakes of gold. The roar of the flames dulled, not gone, but tempered – like something ancient had stopped screaming.

The pain didn't vanish.

But it made room. The air cleared.

And in that sudden hush, something new unfolded – or maybe old. Not a demon. Not a punishment. A memory. A true one.

White walls. Plastic chairs. The gentle beep of monitors, soft as a heartbeat under cotton.

And April – his April – seated beside the window in a faded hospital gown, one leg tucked beneath her, hair a wild black halo from the long delivery. Her face glowed with exhaustion and something fiercer. Fiercer than fire.

She held something in her arms.

No – someone.

Liz.

Just a few hours old. Wrapped in a yellow blanket with tiny giraffes on the hem. Her eyes were shut, face wrinkled like a raisin, mouth making tiny suckling motions in her sleep. One impossibly small fist twitched against April's chest, fingers barely the length of Max's thumbnail.

He remembered the way his chest tightened at the sight.

Not fear. Not pride. Something closer to terror and worship.

She was real. She was his. And he had no idea what to do.

He hadn't stepped into the room at first. Just hovered outside the glass partition like a ghost in boots and soot-stained hands, watching them like they belonged to a better man.

"You can come in," April had called, without even looking. "She wants to meet her dad."

He did.

Eventually.

Slowly.

Max stepped inside. The door clicked shut behind him like a vault sealing.

April looked up.

And everything in him cracked.

Because she didn't look tired, not really. Not despite the hours of labour or the IV in her arm or the pale bruise under one eye where she'd fainted. She looked whole. Like this moment was what she'd been built for.

"She's yours too, you know," she said, grinning.

Max just stood there, hands still blackened from a callout the night before. He'd showered but couldn't scrub the ash out from under his nails. He looked down at them – his ruined hands – then at the tiny, perfect creature in April's arms.

"I don't want to break her," he said.

April snorted. "You won't. She's stronger than both of us."

He didn't move.

So she shifted Liz into the crook of one arm, then reached up and tugged Max's hand toward her chest – toward their daughter.

"Come on," she whispered. "You don't have to be perfect."

Her fingers curled around his.

"Just show up."

That was it.

Not a command.

Not forgiveness.

An invitation.

Max remembered how it felt, taking that first step. How heavy he was – not from gear or gear or fire or fatigue, but from fear. The fear of not being enough. The fear of failing someone so small.

But he walked anyway.

April placed Liz in his arms. Guided his fingers. Smoothed his trembling grip.

And when he held her – for the first time – she stopped twitching.

Her breathing calmed.

She leaned her forehead against his collarbone and made a sound halfway between a sigh and a dream.

And Max Jaeger had fallen in love all over again.

Not with April.

With them. With this. With what it meant to be a father.

To choose it.

Every day.

Even the hard ones.

Especially the hard ones.

The memory faded. Not violently. Not cruelly.

Just like a sunset. Soft and final.

Max stood in the emptiness again – Hellfire licking at his ankles but not consuming him.

His hands clenched and unclenched.

He whispered, hoarse: "I'll show up now."

The fire flared – not like a scream this time, but like a heartbeat. His heartbeat.

White bled into blue.

The heat didn't hurt. It wrapped around him like memory. Like purpose.

Max opened his eyes – still inside the dream – and faced the inferno.

No more running.

No more excuses.

No more fear.

He stepped forward. One pace. Then another.

Not toward escape.

Toward who he was meant to be.

…………………

Max's eyes snapped open.

The mask was still on him – fused, glowing. Its runes crawled like red veins across his throat. But beneath them, something else pulsed. Brighter. Cleaner.

White-blue fire lit his irises like stars cracking open.

And Gremory – that demon in a child's skin – was crouched above him, fingers plunged into his chest like roots.

She didn't speak.

Didn't scream.

But the pressure of her will was crushing – trying to drive the porcelain deeper, trying to finish the ritual, to overwrite his soul with silence.

The glyphs flared crimson, searing a path toward his heart.

Behind her, Hana convulsed. Psychic static rippled through the air like invisible shrapnel, veins on her temples bulging. Her mouth opened in a silent cry. Blood leaked from her nose.

Kabe stood over her – snarling, pacing, ready to tear through the world – but bound by duty. He couldn't leave Hana. Not unless Max broke first.

And Max—

Max breathed once.

Once was enough.

The air caught fire.

A pulse of white-blue Hellfire surged from his body, not as a scream but a statement – a wave of soul-deep refusal. The chamber blanched in heat. The floor blackened. The shadows fled.

Gremory flinched – too late.

His hand shot up.

Clamped around her wrist.

And this time— he burned.

Her golden eye widened.

Not fear. Not pain.

Surprise.

She hadn't seen this coming.

"You don't get to wear me," Max growled. His voice was hoarse, broken – and unshakeable.

The fire climbed his arm, raced along her body – not wild, but precise. It didn't consume the air. It consumed her.

The mask began to hiss. Its glyphs shuddered.

Then—

Crack.

A fracture split it top to bottom.

Gremory recoiled, but Max didn't let go. He dragged her closer. Searing heat scorched the floor beneath them, tracing holy sigils into the steel like burning prayers.

Time stuttered. Reality buckled.

And Kabe moved.

The guardian bear lunged like thunder made flesh – massive, sacred, roaring fury. His claws hit Gremory's back a split-second after Max's fist slammed into her stomach, driving her into the chamber wall hard enough to crack stone.

The demon howled. Her limbs spasmed, golden eye flaring – then boiling.

Max didn't stop.

Didn't flinch.

His other hand lit up – a sun rising inside his palm.

He pressed it against her sternum.

"I remember every second she screamed," he whispered.

And then he let go.

Hellfire ignited from the inside out.

White erupted through Gremory's skin like cracks in porcelain – then exploded.

The mask shattered in a rain of red-hot shards. Her body disintegrated mid-scream, soul-glass and ash spiraling out like a broken sigil trying to hold.

It couldn't.

Her voice never finished.

She died in a soundless flash – nothing but heat and ruin left behind.

And then— Silence.

Real silence.

The air trembled. Smoke curled in slow, reverent spirals.

Max stood, chest heaving, arms glowing white at the seams.

Burned. Bloodied. Whole.

Kabe growled once – not in warning, but approval.

Then the guardian turned and lay beside Hana's unconscious body, curling a paw protectively over her side.

Max didn't move at first.

He looked down at the mask fragments – still steaming. One shard twitched.

A pulse.

Soft.

Red.

Like a dying heart that didn't know it was dead yet.

He crouched. Picked it up.

Held it in his hand.

And in the soulfield – something whispered: "The second gate is open."

Max didn't flinch. Didn't smile. Didn't cry.

He simply stood – eyes lit with white-blue fire, skin scorched with ash and purpose.

He looked forward.

Not afraid. Not broken.

Just burning.

…………………

Smoke drifted from his skin.

Max stumbled backward and dropped to one knee, breath hitching. His vision flickered – black at the edges, his heartbeat still thunder in his ears. The white-blue Hellfire licked around his shoulders, no longer raging… just present. Warm. Contained.

He looked down at his hands – burned raw, fingers trembling. But they were his. Still his.

Behind him, Kabe let out a low, soft rumble. The great bear moved slowly now, his steps less like thunder, more like waves.

He nudged Hana's limp body gently toward the centre of the chamber. Lowered his head. Licked her hand once, tenderly – like a prayer made with breath.

Then the guardian lay beside her. Watchful. Guarding. Waiting.

Max looked at him. Kabe looked back.

No growl. No snarl.

Just a knowing.

They'd done what they could.

For now… they had saved her.

Max forced himself upright. One boot planted. Then the other. Every muscle screamed. His ribs were cracked, maybe worse. Blood crusted his shirt. But he stood.

He turned. Liz's pod still glowed.

Untouched.

Unbreached.

A faint hum resonated from the stone shell, like breath behind glass. Her halo shimmered – soft, constant – a thread of red light that had never gone out.

Max exhaled, and only then realised how long he'd been holding it.

He stepped forward, slow and unsteady, until the cracked remnants of Gremory's mask crunched underfoot. Shards of porcelain glinted in the ash. Red glyphs, now dead, trailed like dried veins across the fragments.

Except one.

A shard – no larger than a coin – pulsed faintly.

Max crouched. Reached down. Picked it up.

It was warm.

Not hot like flame – warm like breath on skin. A hum reverberated through his fingertips. Into his bones.

And then—

A voice.

Not a whisper, not a word.

A presence. Ancient. Endless.

It entered not through his ears, but straight through the soulfield – layered, fractured, echoing.

"The second gate is open."

Max's eyes narrowed.

No fear. No confusion. Just understanding.

The piece dimmed in his palm but didn't fade. He slipped it into his pocket without thinking.

His eyes drifted back to Liz.

Still glowing. Still fighting.

Max stood fully now, spine straight.

The pain was still there.

The memories still burned.

But his eyes were clear.

He looked toward the door.

The world hadn't changed.

But he had.

He wasn't afraid. He wasn't broken. He wasn't perfect.

But he was showing up – for Liz, for his family, for his friends.

For everyone.

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