The field was quiet.

No gunfire.

No engines.

Just wind pushing smoke through the trees and the scent of blood settling into ash.

Victor stood over Max's body.

Not dead. Not yet.

But close.

Max's chest rose in short, broken jerks. Blood soaked his ribs, his thigh, his left shoulder – too much for anyone to survive unaided. His skin was pale. His breath gurgled. His eyes barely fluttered beneath crusted lashes.

"Come on, man," Victor muttered, crouching beside him. "Don't you dare go."

Liz's pod was gone.

The Chinese had taken her – lifted her like a weapon, not a person, and vanished into the forest with military precision.

The Americans – Reverb's freak squad – had pulled back without a word. They could still be nearby, watching.

Victor wiped the sweat from his brow, then looked down at Max again.

This was the guy who always had a plan. Who screamed fire into monsters and didn't break. And now he was bleeding out in a goddamn ditch.

Victor exhaled through clenched teeth.

"Okay," he said aloud, more to himself than anyone else. "Okay. No one's coming to save us."

He slid his arms under Max's torso, grunting as he heaved the man onto his back.

Max groaned. Barely.

"Sorry, brother," Victor said. "You're gonna hate me for this later."

He slipped his arms beneath Max's body – grimaced as he felt the weight and the blood – and lifted.

Max groaned faintly. Barely conscious.

"Don't talk," Victor said. "Just keep that fire of yours lit a little longer."

Chloe looked up. Her hands were stained red. "He needs help. Real help."

"Yeah," Victor said. "But we can't help him here."

He turned to Alyssa.

"You with us?"

Alyssa nodded once. Silent.

Victor scanned the horizon. He remembered a village north of here – saw it during descent. A handful of stone buildings and a defunct watchtower. Maybe a safe place to regroup. Maybe not.

Didn't matter.

"Grab what you can. We move now. Before the Americans circle back."

Chloe slung Dan's arm over her shoulder with effort. He was heavy – dead weight. She winced but didn't stop.

Alyssa followed wordlessly, still looking back every few steps. Like Liz might still be there. Like they hadn't just lost her.

"We can't just run. Liz—"

"I know," Victor said. "But if Max dies here, we're not getting her back."

That landed. Alyssa's jaw trembled, but she nodded.

Victor adjusted Max's weight on his back and started walking.

Victor didn't look back.

He carried Max into the forest.

The girls followed, quiet. Numb. The five of them disappearing into the smoke and trees like ghosts.

Max had carried them this far.

Now it was Victor's turn.

…………………

The thunder above Site B rolled like distant drums.

Dr. Helmut Grimm walked the operations corridor with sharp, measured steps. The walls of the Fortress were lined with steel and spectral shielding – built to contain demons, secrets, and gods. But today, they offered no comfort.

The pulsewave from the field still echoed through the Institute's soulfields. A residue. A vibration that refused to fade.

Elizabeth Jaeger was gone. Taken by the Chinese.

That wasn't the problem.

One of the Lords had found her.

And Grimm wasn't sure if Max Jaeger would survive the next forty-eight hours.

"Anything from Ferron?" Grimm asked, voice low and clipped.

Dr. Adisa turned to walk beside him. Her eyes were unreadable. "He's alive. Silent since the crash, but we picked up a soul-tag ping. He's nearby. Watching."

"Good," Grimm muttered.

They stepped into the tactical armoury.

Alpha and Omega were already waiting.

Alpha stood statue-still – tall, poised, her white combat skin laced with soul-hardened armour. She was all angles and economy, hair tied in a brutalist knot. Her eyes locked onto Grimm the instant he entered.

Omega paced like a storm — broad, twitching with kinetic tension. His gauntlets snapped with ghost-static. The stabilizers along his back hissed in time with his breath.

"Status?" Alpha asked.

Grimm didn't break stride.

"Max Jaeger is down. His team is withdrawing. Chamber Theta is tracking them. The Chinese have the girl."

Omega stopped pacing. "Extraction?"

Grimm keyed open a side locker. Inside: gear reserved for high-threat external deployment – soulfield null grenades, spectral dampeners, a crimson deployable beacon etched with suppression runes. He unlocked them with a cold flick of his wrist.

"Your objective is protection. Priority target: Max Jaeger. Ferron is embedded and will lead you to them."

Omega grunted. "That puts you alone."

Grimm didn't answer.

Alpha turned. "Are you certain?"

Grimm looked up.

For just a second, something crossed his face. Not fear.

Recognition.

"I've been alone before," he said softly.

Neither of them moved.

He closed the locker and handed Alpha a soul-beacon tag.

"You'll operate independently. No uplink. If you're compromised, I'm not wasting resources pulling you out."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Alpha took the tag. "Understood."

Omega cracked his neck. "Finally. A real fight."

But Alpha didn't move. Her eyes remained fixed on Grimm.

"This leaves you vulnerable."

Grimm raised an eyebrow. "Do you think I've forgotten that?"

She didn't respond.

He stepped closer. Lowered his voice.

"I know what's hunting me." "I can feel it breathing down my spine." "But Max carries the fire. And the girl… she carries something worse." "If either falls into the wrong hands…"

He let it hang.

Then added, quieter still:

"If you're fast, I won't have to die today."

That satisfied her. She nodded once and turned for the exit. Omega followed, gauntlets sparking with anticipation.

The door hissed open, then sealed behind them – leaving Grimm and Adisa alone.

Dr. Adisa broke the silence.

"This leaves you exposed."

Grimm turned to her. "I'm aware."

A pause.

"You hate that, don't you?" she asked.

His jaw flexed. "Yes."

The silence that followed wasn't procedural. It was personal.

Grimm could tolerate monsters, gods, war, even betrayal.

But not this.

He was being hunted.

He had felt it for weeks now – like a memory turned sour, like eyes just outside his field of view. No trail. No echo. But it was getting closer. Always closer.

It had gotten worse since leaving the Burrow.

The last time he felt this… was years ago.

When he survived a demon's feeding ritual.

He had escaped with his soul intact.

But not unmarked.

"It's getting closer, isn't it?" Adisa asked, almost whispering.

Grimm didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

Whatever's coming, he thought, it won't knock twice.

…………………

Agent 714 moved like an afterthought – fast, silent, erased between blinks.

She tracked the Chinese convoy from the ridgeline, body still and mind calculating. Her reactive armour blurred into the terrain, filtering heat, light, and micro-vibrations. Supersoldier protocols ran silently beneath her skin.

Below, three black-armoured APCs rolled through the scorched trees, headlights dimmed, formation tight. In the centre vehicle: a reinforced steel crate, secured and sealed. No markings. No radiation. But it pulsed with faint pressure even through the dirt.

She narrowed her eyes behind her visor.

That's it. The pod. The one the CIA team tried to claim. The one Max Jaeger bled to protect. The one the girl was inside.

She didn't know what was inside – not really.

It didn't matter.

What mattered was that everyone wanted it. The CIA. The Chinese military. Max. Especially General Wang – and that made it worse.

And none of them were telling her why.

She moved.

A blur through the brush. A low leap over the embankment. She landed in a crouch on the rear APC, magnetics engaging without sound.

The chassis was cool. Standard composite.

But the crate…

Something about it made her skin crawl. It wasn't broadcasting anything, but the air around it felt tight. Charged. Like static before a lightning strike.

This isn't a containment box. It's a vault.

She reached into her hip pouch and retrieved a tracer dart – insulated, passive, undetectable. One of her own. Not standard-issue. Definitely not approved for this op.

She didn't trust anyone else to track it.

Not anymore.

She slid the dart beneath the coolant plate on the undercarriage. It clicked into place.

Tracker Locked. Signal Acquired.

She disengaged and dropped back into the undergrowth. Gone before the wheels turned again.

Minutes later, she crouched beneath a tree, watching the APCs vanish into the forest.

Her breath was steady.

Her heart was not.

This entire mission was wrong. Max Jaeger was labelled an anomaly. Liz Jaeger was supposed to be non-hostile. A medical escort. And yet…

She'd seen the footage. The pod vibrating. The girl bleeding from her eyes. The pressure that made grown men flinch.

None of this makes sense.

Why did the girl bleed through sealed armour? Why did the CIA team fight for her like she was a nuclear device? Why was the Chinese military calling her a "strategic asset"?

And why, above all, did Max Jaeger scream her name like his world was ending?

He wasn't protecting a weapon, she realized. He was protecting his daughter.

Her comm pinged.

❖ Stand by for new route. ❖ Rendezvous with Agent 49 in Chengdu. ❖ Then proceed to HQ. ❖ Final destination: London.

Her brow furrowed behind the visor.

"London?"

A second ping.

❖ You will investigate a facility known as the Grimm Institute.

She blinked.

She didn't know the name. Didn't know what they did. But she knew Liz had come from there.

And that General Wang wanted it watched. Or erased.

Maybe both.

Then one final line appeared in her display:

❖ Agent 49 has been given secondary objective: locate and capture Max Jaeger.

Her pulse spiked.

She closed the comm.

Switched to passive mode.

And stood, alone, in the cold dark.

Eyes fixed on where the pod had disappeared.

Somewhere deep inside her, the questions multiplied.

And doubt… was harder to silence than orders.

…………………

The portable soulfield generator hissed softly beneath the canopy.

Inside the black field shelter, six figures moved in silence – not from discipline, but from routine. Chamber Theta didn't speak unless necessary. They were a kill cell, not a team.

At the centre, Reverb, their commander, stood over a floating tactical interface. The soulfield projection flickered in front of him – terrain scan, biosignatures, and tagged targets.

Two traces pulsed in red: ➤ Max Jaeger – heavily wounded ➤ His group – scattered, fleeing west

"Civilians," Reverb said, voice calm but absolute. "Moving toward river sector. Nearest populated zone is a village. No garrison. We'll intercept from the ridgeline."

He tapped the map.

PRIORITY ASSET: MAX JAEGER STATUS: ALIVE CONDITION: CRITICAL

Behind him, Crux was hunched over a soulplate shard, dragging his thumbnail down its cracked surface like he was tuning an instrument made of bone.

"His light's dimming," Crux murmured. "But the embers still speak. He'll bleed out truth when the pain breaks the faith."

Reverb ignored him.

Rewind materialized at his side – a distortion that blinked into solidity. His face was half-covered by a phase hood, his breathing slow and shallow.

"They've slowed," he said. "Carrying wounded. Probably him. Two others dragging a fourth."

"Confirmed," Reverb replied. "ETA to intercept: forty five minutes. If they hole up, we strike."

At the edge of the tent, Gallows leaned against a support pillar, body half-morphed. One arm was human. The other flickered – too long, wrong-boned, shifting in texture as if unsure what form to hold. He said nothing. He never did.

But his gaze was fixed on the same trace Reverb had tagged.

Across from him, Splice finished recalibrating a drone's soulfield dampener, then looked up.

"Engage if local forces interfere?"

Reverb nodded once. "Collateral rules suspended."

That left only Stonewall — seated near the shelter's edge, motionless, arms crossed over her knees. Her armour was thicker than the others', lined with braced kinetic dampeners and soulflux plating. Her eyes were unreadable. Her expression – blank.

"Pod's gone," she said flatly. "That girl's not ours anymore."

"Correct," Reverb said. "New directive. We don't chase the result."

He looked around the room.

"We chase the source."

"If we get Max alive," Reverb continued, "we don't need the girl. He's the conduit. We take him apart, we take apart the anomaly. Simple as that."

Stonewall blinked once. "You're sure it's him?"

Reverb didn't answer immediately. He watched the pulse signature – Max's soulprint, still flickering, but slowing.

Then he replied:

"Yes."

Rewind vanished.

Crux stood slowly, flexing his fingers. "I'll make him sing."

Gallows gave a low growl – eager.

Stonewall uncrossed her arms, rose without a word, and strapped her gauntlets tighter.

Reverb shut off the map display.

The girl was protected. The girl was hidden. But Max... Max had no shield left.

"Pack up," he ordered. "We move in five."

Outside, the trees stirred with wind and fireflies.

Inside, six killers moved in silence.

And one of them – Reverb – was already calculating the exact moment Max Jaeger would die.

…………………

They stumbled through the trees like ghosts.

Chloe's legs ached. Her back throbbed beneath Dan's weight. His arm hung over her shoulder, limp and blood-slick. Every breath felt like a curse. Every step sounded too loud.

Alyssa walked ahead, hugging her elbows, eyes vacant. She hadn't spoken since the ridge.

Victor carried Max.

Max – pale, blood-soaked, more dead than alive. His head lolled against Victor's shoulder. His breaths came in weak, rattling bursts. The Soulfire that once lit his body was gone.

Gone like Liz.

Gone like everything.

They reached the edge of a ruined village. Just a few stone buildings. Burnt rice fields. A rusted barn half-collapsed under the weight of fire and time. No lights. No people.

Victor grunted. "We stop here. Can't go further without dropping bodies."

He pushed open the barn's splintered door with his shoulder and stepped inside. Chloe followed, guiding Dan to the floor as gently as she could.

The air smelled like damp wood and old ash. Somewhere beneath it, something sharp – metal? salt?

Victor lowered Max into a patch of hay, cradling his head carefully. Max groaned once. Then nothing.

Alyssa stood near the door, fists trembling. "He's not breathing right. He's—he's not—"

"I know," Victor said. "But there's nothing else we can do."

Silence fell.

The kind that sinks deep.

Until someone behind them spoke.

"You've done enough."

Victor spun, eyes wild, hand instinctively curling into a fist.

A man stepped from the shadows near the collapsed wall.

Slim, robed in dark fabric. His long black coat was frayed at the edges, and his left shoulder was bandaged. His right hand held a thin wooden cane – not for walking, but for anchoring.

His face was familiar.

Chloe gasped. "Ferron?"

For a heartbeat, Chloe didn't believe it. After all the blood, after the screaming, after the pod was taken – hope didn't look like anything anymore. But there he was. Solid. Real. Alive.

The man gave a tired smile.

"Still breathing," he said. "And it looks like so are you."

Victor exhaled with relief – or maybe disbelief. "We thought you were dead."

"Close," Ferron said, stepping forward. "But I had better hiding spots than most."

His eyes flicked to Max.

"What happened?"

Victor didn't answer right away.

Chloe did.

"They took Liz."

Ferron's face didn't change – but something in the air did. A stillness. A narrowing of focus.

"Where?"

"Chinese military," Victor said. "Lifted her with a containment rig."

"And him?" Ferron nodded toward Max.

"Shot to hell," Victor said. "They didn't kill him. Just broke him."

Ferron knelt beside Max, placing two fingers against his chest. Not to check for breath but to feel something deeper. Chloe wasn't sure how she knew. She just… knew.

"He's alive," Ferron murmured. "But barely."

He stood.

"We can't stay here."

Victor stared at him. "He won't make another run."

"He won't have to."

Ferron tapped his cane once against the barn floor. It emitted a low chime – almost musical – and the air around them shifted.

A sigil sparked faintly into life in the rafters. Just for a moment.

Then faded.

"There's a safehouse in Shanghai," Ferron said. "Old Institute fallback site. I can get us there."

Victor looked down at Max. Then at Chloe and Dan. Then at Alyssa.

"Then what?"

Ferron's voice didn't waver.

"Then we get her back."

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