Foden walked alone.
His boots struck the cracked concrete with the dull rhythm of fury.Each step louder than the last, echoing through the narrow corridor like a war cry with no army to answer it.
The air was heavy with whispers.
Low voices spilled from shadowed corners.Names spoken too quietly to hear… but loud enough to sting.He could feel the stares behind his back — silent accusations, unspoken judgments.
Why is he alive?Where is Ivy?What happened to the plan?
Foden ignored them, jaw locked, breath ragged.Blood still soaked through the bandage on his arm — pain pulsing with every heartbeat — but it was the weight in his chest that hurt more.
The corridor narrowed as he neared the end.
There it was.
The door.
Steel.Old.Stained with history.
The insignia of the Resistance carved deep into its surface. It looked more like a tomb than an entrance.
He paused only for a second.
Then grabbed the cold handle — every fiber in his body screaming with adrenaline — and shoved the door open.
It slammed against the wall with a metallic bang.
The chamber was just as he remembered: long, dim, suffocating.
A single flickering bulb hung from the ceiling, casting shadows like ghosts across the bare steel table that dominated the center of the room.
And at the far end — unmoving, massive, unreadable — sat the Chief.
A beast of a man.
His body swallowed the chair beneath him.His coat was ragged, but his posture radiated power.A deep scar carved diagonally across his face, disappearing beneath a leather eyepatch that had clearly seen more war than most men survived.
He coughed once.Deliberate. Cold.
Then swung his chair slowly, mechanically, to face Foden head-on.
The silence between them was nuclear.
And then —Foden snapped.
With a howl of rage, he launched across the room.
"You let her DIE!" he bellowed, fists clenched like wrecking balls.
The Chief barely had time to rise before Foden slammed into him.They collided like titans.Fist met flesh.Grunts echoed off steel.
Foden's fist connected with the Chief's jaw — once, twice — bloodying his nose.But the Chief didn't fall.
He roared, grabbed Foden by his collar, and with a bone-shattering crash, slammed him down into the steel table.The whole room shook.
Foden groaned, dazed, blood trickling from the side of his mouth.
The Chief stood over him, breathing heavily, his good eye blazing with fury.He wiped the blood from his nose without flinching.
Then he leaned down, voice low, sharp, and volcanic:
"Stay the fuck down."
Silence followed.
Only the sound of their heavy breathing.Of blood dripping onto cold steel.Of rage, contained — but barely.
Foden didn't move.Not because he surrendered…But because he knew if he stood again, one of them wouldn't walk out.
The Chief stepped back slowly, towering like judgment itself.He didn't need to yell.His presence did all the screaming.
At the other end of the room, the flickering bulb buzzed like a warning.And somewhere in the depths of the bunker… the war outside rumbled closer.
Chapter End