Smoke clung to the walls like ghosts refusing to leave.
Even hours after the Syndicate's retreat, the Hollow still bled. The wounded had been moved to the lower chambers, and the dead… most of them had names. Some didn't.
Kael stood in the middle of what used to be the central square. Now it was just rubble and craters, scorched metal, and broken promise. He had cuts across his arms, bruises turning purple across his ribs, and dried blood behind his ear. But he was alive.
Lira was sitting nearby, bandaged, quiet. Not because she had nothing to say—Kael could tell her mind was burning. She hadn't stopped shaking since the moment her powers triggered. Her eyes were wide, but not in fear.
In awe.
"I saw everything," she murmured. "And nothing. All at once."
Kael crouched beside her. "That was your ability. Refraction, right?"
"I don't know," she said. "It felt like… time bent, light shattered. My body disappeared and reappeared where I needed to be."
Kael nodded. "It wasn't just movement. You collapsed dimensions around your intent. A lot of people would've died if you hadn't stepped in."
Lira didn't smile.
"I felt like someone else," she said. "And it scared me."
Kael was silent for a moment, then looked at her with something rare in his eyes—gentleness.
"That's normal," he said. "Power changes people. It doesn't mean it breaks them."
Lira met his gaze. "What if it breaks everything else instead?"
Before he could respond, Rei approached, her arm in a sling and a datapad in her uninjured hand.
"Don't mean to interrupt the trauma bonding," she said, her tone dry, "but we've got a problem."
Kael stood. "Just one?"
"The Wraith left something behind," Rei said, handing him the pad. "Encrypted, but our tech team managed to crack part of it."
On the screen was a map. Not just of the Hollow but of five other hidden resistance outposts. Marked. Dated. All recent.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "They're sweeping."
Rei nodded. "Burning everything they couldn't control. Standard Syndicate protocol. But here's the kicker, they weren't supposed to know about Site Epsilon. Only three people had that intel."
Kael's stomach sank. "And one of them is dead. The other is me."
Rei didn't answer.
He knew what that meant.
"There's a mole," he said coldly.
"Or a prisoner flipped," Rei offered. "We won't know until we check Epsilon."
Kael's gaze drifted back to the wreckage. "Then we move before they do."
Rei raised a brow. "You're forming a strike team?"
"No," Kael said. "I'm forming a warning."
Later That Night
The Hollow felt like a grave with a heartbeat. Fires had been put out, and the wounded were stable. But fear still hung thick in the air.
Kael walked the upper ridge alone, trying to think, to feel. But nothing came. He was too used to loss. Too practiced at surviving it.
He stopped when he heard footsteps behind him.
Lira.
She was wearing a dark coat draped over her shoulders, her hair tied back, eyes glimmering faintly in the moonlight. "You're leaving," she said.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Now."
Lira hesitated. "I want to come with you."
Kael turned. "No."
"Why not? I can help—"
"You're not ready."
Her jaw tightened. "I didn't ask for permission."
Kael stared at her for a long moment. "If you come, you'll see more than you ever wanted. Blood. Torture. What they did to people like us."
"I already have."
"No," he said. "You've seen the scars. Not the blades that made them."
Lira didn't flinch. "Then let me see."
He looked away.
Moments passed.
Finally, he sighed. "Fine. But you follow my orders, no questions. You hesitate, you die. You go off alone, you die. You hold back, we both die."
Lira nodded. "I wasn't planning to die anyway."
Kael almost smiled.
Almost.
Meanwhile — Syndicate Blacksite Omega
In a cold chamber lit only by surgical floodlights, the Chrome Wraith knelt before a towering figure wrapped in shadows and wires. Its voice echoed through steel and static.
"You failed," the voice rasped.
The Wraith didn't bow. "No. I tested them."
"Unnecessary. Retrieval was your task."
"They're awakening faster than projected. The boy bends gravity like breath. The girl cracked time. I could have taken her, but not without being exposed."
Silence.
Then the voice whispered, "Let them grow. Let them believe they're winning."
The Wraith nodded. "Then strike?"
"No. Then offer. All things fall to their nature… eventually."
Kael and Lira walked side by side, cloaked in shadow, vanishing into the tunnels that led toward Site Epsilon.
Behind them, the Hollow
slept.
Ahead of them, a war waited.
And somewhere in the void between steps, Lira's fingers brushed Kael's.
Neither of them pulled away.