The air was still black when Raven stepped out of his room.
He had been awake for hours, just sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall, gear already packed and weapons ready.
Amelia was leaning against the counter, half-asleep, when he passed through the kitchen. She straightened.
"Where are you going?"
"Out," he said without slowing. "Be ready when I get back. We leave today."
"That's it?"
"Mhhh. That's it."
He opened the door and stepped into the cold before she could say more.
The streets were silent. His breath clouded in the air. He kept his pace steady, boots crunching over frost, hands deep in his coat pockets.
He had already checked where he had to go before he left, but he felt as if he could instinctively sense the direction of that place.
He had been waiting for three whole years just to come back here; still, even now, he felt as if he was not ready.
He could have come four days ago, the moment Ivanov's body hit the ground. But the rage then had been clean and sharp, holding everything else at bay. He had not wanted to see this place in that state.
Now they were leaving. This was his last chance.
The buildings changed as he walked. The neat lines of the city faded into the worn streets of the outskirts. Storefronts with their shutters pulled down. Cracked sidewalks. The faint smell of damp earth.
Cars were abandoned in the middle of the road as parts of the road had been damaged beyond repair by the rifts and monsters that now plagued this world.
And then the edges of his old hometown.
Every corner felt like a ghost. The park where he and his brother had raced until sunset. The small store his father would take him to after work, buying sweets that they would hide from his mother. The faded bus stop where he had waited for school every morning.
He passed them all without stopping.
The house waited at the end of the street.
It was smaller than he remembered. The fence sagged under peeling paint, weeds choking the path. A for-sale sign leaned crooked in the yard, its colours long since bled out.
No one had touched it.
The door wasn't locked. It opened with a dull creak, and the air inside felt thick, unmoving.
The living room stopped him.
The couch was still under the window. The table was still in front of it, one leg slightly uneven. The curtains hung where they always had, faded but untouched.
And the space in the centre of the floor.
His gaze fixed there before he realised he'd stopped walking.
He didn't need to see anything. The shape of it was still there, burned in behind his eyes. He could see it the way it had been, the blood pooled on the wall, the way the room had felt suddenly too small.
His father on the floor, chest still. His mother reaching out. His brother still crying in his cot. And then the silence.
It had all happened here.
Three years ago, he'd stood in this same spot and hadn't moved.
He could still hear it. The sound of the gunshots. The scream that followed. The smaller sound after that. Then nothing at all.
He hadn't done anything.
Not because he hadn't wanted to.
Because he couldn't.
His legs gave out without warning. He hit the floor hard, palms against the boards. For a second, he stayed there, breathing shallow, as if the room might push back.
'I should have been stronger.'
The thought didn't come clean. It tore through him, jagged and heavy.
He had kept this buried. Pushed it down under training, under blood, under the certainty that there were still people left to kill. As long as there was something to hunt, this could wait.
But there was nothing left.
No enemies to fight, organisations to take down, or revenge to enact.
Only this room.
Whatever he'd built to keep it contained cracked. The weight pressed down until he couldn't hold himself upright anymore.
His fists clenched until his knuckles split. He bent forward, forehead against the floor.
The tears came before he could stop them. Hot, uneven, striking the wood beneath him. He tried to slow his breathing, to force it back into control, but it slipped further each time.
'I stood here. I watched.'
The thought lodged and wouldn't move.
Three years of forced obedience. Three years of following orders while he told himself it would end here. Three years of not listening to the voices that came back at night.
He was still here.
They weren't.
"I'm sorry," he said, the words barely carrying. "I should have just followed you all."
They didn't change anything. They didn't reach anyone.
They were all he had.
His shoulders shook again, shorter this time, but deeper. The house didn't answer. It didn't move. It didn't forgive.
…
Amelia had meant to stay behind like he told her.
But something in his voice when he said he was leaving stuck with her.
She followed at a distance. Far enough that he wouldn't hear her. Close enough that she wouldn't lose him.
The walk stretched on. The city thinned. The streets emptied. Eventually, he stopped.
A small house waited at the end of the road.
She stayed back as he went inside. The door didn't close all the way.
She told herself she'd wait there.
Then she was on the path.
She stopped at the doorway and didn't step inside. The cold pressed against her back as she stayed half-hidden, listening to a silence that felt heavier than any sound.