"There's no such thing as a random nightmare."
It hit Caleb like a kick to the gut — not all at once, but slow. With weight.
He sat alone in Jonah's basement, the flickering desk lamp casting long shadows over the wall of death in front of him. News clippings. Surveillance stills. Blurred faces. The whole grim mosaic that had been haunting him since the coma.
The premonitions were beginning to contact to each other not just victims but the killers began to be recognized. Caleb began to see the pattern and was now connecting the dots.
He looked at his list of prophesized victims and started overlaying photos — suspects.
Jamal Davis.
Trey "Lockjaw" Merritt.
Devon Barrick.
Carter Singh.
And that's when he saw it. The link. The rot. The Iron Vultures.
They weren't just Isaac's killers.
They were the common thread behind every nightmare.
The little girl — the first death. Caleb had seen her in a park, laughing alone on a swing. She wore a yellow dress. Her shoelace was untied.
In his dream, he saw a screech of tires. A scream. Then silence.
The next day, she was dead. Hit by an SUV in a parking lot that bordered the park. Witnesses said the driver had been speeding. Didn't even brake.
CCTV caught the license plate.
The van was registered to a shell company — one of Lockjaw's fronts.
That was the moment it all clicked.
The Raven wasn't showing him chaos. It was showing him targets.
Every victim in his visions was dying at the hands — or negligence — of the Iron Vultures.
Every nightmare was a breadcrumb.
Every death, intentional or collateral, was a call for Caleb to act.
He started with the one he knew he could reach.
Trey "Lockjaw" Merritt.
Dishonorably discharged military. Hired muscle. Known sadist. Had a butcher shop near Dufferin where he laundered gang cash and pumped fear through the streets. And he was behind the wheel the night the little girl died — Caleb knew it.
It wasn't just murder anymore, It was justice.
Thursday, 10:56 PM.
Rain fell hard enough to strip paint. Caleb crouched in the alley opposite the butcher shop, coat soaked through, blade cold in his grip.
He watched as a woman In a green coat stepped outside.
And then — Jamal.
Sliding from the shadows behind her like a ghost with a grin.
Caleb's heart turned to fire. He moved fast — faster than he'd ever moved — but not fast enough.
Jamal slashed her face wide open — a curved, deep gash that sprayed blood down her neck.
The woman collapsed, howling.
Jamal looked up. Locked eyes with Caleb.
And smiled.
Then disappeared into the dark. Again.
But Lockjaw made a mistake. He didn't run.
He stepped out the back door, dragging a crowbar, half-lit cigar clenched between brown teeth.
He saw Caleb.
"You're the one that got away," he muttered. "Guess I'm finishing the job."
Caleb didn't answer.
He lunged.
The crowbar came swinging. Caleb ducked under it and drove Lockjaw backward into the wet brick wall.
The karambit flashed.
Straight into his thigh — deep, tearing muscle and nicking bone. Lockjaw bellowed, staggered back, and swung a heavy elbow into Caleb's jaw.
A crack of cartilage. Rain and blood mixing in his mouth.
Caleb shoved him again, trapped his arm, and slammed the blade under the ribs, upward — aiming for the lung.
Lockjaw screamed, tried to crawl. But Caleb straddled him like a demon come to collect.
"You killed her," Caleb hissed. "The little girl. She had no one."
Lockjaw blinked, coughing blood.
"You think she was the first?" he wheezed. "You don't even know what we've done."
Caleb didn't want to know.
He just wanted silence.
He rammed the knife into Lockjaw's neck.
Once.
Twice.
A third time — carving through skin, sinew, and whatever soul the man had left.
Lockjaw gurgled. Hands clawed at the sky.
Caleb kept going.
Chest.
Stomach.
Cheek.
Eye socket.
Twelve wounds in total. Each deeper than the last.
Until the body stopped twitching.
Until there was nothing left but blood and meat and bones trying to remember how to be human.
He stood up in the alley's silence, shaking.
Rain washed some of the gore away, but his hands stayed red.
He looked up.
The Raven perched above, silent in the rain, feathers matted but eyes sharp.
The white mark on its chest — Isaac's birthmark — glowed faintly beneath the dull alley light.
Caleb nodded once, lips trembling.
"I see it now," he whispered. "You were never warning me… you were showing me who to kill."
The Raven blinked.
Then it spread its wings — and vanished into the storm.
The alley stank of blood, rust, and rain. The puddles were darker now — slick with memory. Caleb stood alone, fists clenched, heart hollow, body soaked in violence.
No sirens. No screams.
Just the sound of water washing blood into the storm drain, as if the city itself was trying to forget.
His first kill. The first life he took by choice.
It didn't bring peace.
It didn't bring joy.
But it brought direction.
He looked to the rooftop where the Raven had perched. Gone now. But its presence still lingered in the wind, like a shadow that never truly left.
Caleb exhaled slowly and turned his back on the corpse, on the gore, on the part of himself that died with the man.
There were more of them.
And they would all answer for what they'd done.
End of chapter 6.