The words had rolled off Ryker's tongue easily enough, but he could feel the terror radiating off the man beside him. Cassian didn't trust him even now.
Down in the foyer, the mob hesitated. The limping man tightened his grip on his makeshift club, his face twisting in disbelief as he tried to call what he hoped was a desperate bluff.
"You're full of shit!" the man roared, his voice cracking at the edges. "You wouldn't blow up the whole floor! You'd die too! He's bluffing!"
Ryker didn't flinch. He let his shoulders drop into an easy, relaxed posture, allowing his face to settle into a complete, dead stillness.
He didn't bother offering them a flicker of human empathy. To Ryker, the dozen people standing below were insects. He let that absolute indifference fill his eyes, watching the panic take root below.
"You have two choices," Ryker said, keeping his tone smooth as silk as his thumb hooked a fraction deeper into the pin ring. "You can turn around and walk out that door right now... or you can test my resolve, die in the blast, and prove yourselves right."
He tilted his head slightly, letting a cold, hollow smile touch his lips.
"So... who wants to test me?"
Silence slammed over the foyer.
"Out! Get out!" someone screamed from the back.
The crowd dissolved into a chaotic stampede. The limping man threw his club to the floor, the grieving mother stumbled backward, and the mob shoved frantically past one another to reach the exit. They slammed open the heavy front doors, fleeing into the fog outside.
In less than five seconds, the foyer was empty.
Ryker watched the open doorway until the frantic footsteps faded. Deliberately, he lowered his arm and slipped the grenade back into his deep jacket pocket.
"Fools," he muttered, his voice flat and dry.
A heavy thump sounded beside him as Cassian's legs gave out completely. The man slid down the wall, leaving a streak of crimson on the peeled wallpaper.
That was when Ryker saw it: a faint, luminous white-gold glow flickering like static at the roots of Cassian's hair. Volatile power, primed by panic. Worse, Cassian was staring up at him through a haze of blood, quietly evaluating the threat standing over him.
Ryker shifted. To disarm a man like Cassian, force wouldn't work he needed a different kind of weapon. He pictured Julian: the soft eyes, the disarming warmth, that bright, effortless charisma that made people instantly lower their shields.
Ryker smoothed his features, slipping into Julian's skin like a tailored suit.
He crouched down fluidly to Cassian's eye level, the coldness instantly draining from his face to leave behind a picture of quiet, earnest concern.
"They won't be throwing any more rocks at you," Ryker whispered, his tone dropping into a warm, soothing cadence that mimicked Julian's to perfection.
He reached out, his bare fingers gently brushing a matted lock of hair away from Cassian's split forehead.
Under his touch, the shift was instant. The static in Cassian's hair fizzled out into dead air, the white-gold sparks dying down as the Captain's shoulders finally sagged in relief.
"You can trust me."Ryker murmured, pouring smooth, hypnotic warmth into every word.
He watched Cassian's pupils dilate, the subtle tremor in the Captain's jaw as the words sank deep into his chest. " From now on, I'll be right by your side.... just as Julian would have wanted."
Cassian stared at him, his chest heaving as the tailored comfort worked its venom. A breath hitched in his throat, and then a faint, exhausted tremor caught the corner of his mouth.
"You really are something else, Ryker," Cassian rasped, his laugh weak, breathy, and utterly defenseless.
Cassian tilted his head back against the wall, his unfocused gaze wandering over the ruined foyer. The shattered glass, the broken furniture, and the dark stains left behind. The tentative warmth in his eyes faded into a deep, somber weight.
"I should... I really need to clean this place up," Cassian murmured, his voice thick with a quiet, lingering grief. "I can't just leave my people lying on the floor. I need to bury them at the very least. That's the most I could do for them after what they did."
Ryker didn't care about the rotting corpses, but he gave Cassian's shoulder a light, reassuring squeeze.
"Then I'll help you," Ryker said smoothly, his voice soft and steady. "Bury every single one."
Cassian looked at him, a profound, heavy silence settling between them. The tension in the air resolved into genuine gratitude. Cassian just sat there, soaking in the silence, deeply appreciative of the man he thought was stepping up to be his rock when everything else had crumbled.
Then, a sound cut through the quiet.
It was a heavy, uneven dragging noise against the floorboards from the dark corridor, but the rhythm was entirely broken, scraping shuffles followed by a dead, lingering pause, as if whatever was walking had to consciously remind its limbs how to move.
Cassian's smile vanished instantly. His body went taut, his eyes snapping toward the hallway. Ryker felt the sudden shift in the air and smoothly shifted his weight, his right hand slipping discreetly back into his second coat pocket toward the steel knife.
Across the wall of the corridor, a shadow stretched into the foyer light. It moved in sharp, jarring angles, the head tilted at an impossible, broken slant before the figure even crossed the threshold.
A lone, trembling silhouette lurched out from the dark.
"Vance...?" Cassian's voice broke on a ragged breath.
Cassian's breath hitched, sounding almost like a sob. Vance was supposed to be dead, left behind along with the rest of the soldiers. For a second, the crushing weight on Cassian's chest seemed to vanish entirely.
One of his closest friends, his most trusted ally, was standing right in front of him now.
Cassian lurched forward, practically throwing himself down the steps toward the landing. His knees buckled instantly he would have tumbled headfirst down the hard wood and snapped his neck if Ryker hadn't caught him.
Ryker hooked a firm arm around Cassian's waist, hauling the Captain's weight against his side.
Beneath his mask, a profound, ugly disgust churned in Ryker's gut. Moments ago, Cassian could barely stand, yet the mere sight of this miserable, broken creature had pulled an immediate, raw devotion from him.
Still, Ryker kept his expression smooth, guiding Cassian down the remaining stairs step by slow step, his pulse humming with a quiet, icy contempt.
The moment Cassian's feet hit the bottom step, he pushed away from Ryker's grip. He stumbled the rest of the distance and slammed into Vance, throwing his arms around his friend in a crushing, desperate hug, pulling the blanket tight around his own bare shoulders as he clung to him.
Vance didn't react to the impact. He didn't wrap his arms around Cassian. He didn't even shift under the weight.
He stood like a cold, dense slab of lead radiating a total absence of body heat that bled straight through Cassian's clothes. He was moving without rhythm, without a single spark of human life. His eyes were entirely hollow, staring fixedly at nothing. He couldn't speak, couldn't focus, couldn't even make a sound.
"Vance? Hey... look at me," Cassian murmured frantically, his voice thick as he tried to pull the man back to reality. "It's over. You're safe now. I've got you."
A few steps behind them, Ryker watched silently, his sharp eyes narrowing. Something had changed. Just moments ago, when Ryker had first spotted him from the landing, the man had been crouched on the floor, frantically rocking back and forth. Now, he was standing, moving with that sickening, aimless drift.
Cassian gently pulled back to look at his friend's face, his hands slipping down Vance's arms. That was when he felt the slick, heavy dampness against Vance's uniform.
Cassian's breath hitched. He stepped back and realized that the entire circumference of Vance's soldier uniform around his torso had been shredded open, the dark fabric torn to ribbons. Soaked deep into the cloth was a horrifying amount of dark, fresh crimson.
"God,Vance, you're hit!" Panic surged back into Cassian's voice as he frantically reached out. "Ryker, help me he's bleeding out!"
Cassian shoved the torn tunic aside to locate the wound and froze.
The blood was everywhere, thick and wet, but beneath the ruined uniform, the skin of Vance's torso was unbroken. Smooth and entirely devoid of a single cut or mark.
Cassian stared at the unblemished skin in stunned, breathless confusion, his hands trembling where they hovered over Vance's chest.
"What..." Cassian choked out, looking up into Vance's empty, unblinking eyes. "Why is there so much blood there?"