Ali took Sami to a doctor and luckily his little brother was in perfect shape. No Ghoul-tainted cuts, no internal injuries from the suplex or the subsequent terror. Ali, who had stood silently by during the examination, his face etched with deep fatigue, felt a knot in his chest loosen infinitesimally.“He is fine. Just needs rest, and perhaps a long talk about workplace safety,” the doctor had said with a knowing, but careful, smile.Now, Ali drove them back to the main Knights’ headquarters, the silence in the car a complex tapestry. It wasn’t the angry silence from before, nor the usual dismissive quiet. It was a heavy, processing silence. Sami stared out the window, watching the city lights blur past, his knuckles white where they gripped his knees. The adrenaline had fully receded, leaving behind a hollow, trembling awareness of what he had done, and what had almost happened.When they entered the common area of the HQ, they found Samir alone, hunched on a worn sofa, staring blan

The training yard behind the Knights' headquarters was quiet in the late afternoon, the sun casting long shadows across the worn mats and training dummies. Ali stood with his arms crossed, watching his two younger brothers run through a basic disarming drill for the seventh time. Samir's footwork was sloppy, and Sami kept telegraphing his strikes by tensing his shoulders a full second before moving."No, no, stop," Ali called out, his voice carrying that particular tone of exhausted resignation that had become his default when dealing with them. He stepped forward, separating the two panting youths. "Sami, you might as well send the Ghoul a formal invitation to your attack. Your shoulders are screaming 'I'm about to hit you' from across the room. And Samir, your stance is so wide I could drive a truck through it. You're not trying to wrestle a bear; you're trying to maintain mobility.""But Marwan said a wide stance gives better stability," Samir protested, wiping sweat from his foreh

The training yard at the headquarters was bathed in the harsh glare of overhead floodlights as Ali put his brothers through their paces. Sami and Samir moved through the drills with slightly better coordination than the week before—still clumsy, still prone to telegraphing their strikes, but improving. Ali corrected them with his usual precise efficiency, his voice a steady stream of instructions and adjustments.Between sets, while his brothers collapsed onto benches to catch their breath, Ali pulled out his phone and dialed Marwan's number. It rang through to voicemail. He frowned, waited a few minutes, and tried again. Same result."What's wrong?" Sami asked, noticing his brother's expression.Ali pocketed the phone. "I've been trying to reach Marwan for days. He's not answering my calls, not responding to messages. It's unlike him."Samir shrugged, still breathing heavily. "He was here yesterday. Training the new recruits. Seemed normal to me.""Yesterday?" Ali's frown deepened. "

Ali was deeply focused on a microscopic component, tweezers in hand, when the door burst open with enough force to rattle the schematics pinned to the walls."Traitor!" Laith's voice thundered through the room.Ali nearly dropped the component. He spun around, tweezers still raised defensively, to find Laith standing in the doorway with his arms crossed and a theatrical scowl on his face. Behind him, two junior Knights who had clearly followed him out of curiosity peeked around the doorframe before quickly disappearing when Ali caught their eye."What?" Ali demanded, lowering the tweezers. "What did I do?"Laith strode into the room, his movements carrying that particular fluid grace that came from years of martial training combined with natural athleticism. He stopped directly in front of Ali's desk, looming impressively despite the fact that Ali was still seated."I heard," Laith announced dramatically, "that you're making new armor for everyone. Everyone except me. You forgot I exi

The fluorescent lights of the hospital ceiling hummed overhead, a steady, mechanical drone that seemed to pulse in time with the throbbing agony in Ghassan's shoulder. He drifted in and out of consciousness, the boundaries between waking and dreaming blurred by pain and whatever drugs the doctors had pumped into his system.When he woke fully, he saw nothing but darkness.The room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of monitors tracking his vitals. His shoulder screamed with every heartbeat, a deep, burning pain that radiated down his arm and across his chest. He tried to move, to cry out, but his body felt weighted down, unresponsive.Then he heard the voice."Run."It wasn't a sound. It was more like a thought inserted directly into his mind, cold and slithering, ancient and wrong."Run, little human. They will make you a lab rat."Ghassan's eyes darted around the room, searching for the source. There was nothing, only shadows, the sounds of machines and the faint outline of the door