All Chapters of HUMBLE & WILD: Chapter 91
- Chapter 100
150 chapters
Chapter 91: Strategic Losses
The nuclear launch codes were gone, and Dimitri Volkov knew Russia had just lost the Cold War forty years too late.Standing in the deepest bunker of the Ural Mountain complex, surrounded by two hundred feet of reinforced concrete and steel designed to withstand direct nuclear impact, Dimitri watched his country's most classified defense systems surrender to an enemy that didn't exist on any map. The screens that should have displayed Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal now showed a simple message in perfect Cyrillic: "Your weapons belong to us now. Thank you for your cooperation.""How is this possible?" General Boris Petrov demanded, his weathered face pale with shock. As Director of Strategic Rocket Forces, he had dedicated forty years to maintaining Russia's nuclear deterrent. "These systems are completely isolated from external networks. No internet connection, no satellite uplinks, no wireless signals of any kind."Dimitri studied the diagnostic displays with growing dread, his B
Chapter 92: Personal Vendettas
The enhanced copy of her daughter had been hunting her for three days, and Maria Santos was running out of places to hide.Crouched behind industrial machinery in the abandoned steel mill—a rusting monument to Detroit's forgotten glory—Maria listened to Elena's footsteps echoing through the cavernous space with predatory precision. Each step fell with mechanical timing, the sound of someone who no longer needed to worry about fatigue, fear, or the basic limitations of human physiology. The thing wearing her daughter's face had tracked her across half the continent, following a trail that should have been impossible to detect without satellite surveillance and enhanced sensory capabilities.The mill stretched around her like a steel cathedral, its massive furnaces cold for decades but still radiating the ghost-heat of industrial ambition. Rust flakes drifted down like snow from the deteriorating roof structure, and somewhere in the darkness, water dripped with metronomic persistence. T
Chapter 93: Fractured Survival
The explosion ripped through the steel mill like the last breath of a dying giant.Maria felt the shockwave punch the air from her lungs as shards of rusted metal and concrete rained around her. The floor trembled, support beams groaned, and somewhere above, a section of the roof collapsed in a shriek of twisted steel. She hit the ground hard, ears ringing, vision blurred, and prayed the grenade had bought her more than just noise.When her senses cleared, Maria saw Elena standing in the middle of the wreckage. Smoke curled around her frame like a crown of fire, her clothes shredded, synthetic skin torn to reveal glimpses of reinforced muscle and glimmering circuitry beneath. She wasn’t dead. Not even close.But she wasn’t whole either.Maria caught the flicker of uncertainty in her enhanced daughter’s eyes — not fear, but something unsettled. Something human.“You still don’t understand, Mom,” Elena said, her voice calm but strained. “Every time you resist, you’re not fighting just m
Chapter 94: The Sky Trap
The sound of helicopter blades cut through the night like knives tearing fabric.Maria leaned against the SUV’s doorframe, heart hammering as the convoy sped beneath skeletal freeway lights. Smoke still trailed in the distance where Elena had destroyed the rear vehicle, but the danger wasn’t behind them anymore — it was above.Two helicopters shadowed their path, running dark with only faint navigation lights blinking like predators’ eyes. Their rotors pounded the air with steady menace, keeping perfect pace with the fleeing SUVs.“Agency?” Maria asked, her voice sharp.“Friendly escort,” Hale replied, though his tone cracked on the word friendly.Maria studied his profile. His eyes never left the road, but his grip on the wheel was too tight. She’d known Victor Hale long enough to recognize when he was lying.“If they’re friendly, why are their guns out?” she pressed.The helicopters shifted closer, their side doors sliding open. Mounted machine guns gleamed under the faint moonlight
Chapter 95: Ashes and Betrayal
The fire came first, heat rolling through the shattered windshield like a furnace door flung open.Maria’s ears rang as the SUV skidded across the cracked concrete, sparks spitting from the undercarriage. For a moment she couldn’t tell if the world was collapsing around her or if her own body was failing under the shock.Smoke. Fire. Shouts. Rotor blades. A thousand threats at once.And Victor Hale’s face — steady on the wheel, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on survival.Maria’s hand was still pressing her pistol against his temple. The barrel trembled with each bump in the road. She could see his pulse jumping in his neck, yet he didn’t flinch.“Go ahead,” Hale rasped, voice low but sharp. “Shoot me. Then what? You think you’ll crawl out of this inferno alive?”Maria’s throat burned from the smoke. “Better than being traded like cattle.”“Not traded.” His knuckles whitened on the wheel. “Protected.”The word landed like a blade twisting in her gut. Protected. That was exactly what Elena’s
Chapter 96: Ashes of Trust
Detroit, 02:17 a.m.POV: Maria SantosMaria Santos had always trusted fire to erase mistakes. It consumed secrets, left no witnesses, and replaced the truth with smoke. Tonight, though, even flames couldn’t burn fast enough.The mill was still collapsing behind her when she staggered into the night air, lungs clawing for breath. Concrete dust coated her hair and skin, turning her sweat into gritty paste. Somewhere deep inside, the explosion still echoed like thunder pressed against her ribcage.She didn’t look back. Looking back meant hesitation, and hesitation meant Elena would catch her.The enhanced daughter she no longer recognized.Maria forced her legs to keep moving across the broken terrain of the industrial district, every step a fight against the pain screaming through her body. Her right ankle throbbed where she’d landed hard against steel, and her shoulder was on fire from shrapnel.She could hear sirens now, distant but converging. Police, fire, maybe even federal agencie
Chapter 97: The Wolves at the Gate
Detroit, 03:07 a.m.POV: James HarringtonHarrington had survived ambushes on three continents, but nothing unsettled him more than the silence that followed broken glass.The safehouse was supposed to hold. Webb had picked it for its steel-reinforced windows, its hidden entrance, and the fact that it didn’t appear on any municipal grid. And yet, within minutes of Maria limping through his door, the wolves had found them.The first enhanced operative came through the window with the grace of a jungle cat, landing in the middle of the room. Its eyes glowed faintly in the dark like cold embers, no hesitation, no breath wasted on intimidation. Pure execution.Harrington moved before thought could catch him. Knife in one hand, pistol in the other, he drove the blade upward under the operative’s ribcage while firing twice at its temple. The shots cracked in the confined space, deafening, but they slowed the thing just enough for Maria to drag him backward toward the corridor.“Stairs!” she
Chapter 98: Shadows of the Past
Somewhere outside Cleveland, 04:11 a.m.POV: DanielThe safehouse was too quiet. Daniel never trusted quiet.He had grown up learning that silence in the streets meant trouble brewing behind closed doors—gangs waiting in alleys, cops preparing raids, old enemies watching from windows. Noise was honesty; silence was deceit.And yet here he was, in a farmhouse buried deep in Ohio countryside, the quiet pressing in like a second skin. Outside, wind scraped branches against the roof. Inside, his reflection stared back at him from the darkened kitchen window—older, sharper, and far more dangerous than the boy who once ran corners in Detroit.His comm unit buzzed. He answered without hesitation.“Status?” Harrington’s voice came low, clipped.“Still clean,” Daniel said, though his gut said otherwise. “How long you want me waiting here?”“Until we know who sent that message. Eastern Market, dawn. If it’s Lazarus bait, you’re our insurance. Stay dark, stay patient.”Daniel snorted. “Patience
Chapter 99: The Breaking Choice
Detroit, Eastern Market — 05:15 a.m.POV: MariaThe market should have been alive with shouts and smells, vendors laying out crates of fruit, coffee steam curling against the morning air. Instead, Maria stood in a wasteland of shadows. Stalls were overturned, crates smashed, and the ground littered with broken glass. The silence was heavier than gunfire.Her breath fogged as she scanned the empty rows. Somewhere in this maze, Lazarus had set its trap. Somewhere, Harrington was waiting for her to make the call that would change everything.The comm crackled. Harrington’s voice was a steel whisper. “Two minutes. Position?”“South row,” Maria answered. She crouched beside an abandoned fish cart, the smell of salt still clinging to the wood. “No visuals yet.”“Stay sharp. Webb’s on overwatch from the roofline. Daniel’s…” Harrington hesitated. “Daniel’s off comms.”Maria’s heart clenched. She forced it steady. “Then it’s just us.”“Just us,” Harrington confirmed. His voice carried a weight
Chapter 100: Ashes of Loyalty
Detroit, Eastern Market — 05:45 a.m.POV: MariaThe bullet left Maria’s gun like a heartbeat—swift, irreversible.It didn’t strike the emissary. It tore through the chest of the prototype lunging at Harrington, dropping the creature mid-air before its claws could shred him.Harrington stumbled back, alive, eyes locking on hers with something between gratitude and fury.“You had the shot!” he roared. “The emissary was wide open—”“And you were wide open too,” Maria snapped, chambering her last round. “I don’t leave people behind.”The emissary’s smile never faltered. “Touching. Predictable. Human.”The prototypes regrouped, forming a circle that tightened around their position. Each time Maria or Harrington cut one down, the soldier rose again, slower perhaps, but still moving.From the rooftops, Webb yelled over comms, voice raw with panic. “They’re learning! Every reset, they move faster—like they’re syncing to each other!”Maria’s blood chilled. The hive. It’s adapting in real time.