Hhhhk... khhhk...The sound of breathing came like a broken diesel engine being forced to start underwater.On a folding cot in the corner of an old garage in Sector Three, Elias’s chest rose and fell at an unnatural pace. Cold sweat drenched his pale face. The thin oxygen tube in his nose was no longer doing much. The air around him felt thick, but his lungs refused to absorb it."Hold on, El. Open your mouth, breathe through your mouth!" Sloane shouted under his breath, his hands expertly flicking a syringe.Two days after Dante’s death on the nightclub rooftop, Elias’s body had finally come to collect the price of that massacre. His nervous system was burning from the inside from the effects of Ghost Rot. The black veins spreading across the left side of his neck now throbbed painfully, as if strangling his trachea.Jab.Sloane drove the syringe filled with a high-dose corticosteroid straight into the side of Elias’s neck.Elias convulsed for a moment, his eyes rolling wide, before

Twitch.Roman’s gloved index finger moved slightly. Inside the dark loading bay, lit only by the small flashlight beams of his two comrades, the motion looked unnatural.“Hold on, he’s still breathing!” one guard shouted, pressing at Roman’s neck, trying to find a carotid pulse. “His neck bones shifted, but, ”Before the guard could finish the sentence, Roman’s hand shot upward and clamped tightly onto the front of the man’s ballistic vest.“Roman? You’re fighting through the pa, ”KRAK!Roman’s corpse sat upright in an instant.His head hung ninety degrees to the right, limp and dead because the supporting bones were shattered. But his strength was not dead at all. Using the last remaining blood flow in the host body, Elias forced Roman’s two hands to twist the kneeling guard’s head.The crack of breaking bone echoed sharply through the darkness.The guard died without ever managing to scream. His eyes bulged, and his body collapsed on top of Roman.“What the hell!”The second guard

Inside the wooden coffin kept at minus five degrees, Elias’s breath caught for a moment. The frozen air seemed to drive straight through his chest and into his heart. His blood-covered hands gripped the wheels of his chair so tightly his knuckles ached. Sloane’s words had just torn apart the ego that had swelled sky-high only moments ago, shredding it into tiny pieces.Caleb was gone.Elias swallowed, his throat full of sharp gravel. He had only known the one-eyed man for a few hours. Caleb had been an arrogant smuggler who charged an insane price for his ventilator, but Caleb had also been the man willing to break through Vancroft security to save Elias’s life. And more than that... Caleb had been the anchor of Sloane’s sanity.“Sloane.” Elias’s voice trembled through the earpiece. Pure panic replaced his arrogance. “Get away from there. I’ll take over a guard’s corpse downstairs and bring the squad up to you.”“No need to bother, Boss,” Sloane whispered faintly.Upstairs, Sloane sti

Tick... Tick... Tick...The sound of blood dripping from bodies strewn across the corridor rang clearly through the silence, creating a monotonous and terrifying rhythm. Black and red stains smeared the concrete walls, mixed with flecks of brain matter.Sloane still sat on the cold floor of the electrical control room. Caleb’s stiff body rested in her lap. Her tears had dried, leaving dirty tracks across her pale face. The former combat medic’s eyes were empty now, staring straight into the corridor without blinking.As if her soul had died with her oldest friend. But slowly, her survivor’s instinct returned.She could not stay here. The alarms had stopped, but Vancroft reinforcements or Saint-Bastian police would already be on the way.Sloane gently lowered Caleb’s head onto the concrete floor, removed her shredded coverall jacket, and draped it over the one-eyed man’s face.“I’ll finish this for you, Cal,” Sloane whispered without emotion. Her voice was flat and cold as ice.She ros

The fifth-floor investigation room at Saint-Bastian Central Police Headquarters reeked of stale coffee, thick cigarette smoke, and cheap paper. Inspector Kael Thorne stood silently before a giant bulletin board layered in green cork. His sharp eyes moved across dozens of horrifying Polaroids pinned up at random.The left side of the board was filled with photos from the crime scene at Club The Apex. Dante Vancroft’s shattered body on the helipad platform, piles of guards with torn ballistic vests on the stairwell, and the ruined faces of other guards who had shot each other at close range.The right side was covered in much fresher horror, the Obsidian Vault crime scene. Photos of the red-beret commander whose head had been blown apart by his own men, photos of the Vault Master with a combat knife through his throat, and of course, the photo of the vault corridor with its massive door hanging wide open, not a single dollar left inside.Thorne connected the two massacre sites with stra