2025-04-30 00:49:39The cheers in the boardroom had barely settled when the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall—heavy, urgent, deliberate.
Frank backed away from the terminal, still breathless from the high of cracking the code. His mind buzzed with adrenaline, with hope. This was it—his redemption.
Winston Wrenford turned to him, stunned. “You… You really did it.”
“I told you,” Frank said quietly.
One of the board members clapped him on the back. “Son, you just saved a multi-billion dollar company.”
But across the room, Corbin stared coldly at Frank. No applause. No congratulations. Just a phone in his hand and a look that could slice glass.
Outside the WrenTech building, a sleek black van sat parked by the curb. Inside, a man in tactical gear adjusted the scope of a silenced rifle. On his earpiece, a voice crackled.
“Advance.”
The assassin stepped out of the van, blending into the crowd. He moved with precision toward the executive wing, his rifle concealed in a guitar case. The target was simple: eliminate Winston Wrenford—quietly.
Inside, Ella burst into the boardroom. “Dad!” she gasped, “I just heard—Frank actually—”
She stopped short, seeing Frank at the center of attention.
“You did it,” she whispered.
Frank smiled at her. For the first time in what felt like years, her eyes weren’t filled with pity—but admiration.
Winston pointed to Frank. “This young man is the reason we’re not filing for bankruptcy today. And according to our terms—”
“You can’t be serious,” Corbin snapped.
“Oh, I’m deadly serious,” Winston said. “I made a vow. Whoever cracks this code leads the company forward.”
Corbin’s voice sharpened. “This janitor—this nobody—can’t just waltz in here and take the reins of WrenTech!”
“Would you rather the company be sold to foreign investors?” Winston snapped. “He saved us. That’s all that matters.”
Frank stepped forward. “I don’t want to run the company alone. I just want to help. I have ideas—”
“You don’t get to speak,” Corbin hissed.
Ella stepped between them. “Yes, he does.”
A silence settled, electric and dangerous.
Then—
CRASH.
The sound of breaking glass. A single suppressed gunshot shattered the moment.
Winston gasped—his shoulder exploding in blood.
Screams erupted.
Frank ducked, pulling Ella down with him. Board members scrambled for cover as more glass rained from above.
“Sniper!” someone shouted.
Chaos.
Frank spotted Corbin slipping toward the door in the confusion, his phone still in hand.
“Security!” Winston roared from the floor, clutching his shoulder.
Frank’s mind raced. This wasn’t random. This was planned. Corbin was making his move.
Frank bolted after him.
Corbin ran down the hallway like a man on fire, ditching his phone into a waste bin and pulling off his blazer. He moved fast, cutting through the staff hallway toward the parking garage.
Frank followed, heart pounding.
As Corbin rounded a corner, he slammed straight into a uniformed guard.
“Mr. Corbin—!”
Without hesitation, Corbin punched the guard in the throat, grabbed his taser, and shoved him into a wall.
Frank reached the scene seconds later, too late to stop him.
The guard groaned on the floor. “He’s… he’s heading for the exit…”
Frank didn’t think—he sprinted after him.
In the parking garage, Corbin reached his black sports car and threw open the door. But just as he slid into the seat—
“Stop!” Frank shouted.
Corbin turned, startled.
“You tried to have him killed!” Frank yelled. “Why? You’d risk everything—just to take control?”
Corbin smirked. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
“I understand enough,” Frank growled.
Corbin stepped out of the car, slowly, keeping his hands visible. “This company is too valuable to be led by janitors and idealists. Wrenford was weak. You just made it worse.”
Frank balled his fists.
“You think I did this for money?” Corbin hissed. “I did this for power. Control. Something a mop boy like you will never understand.”
Frank charged him.
The two collided violently, slamming into the side of the car. Corbin swung the taser, but Frank ducked and drove his knee into Corbin’s ribs. The older man grunted, then caught Frank’s shirt and slammed him onto the concrete.
“You should’ve stayed in your lane,” he snarled.
Frank kicked his legs up, catching Corbin in the chest and sending him backward. He grabbed the taser, turned it on—and fired.
Corbin collapsed in a twitching heap.
Frank stood, panting, just as security poured into the garage.
“He planned the hit!” Frank shouted. “Get him! Check his phone. The assassin is still out there!”
Meanwhile, on a nearby rooftop, the sniper packed up swiftly. His comms were dead. Plan aborted.
But before he left, he opened a small metal case. Inside: a dossier marked “FRANK SUTTON.”
New orders.
New target.
And somewhere, high above the city, a second finger hovered over a second trigger.
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Chapter 276: The One Who Followed
It didn’t breathe. It didn’t blink, It simply stood behind Callen, its feet hovering inches above the ground, its body draped in smoke that didn’t billow or rise, but hung around it like memory too heavy to leave.Eyes like burn holes in paper. Not black.Absent.Amari was the first to speak, Not a whisper, Not a warning. Just one word, ripped out of her like a curse:“Hollowborn.”Savi stumbled backward, Skov dropped into a low stance, Callen turned, swaying, blood running from his nose again, and froze. He knew what it was. He’d seen it in the Rift.But it hadn’t followed him. It shouldn’t have been able to. And yet, It had. Witnesses panicked.Some screamed and ran. Others dropped to their knees, spiral stones pressed to their chests, murmuring old Driftline prayers. The First was gone. The Second had vanished with the rupture.There was nothing now to guard them. Except Ember. And she was nowhere to be seen. Callen’s breath came ragged. “Where’s Ember?”No one answered, He stagger
Chapter 275: We Are the Ones Who Stay
The breach snapped shut like a mouth that had swallowed its last name, And with it, Callen was gone, Not dead, Not screaming. Just erased.Ember stood barefoot in the churned earth, mud clinging to her ankles, blood streaked up her arms, and a rawness inside her that didn't come from the Rift.The kind of rawness that meant something was missing, Not a limb, Not a stone, A person, Behind her, the Witnesses rose in silence. Some bowed. Some turned away. None dared speak her name.Skov walked toward her slowly, like someone approaching the center of a battlefield littered with traps. “Ember…”She didn’t look up. Just whispered, “He chose me.”Skov stopped. He had no answer. There wasn’t one, In the infirmary tent, Amari hovered over Callen’s body. Technically: not a body anymore. His vitals were gone. Pulse. Breath. Neural trace. Spiral groove completely burned out.But the skin was warm. The lips slightly parted. And his right hand still curled into a fist, like it was holding on to so
Chapter 274: The Echo That Stayed
When Ember collapsed, it didn’t feel like a fall, It felt like being unplugged.Cut off from the current she hadn’t even realized she’d been riding, Callen’s breath, the tether, the fractured echo-field. All of it snapped out of her at once, like a trapdoor yanked out from under her soul.Her body struck the mud hard, Eyes open, But the light inside her was off, Skov was the first to move. He ran.Dropped to his knees beside her and rolled her onto her back. “Ember. Look at me.”She didn’t blink, Savi was behind him a second later, spiral band scanning her vitals, but the readings flickered, pulsed, then flatlined “No pulse.”Skov’s voice cracked. “That’s not possible.”Amari knelt over Callen. “It is if she gave it back.”And she had The breath. The Root fire. The spark that wasn’t hers, She’d given it to Callen, But Callen wasn’t moving either.The Circle formed tight around them. Silent, No panic, Just stillness the kind that came after the end of a storm, when the damage couldn’t
Chapter 273: Breathing Borrowed Fire
The moment Ember opened her mouth and Callen’s breath passed through her lips, the world shifted, Not visibly, Not with tremor or collapse, But inside the air itself, as though the Riftline rewrote gravity to obey something ancient, something feral.Skov froze mid-step, Savi dropped her spiral band as if it suddenly burned, Amari went pale, whispering something no one could hear, The First scattered, not gliding fleeing.The Second’s hum surged so loud the Witnesses collapsed to their knees, And Ember… wasn’t breathing anymore, The breath in her body didn’t belong to her, It moved in rhythms foreign to her lungs slow, measured, thick like tar exhaled in pulses.Her eyes stayed open but unfocused, One hand still gripped Callen’s limp wrist, The Circle held its breath, Waiting, Watching, Not one dared touch her. Inside her chest, Ember was awake. But not… present.She stood in a space layered with pulse and echo. The floor beneath her flickered with overlapping memory, a thousand spiral
Chapter 272: A Body Not Yet Ash
When the light vanished, silence reigned, No pulse, No static, Not even the old hum of the Second threading through the Driftline Just blackness. Thick, hot, and wet.Like breath trapped inside lungs that had forgotten how to exhale, Ember blinked, Nothing, No walls, No sky.Her hand, the one that caught the blade, hung limp at her side. Spiral stone gone. The groove that once hummed beneath her skin was burned away. Just flesh now. Raw and quiet.Callen lay beside her, Chest rising, Barely, Face bloodied, eyes closed, whispering something so faint it could’ve been breath or memory. The voice returned.Not the rig. Not the siphon. Something older, Older than Emotia, Older than MARROW, Older than hush.It whispered not into their ears but into the empty places between thoughts, where memory couldn’t reach, and forgetting had already claimed its price. “Two touched the cost. Only one may return. Choose.”Ember’s knees sank into the strange ground, not stone, not mist, not soil. It felt
Chapter 271: Pulled Into the Breach
Callen's boots didn’t scrape as he was dragged backward, They lifted, ripped from the ground as if the very air behind the gate had opened its jaws and decided his name tasted like fire.The mist split in two, The siphon’s shattered coils snapped wide again like they’d only pretended to fail, and now they wanted him back. Ember’s scream ripped from her throat before she knew she’d opened her mouth. “CALLEN!”But he was already gone, One blink, A red smear in the mist. Then nothing. Skov dove forward, spiral stone in hand, fury in his teeth, but Amari tackled him before he could hit the breach. “You go in like that, it eats you.”“She’s going in!” he shouted, jerking his head toward Ember.But Ember hadn’t moved, She was kneeling in the mud, spiral stone trembling in her fist, mouth clenched so tight her molars cracked, The First hovered inches above her shoulder, flickering red for the first time since the Driftfall.The Second’s hum dropped to a frequency so low the air shook, A warn
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