“My life ends only when my rage has been vented, when my need for vengeance is satisfied. It will be a long life.” ― Cullen Bunn

  * * * *

  The war room was quiet—too quiet for a room meant to hold plans for survival. The faint hum of the overhead lights bathed the space in a sterile, low amber glow, flickering slightly as if reflecting the unease that hung in the air. A large wooden table stood at the center, its surface cluttered with rolled-up maps, printed satellite scans, old documents, and scribbled notes stained with water rings from untouched cups of tea and stale coffee.

  Outside, the wind howled through the scorched trees like the ghosts of those who hadn’t made it this far.

  Rex stood at the far corner of the room, in front of the table which held the communicator devices, his arms folded tightly across his chest. The caramel strands of his hair hung loose against his temples, sweat glinting under the soft light.

  Though no blood stained his hands now, his eyes carried the look of a man who had seen too many people die for causes too fragile to hold. Beside him, Sera leaned slightly over the table, her slender frame tense, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge.

  Zest stood on Sera’s other side, his arms behind his back, leaning against the rusted panel of an old server rack, his presence like a storm biding its time.

  The projection system finally blinked to life, casting three flickering video feeds across the display.

  The first was Leroy, seated before a makeshift command station deep in Zalfari’s hidden tunnels. Beside him were Alisa, Wes, Jamie, and Lleucu, their faces drawn and weary. The second feed was that of Larissa and Hayder in the Abyss, illuminated only by the warm orange of emergency lighting. Their bunker—normally a stronghold of information and strategy, looked more like a war shrine now, its walls plastered with reports, maps, and vigil candles.

  A grim silence held for a beat, a moment where each side simply looked at the others, sharing that wordless bond only those who had endured too much too quickly could understand.

  Then Leroy leaned forward, the harsh scrape of his chair briefly cutting the silence. “As far as we can figure out, Nicolosi is hopping mad about the loss of the secondary base at Kald,” he said, his voice rough from too many sleepless nights. “Though he seems more upset about the loss of the manufacturing facility than he is about the loss of all the hunters in there.”

  Rex exhaled sharply through his nose, a bitter sound more scoff than breath. “No surprise there,” he muttered, his jaw tightening. “Those bastards were just bodies to him. The factory was his prize.”

  “And from what our own informants, and even Ethan, can tell us,” Larissa added, her eyes catching the light as she leaned into the screen, “Nicolosi’s getting more paranoid. Even more unhinged with each day.” There was a pause, a brief hesitation in her voice as if the weight of what she was about to say threatened to choke her. “But first, an update. On evacuation.”

  A collective shift rippled through the room. The unspoken fear they all carried was that even their sanctuaries—Ashenridge, the Abyss, and Zalfari, were no longer safe. That the war had followed them even here.

  “The boats and the boathouses are ready,” Larissa continued. “We’ve secured enough vessels for the Abyss and the evacuees from Zalfari. Most of the citizens have already been moved underground. What remains above is smoke and silence.”

  Leroy nodded solemnly beside her. “With the way the hunters are now, it’s only a matter of time before they break through the outer barricades. But even if they do, all they’ll find is a ghost town.” His voice cracked just slightly at the end—just enough to reveal the pain of letting go. “I hate losing Zalfari. I hate abandoning it. But in the end, what matters are the people. Not the stone. Not the steel.”

  Rex’s eyes softened. Not much, but enough to show he understood. “Same with Ashenridge,” he admitted. “Evacuation protocols are in place. Boats, trucks, and even tunnels. If the day comes, they’ll be ready to move in minutes. No hesitation. But let’s be honest, however this ends, we all know… We can’t stay in Eldario. Not any longer.”

  Silence again. The kind of silence that hung like the hush before a final breath. The kind that didn’t need to be filled.

  “As for the hunters,” Lleucu offered, his eyes unreadable as he stared past the camera, “they’ve been…quiet.”

  Jamie, seated beside him, let out a low snort. “Too quiet. They’ve holed up in Blackpool, Nicolosi included. Which can be good news or bad news.”

  “From what Ethan gathered, though even he didn’t dare venture inside, Nicolosi’s losing it. And I mean really losing it,” Leroy said, leaning into the screen. “Blue Pandora has really done a number on him psychologically. He’s erratic. Paranoid. Last we heard, he executed three of his own hunters. Called them traitors.”

  A visible reaction swept through the war room. Sera’s brows drew together in a sharp frown. Zest’s eyes narrowed, his arms crossing tighter over his chest. Rex’s mouth was a grim line.

  “As a result,” Jamie added, “the rest of the hunters, especially the newer recruits, are walking on eggshells around him. One wrong word and they’re next.”

  “Cornered animals are the most dangerous,” Zest murmured from his post. “And Nicolosi is very much cornered.”

  Sera said nothing for a moment, her fingers loosening from the edge of the table as her voice, low and steady, finally filled the space. “What I’m worried about is if we have to bring the fight to Blackpool itself, will we have to fight the townspeople as well?”

  That question hung in the air like a death knell.

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  Wes stiffened visibly. “…Oh shit. I didn’t think about that,” he whispered.

  “What?” Alisa turned to him, then looked toward the others. “What’s wrong?”

  Zest’s voice came out like a cold breeze over a graveyard. “Like Kald, Blackpool isn’t just where the hunters operate. It’s their town. Their sanctuary. Their altar. Just as Zhane City was loyal to the ESA, Blackpool has always been fanatically loyal to Nicolosi and his doctrine.”

  Leroy brought a hand to his face and almost buried it in his palms. “You’ve got to be kidding me… So to get to Nicolosi, we might have to go through them? Those people? You’re suggesting that we might or might not have to kill those brainwashed zealots of Nicolosi to get to him? That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “Honestly?” Hayder folded his arms, his expression stony. “From what I’ve heard about Blackpool since this madness started, and even before it, those people aren’t innocent.”

  “Tell me about it,” Rex muttered. “Nicolosi and the hunters may have started this witch hunt, but the people of Blackpool? They lit the torches. They cheered at the burnings. The screams of the Gifted weren’t just heard. They were celebrated.”

  The air thickened. Even across the screens, no one could speak for a long moment.

  “Anyway,” Larissa finally said, her voice quiet but unwavering, “we’re almost at the end. Nicolosi has his back to the wall. The facility is gone. The nation knows the truth—what he did to the ESA, the Council, and even the Gifted. And he’s lost more hunters this past year than we can count. He’s unravelling.”

  “And that makes him the most dangerous he’s ever been,” Sera added, her voice hardening. “We know Blue Pandora affects the mind. We’ve seen what it does. If Nicolosi’s been using it… If he’s addicted to it… Then he’s not just unstable. He’s unpredictable.”

  Zest finally stepped forward, his shadow falling long across the table. “He has nothing left to lose,” he said softly. “And neither do we.”

  Silence fell upon the room once more. This time heavier than the last. Eyes met across distance—through screens, through grief, through shared blood and sacrifice.

  It was Rex who broke the stillness.

  “One week.”

  He looked at each of them in turn—Sera, Zest, Leroy, Larissa, and at all the others.

  “We do the necessary preparations. We move what we can. We say what needs to be said. A week from now… The final battle will take place in Blackpool.”

  Rex’s voice was firm, resolute, and final.

  “That place will either be Nicolosi’s grave,” Rex said, his voice dropping to a whisper, “or ours.”

  * * * *

  The scent of metal, oil, and age-old wood clung thick to the air, mingling with the faint burn of disinfectant and dried leather. The interior of the arms storage cabin was dimly lit by a single overhead bulb swaying gently from its cord, its amber light throwing long shadows across the crates, gun racks, and shelves stacked high with survival gear.

  It wasn’t a particularly large building, but it was one of the oldest—part of what was left from the original Zone 0, its reinforced walls weathered by time, fire, and blood. Scorch marks still traced part of the northern wall, black lines where a past battle had scorched too close to the surface.

  Outside, the village murmured in distant rustles and faint shouts as people continued to load supplies toward the shorelines. Wagons rumbled. Crates scraped against the ground. Children clutched ragged dolls while their parents muttered orders in low, clipped voices.

  Everyone was moving. Everyone was preparing. Not for survival. Not anymore. For evacuation. For retreat, if necessary.

  For war.

  Inside, the four of them moved among the stacked supplies with the sharp-edged efficiency of people who had done this too many times.

  Sera stood near the far end of the cabin, crouched before a large steel crate of long-range firearms. Her gloved hands, steady and unhurried, ran over each rifle as she checked it for dust, rust, or decay. The black scarf around her waist fluttered slightly with the movement.

  She didn’t speak unless she had to. Every motion was precise. Every breath measured. The woman who once wielded her telekinesis with elegant ease now moved like a soldier sharpening her blade for the last time.

  Lucas knelt beside another crate to her left, fingers grazing over the smooth wooden stocks of short-barrel shotguns, testing their weight in his palm. His raven-black hair, pulled back in a short ponytail, was damp with sweat and fell loose in places around his face.

  The fire that once made him brash and proud had dulled into something deeper, something more subdued. The aftertaste of guilt. Of disillusionment.

  Across from him, Misha sorted through a medical box, his gloved fingers laying out antiseptic, coagulant spray, gauze rolls, and morphine packs with silent concentration. His eyes, identical to Lucas’s, held the same exhaustion, though his features were slightly softer.

  The younger Alescio brother had aged more in the past several months than in all his years leading Team Delta. No one survived Kald unscarred. No one walked out of Blackpool untouched.

  Zest leaned against the wall near the entrance, his arms crossed, and his eyes scanning the room. He hadn’t touched anything—not because he refused to help, but because he didn’t need to.

  He’d already gone over every weapon and piece of equipment the night before. Three times. His black hoodie bore faint scorch marks at the hem, the white undershirt beneath it stained with gun oil and blood. The dagger tattoo on the side of his neck caught the flickering light every so often like a silent threat.

  It was Misha who broke the silence first. “This is really it, then,” he said quietly, not looking up from the first-aid kit. “The final battle.”

  Lucas exhaled softly through his nose. “Yeah.”

  There wasn’t joy in the confirmation. Only weight. Like an anchor tied around the lungs. A truth too large to wrap words around. For a moment, no one spoke. The silence became its own kind of pressure.

  Lucas’s fingers hesitated over the trigger guard of a rifle before he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, “Do you think it’ll get that far? Us having to potentially hurt or kill the townspeople?”

  Zest snorted bitterly from his post by the wall. “If it comes down to it, then yes. I think it might get that far.” He pushed off the wall and moved slowly across the room, stopping near a table scattered with empty magazines and flashbang shells. His tone sharpened, edged in fire and disgust. “Blackpool’s citizens… Calling them zealots is kind. Brainwashed idiots is a better description. They’re no better than hunters. Being a Gifted in that town was a death sentence long before this madness. And now? Nicolosi could kill someone right in front of them, and they’d still believe he’s their saviour. They’ll chant his name as the blood pools at their feet.”

  “You think they’ll fight with him?” Misha asked, his jaw tense.

  Zest shrugged a single shoulder. “I think they’ll die with him.”

  A stillness followed—one that no longer came from the absence of sound, but from the unbearable presence of what was to come. They weren’t just preparing to fight Nicolosi and the last remnants of the hunters.

  They were preparing to go to war with an entire town. A town that would sooner watch their children die than admit they were wrong.

  “On our side,” Lucas offered, his voice hoarse, “Jonan’s been helping Rex build the explosives. Allen and even Remi are helping. Jonan’s our demolitions expert. He knows more about explosives than any of us.”

  Sera, who had been silent the entire exchange, froze with her hand hovering over a modified sidearm. She didn’t look at Lucas at first. Her eyes dropped to the weapon, her fingers curling around it slowly, before she spoke.

  “Jonan, huh…?”

  The tone of her voice was unreadable, but it was different—low and brittle. It carried something beneath it. Not anger. Not concern. Something colder.

  Sera stood slowly, placing the sidearm on the table and finally turning to face Lucas fully. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about him for a while now,” she said.

  Lucas blinked. “What about Jonan?”

  Sera’s gaze hardened. “It’s not just because he’s dating Kailey.” Lucas’s body tensed visibly. “Back then,” Sera continued, her voice sharp now, “in Agnis. Were you the team sent after Lucie when the hunters found out about her?”

  Lucas opened his mouth to speak, but the words caught in his throat. It was Misha who answered instead, though his voice was low.

  “Yes. Both our teams were.”

  Sera nodded once, slowly, like a judge confirming a verdict she already knew. “Then do you know who killed Lucie’s father that day?”

  The question fell like a knife into still water. Lucas and Misha both froze.

  Neither answered. Neither looked her in the eye.

  The silence was an answer in itself.

  Sera turned her head away, her lips curling faintly, not in amusement, but something far more bitter. “Never mind. Don’t answer me. Your faces tell me all I need to know.” She studied them both, her expression unreadable, but her eyes were cold. Calculating. Hurt. “Though my question is,” she added, “if Kailey knows.”

  Misha turned away slightly, unable to meet her gaze. Lucas’s jaw worked silently. “…She doesn’t,” he said at last. “At least, I don’t think she does.”

  Zest tilted his head slightly, his arms crossed again. “If she does,” he said coolly, “it really makes it look bad. Especially after what happened to Tatius. And Ness. And Claudia. Tempers are still high, especially amongst Aegis.”

  The room thickened again—air pressed in from all sides. The weight of names spoken aloud, of the dead, made the silence feel sacred.

  Tatius, who had died to destroy Blue Pandora.

  Claudia and Ness, who have given their lives for their friends.

  Sera took in a breath and exhaled slowly, like something inside her had been exhausted. “I guess we’re done here.”

  She turned to leave. Zest moved after her silently, already reaching for the door.

  But Lucas stepped forward.

  “Sera.”

  Sera paused without turning.

  “Are you going to tell Lucie?”

  The question came out softer than intended. As if even Lucas wasn’t sure whether he wanted the answer to be yes or no.

  Sera didn’t turn around. Her voice, when it came, was quiet, but not uncertain. “Who knows?”

  And then the door creaked open, casting moonlight across the dusty cabin floor as Sera and Zest stepped out into the night.