Scarlet moved toward the evening gown section,calmly, her heels making soft crisp sounds against the marble floor. Pulling a high-end smartphone from her inner jacket pocket, her fingers blurred across the custom interface. Line after line of encrypted green script cascaded down the screen as she breached the building's local network, systematically overwriting the security server's rolling cache and wiping every frame of video from the last fifteen minutes.
She sat down on a plush velvet ottoman, resting her phone against her knee as she stared blankly at a mannequin draped in crimson silk. Beneath her outer composure, her thoughts were spiraling into unfamiliarity.
According to Grishile's master database, the siblings of Klaus possessed minor, low-tier physical enhancements—Ryan's file specifically logged his capability as simple motor acceleration, capped at roughly five times the standard human threshold.
Nowhere in his profile was there a single mention of metal manipulation. During those three seconds of grim tension, when that iron blade hovered a fraction of an inch from her forehead, she hadn't held back out of patience rather, It was a brief, paralyzing flash of genuine shock—and a rare, cold seed of fear. It was the closest she had ever come to an unscripted, unpredictable death at the hands of an asset who was supposed to be fully cataloged.
A few steps away, Rose stood by a display of formal coats, idly massaging her right wrist. Even though she had caught Holly's strike mid-air with expert moves, the raw, dense impact of an aluminum-reinforced fist had sent a severe shockwave straight up her arm and into her shoulder. She had kept her expression like stone to avoid handing the enemy a psychological edge, but the dull, throbbing ache beneath her skin was undeniable.
Rose glanced over at Scarlet. Their eyes met, and for a quiet second, both operatives shared a weary, bitter smile—a silent acknowledgment that the board in Ohio was vastly more complicated than Detroit had led them to believe.
"Do we trace them through the external city traffic feeds?" Rose asked in a low murmur, flexing her fingers. "Or do we maintain visual range and tail them on foot?"
"Neither, for now," Scarlet replied, closing the terminal app on her phone. "If Ryan can materialize metal and track kinetic threads, he'll spot a physical tail instantly. We report the profile mismatch to Dr. Maru first. We need to know why our intelligence on these subjects is so dangerously obsolete."
"Still tailing them from a distance wouldn't be bad" rose added a bit disappointed.
Across the department store, Ryan and Holly didn't waste another second. Shaken by the sudden appearance of two high-ranking Black Ops operatives, they rushed through the remaining checkout process, swiping Damon's black card and grabbing their receipts without waiting for decorative packaging.
Stepping out onto the street, Ryan pulled out his phone and used a third-party delivery app to request a freight pickup cab. He instructed the driver to take the mountain of shopping bags and drop them off at a designated curb three blocks away from their actual location.
At the secondary drop point, an official black luxury vehicle dispatched from the Huntington Center was already idling. Ryan handed the driver a crisp hundred-and-fifty-dollar tip for the sudden, unscheduled detour, seamlessly transferring the haul into the Huntington car's trunk without leaving a direct trail back to the boutique.
As they walked toward a nearby private dealership, Ryan pulled out his phone and typed a quick text to Rein:
> [Ran into Scarlet and Rose at Sue Lux. Unplanned standoff, but no shots fired. They know we're in the city, but we broke visual contact. Buying a private vehicle now so we stop using public cabs and for east getaway. Heading back soon.]
>
Meanwhile, back inside the penthouse suite at the Huntington Center, the peaceful morning had descended into total chaos.
Lira was on the floor of the main living room, her body locked in a agonizing, rigid paralysis. Sharp, unbearable surges of pain radiated through her spine, forcing desperate, gasping breaths from her throat as her fingers clawed helplessly at the hardwood floor.
"Lira! Stay still, don't try to force yourself up!" Claire yelled, dropping to her knees beside her and trying to stabilize her shoulders.
Lira's head throbbed violently with her chest heaving as she fought against the invisible weight crushing her. She tried to look up at Claire, but as her eyes adjusted to the ambient light of the room, panic seized her chest.
Her vision which had once carried a sharp and perfectly clear—was fading into a heavy, milky haze. The outlines of the furniture, the light spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and even Claire's frantic expression were all dissolving into blurred, indistinct shadows.
Fiona stood near the kitchen island, her fingers flying across her phone's keypad as she dialed number after number, searching her contacts for anyone—any medical specialist, private contact, or underground connection—who might have an answer.
Across the room, Rein had her own phone pressed to her ear, frantically trying to reach Professor Gadhi at the clinic. The call went straight to voicemail for the third time in a row. Amid the chaos, a notification chimed on her screen—a text from Ryan detailing his encounter with Scarlet and Rose—but Rein ignored it entirely, dropping her phone onto the glass table as she caught sight of Lira's writhing form.
Dropping to her knees beside Lira, Rein grabbed her arm to steady her. As she pulled back Lira's sleeve, her heart sank in realization.
The faintly etched tattoo on Lira's wrist—the symbol of the tilting scales—was shifting right before her eyes. Coiled beneath the unbalanced scales was a massive serpent, its jaw stretched wide open in an attempt to swallow the floating eye suspended on the lower pan. On the opposite pan of the scale, five distinct, glowing tally marks had burned into the skin.
"Fifth Day".
Rein looked up at Fiona, her voice dropping into a tense, steady whisper. "Fiona, stop calling. It isn't a poison reaction."
Fiona paused, her phone still pressed to her ear. "What do you mean?"
"The vision. The toll," Rein said, pointing to the glowing marks on Lira's wrist.
"Hah, so that's how it is" Fiona lamented.
"The window to save the sacrifice—the 'lamb' the coven needs—is closing. We only have until the fifth night before the cycle completes itself, and Lira's sight is paying the price for delaying it." Rein added.
Over the past week, the group had been quietly digging through regional missing persons reports and municipal mortuary logs across Ohio, looking for any trace of the ritual target. But every case file they pulled led to a dead end; none of the victims showed any documented connection to extraordinary bloodlines or unregistered abilities.
Molly, who was kneeling on the other side of Lira alongside Claire, held Lira's trembling shoulders pinned against the floor. As she watched the black scales shift across Lira's skin, raw fear flickered in Molly's eyes.
Fiona lowered her phone, her sharp mind rapidly piecing the timeline together. "Wait. The vision Lira had wasn't just about a sacrifice—it was about pulling someone out of a madman's clutches."
"Damon also had the vision of the
She looked at Claire and Rein in narrowed eyes. "Bill Curt isn't just a sicko with his profession. He's more likely to be actively facilitating in the organ harvesting business... I suppose—that the lamb is with him."
........
Meanwhile, several miles away at the Sue Lux shopping complex, the atmosphere on the street was deceptively quiet.
Ryan and Holly stepped out of the dealership's side entrance onto the broad avenue. To their mounting frustration, every ride-hailing app on their phones glitched with connectivity errors, and not a single empty taxi responded to Ryan's raised hand as they walked down the sidewalk.
Left with no immediate choice, the two began walking down the high-end commercial strip toward the transit junction, trying to keep a casual, unbothered pace.
A dozen yards behind them, merging into the flow of afternoon shoppers, Rose and Scarlet stepped out from under the boutique awnings. Without drawing their weapons or disrupting their calm civilian facade, the two black-ops operatives matched Ryan and Holly's stride, keeping a precise, calculated distance as both pairs navigated the bustling street.