POV: Multiple — Ravenna Noir, Jace Cross, Cassian Vex, Others
Location: Ash District, below the ruins of Olympus Tower
Smoke clung to the sky like a shroud. The skeletal remains of Olympus Tower jutted upward in the distance, twisted metal and broken glass gleaming like the crown of a dead tyrant. Sirens had gone quiet. The drones no longer flew. Cameras that once recorded every breath had gone dark.
But the city wasn't celebrating.
It was waiting.
Like a beast that just lost its leash and hadn't yet decided whether to run or bite.
Down in the Ash District, beneath layers of concrete and ruin, a crowd gathered. Gang banners flew from shattered balconies—Bonehands, Ash Tongue, Crimson Breed. Neon fires lit the dusk. Word spread faster than bullets: The Architects are dead. Olympus has fallen. And the woman they called Red Sin did it.
But what now?
Who ruled the ruins?
POV: Ravenna Noir
She stood beneath a half-collapsed overpass, wrapped in a bloodstained cloak, a fresh stitched scar running from collarbone to navel. Her shoulder still throbbed from the Forge-born's blade. Her ribs felt like broken glass. But she was alive.
And that was a problem.
Because everyone expected her to lead.
"You're the one that killed Olympus," whispered a kid, maybe sixteen, trembling in the rain. His arms were marked with the tattoos of a fallen gang—Ash Tongue. "They say you can't die."
Ravenna said nothing. Just lit a cigarette with fingers still trembling from adrenaline.
The kid tried again. "Will you... rebuild the city?"
She exhaled slow. "I didn't tear it down to put on a crown."
"But someone has to rule—"
"Then let them fight over the throne."
She turned from him, leaving smoke and silence behind her.
Cassian caught up, gun slung over his back, a smirk in his eyes but not on his mouth.
"You really gonna ghost this city after what you did?"
Ravenna didn't stop walking. "It's not my city."
Cassian kicked a rock. "Feels like it belongs to you now, whether you like it or not. That tower fell and everyone looked down here. Not up. Not to the government. Not to any of the corps. They're looking for blood. Or hope. You're both."
She stopped.
Turned.
"I'm a weapon, Cass. Not a symbol."
He shrugged. "That's what makes you dangerous."
POV: Jace Cross — Days Later
He stood at the edge of the smoldering ruins, cloak soaked in rain, earpiece buzzing with updates he didn't want to hear.
"There's a power vacuum," said the voice on the other end. Director Orin, still breathing, still trying to control things. "We need you to reestablish order. Get close to her again. Use your face, use your history. Make her trust you."
"She already does," Jace muttered.
"Good. Then use it."
Jace ended the call.
He watched the city.
Watched her.
Ravenna.
Moving like a stormcloud through districts full of ghosts.
She didn't ask for followers, but they came anyway. Broken men. Abandoned women. Gangers, dealers, cyber-orphans. They followed her not because she promised peace—but because she never lied.
She was the first god they ever saw bleed.
And she chose to keep fighting.
Jace walked toward her, footsteps crunching glass.
"Still breathing, agent?" she asked.
"Barely."
"You come to lecture me?"
He smiled. "No. Just… wanted to walk with you a bit."
And they did.
No words for a while.
Just boots on rain-slicked pavement. Sirens distant. Guns not far off.
"Cassian says you've been making deals with old gangs," Jace finally said.
Ravenna didn't look at him. "I've been ending them."
"You're not interested in running Deadman's?"
She stopped. Finally looked up at the burning spire of Olympus far in the distance.
"I didn't burn a kingdom to wear its ashes."
POV: Unknown — Crimson Breed War Council
In the underground bunker beneath Vulture Row, a war council was in session. Not politicians. Not executives.
Killers.
"You seen her?" asked Kalir, voice low, eyes colder than stone. "That woman's not a leader. She's a sword."
"She's a flag," another replied. "And people are dying to kneel under it."
"Then we burn the flag."
Silence.
A third man, older, quiet, with metal running through his spine like a second skeleton, leaned forward.
"Let her carve the enemies. Let her draw all eyes. While she bathes in blood, we take the real power. Quiet. Clean."
They all nodded.
War was coming.
But not the kind Ravenna expected.
Not brute force.
Not frontal.
The kind that seeps through cracks.
Whispers.
Deals.
Poison.
Back to Ravenna — One Week Later
She walked into the back room of the Cracked Spire—a broken cathedral turned sanctuary for orphans and wounded mercs. There were names carved into every pillar. Names of the dead. Names of the forgotten. She traced them sometimes. Learned them. Made them part of her.
Jace was already inside.
Cassian too.
And a new face: Veyla Stone, a hacker who once worked under Olympus before disappearing into the underground.
"I hear you've got plans," Veyla said, crossing her legs, eyes flickering with electric tattoos. "I can get you maps, surveillance, fleet codes. Whatever you need."
"I didn't ask for help."
"You don't have to," Veyla said. "Deadman's is watching. They want you to make the first move."
"I already made it," Ravenna said. "I survived."
Cassian tossed a datapad on the table. "There's a meeting in three days. Every major faction's sending a rep. They want to discuss peace."
Ravenna snorted. "They want to divide the corpse before it cools."
"Exactly. So... are you going?"
Ravenna looked up slowly.
"I'll go."
Pause.
"But not to negotiate."
Meanwhile — In the Shadows
Someone else watched her.
A figure wrapped in shadow, voice cloaked, fingers tapping against a glass of synthetic whiskey.
"She's the last threat. Once she's gone, the city folds."
Another voice, crackled through static. "She's already been targeted three times this week. None succeeded."
The first voice laughed. "That's because we haven't used me yet."
The Spire of Unity was anything but unified.
Built as a monument to peace between factions during the post-war reconstruction, it now sat like a cracked tooth on the edge of Rustbay—a district known more for body dumps than diplomacy. The marble had long since lost its sheen. Cracks ran through the columns like veins in old skin. And tonight, all those who wanted to own Deadman's City were gathering beneath its failing roof.
Ravenna arrived alone.
No gang colors. No weapons visible.
Just her shadow trailing like a predator on a leash.
Inside, the room was lit with soft red—intimate, dangerous. Every table bore a symbol: the Bonehands, the Crimson Breed, the Council of Eleven, remnants of the Sky Syndicate, even some rogue Forge engineers. All of them watching the doors. Waiting.
Then they saw her.
And the room changed.
Not loud.
Not panic.
Just... breathless tension. Like the seconds before a gunshot.
Ravenna moved to the center. No table for her. No seat.
"I'm not here to dine," she said, voice like crushed glass over fire. "I'm here to listen. And to remind you what silence costs."
Kalir, the Crimson Breed dog, stood. His grin was slow, deliberate. "You came without an army?"
"I don't need one."
"Then you won't mind if we—"
She cut him off with a glance sharp enough to flay pride.
"I didn't burn Olympus just to hear small men bark."
Chuckles. Uneasy ones.
Cassian slipped in through a side corridor, rifle slung over his back, leaned against the wall.
Jace was already in place near the south exit. Eyes everywhere. Hands twitching.
From the far corner, Veyla tapped into the room's comms with a nod—recording everything, decoding everyone.
Then a voice rang from above.
Synthetic. Cold.
A drone.
No—a projection.
A figure cloaked in static appeared, hovering above the center: the Speaker of the Ghost Trade. No one had seen his face in a decade. Some said he wasn't even human anymore.
"Let's speak clearly," the Speaker said. "You've disrupted the order. Shattered Olympus. Taken what was balanced and tipped it into flame. What do you want, Ravenna Noir?"
She raised her chin.
"I want truth."
"You'll find none here."
She smiled. "Then I'll burn what's left and dig it out of your ashes."
Kalir moved again, but Ravenna's hand flashed faster.
She didn't draw a weapon.
She didn't need to.
A single pressure point strike to the throat stopped his breath long enough for him to crumble.
She caught him before he hit the floor.
"Anyone else want to speak with their chest?"
Silence.
Then applause.
Slow. Mocking.
From the back walked Lazar Vale, the ex-Archon of the Eye Syndicate—once presumed dead. Eyes burned with chemicals. Lips stitched with microblades.
"Red Sin," he rasped, voice hollowed by cybermods. "You always did know how to leave a mark. But this city isn't about scars. It's about leverage. And right now, all the old strings are snapping."
Ravenna tilted her head. "And who's holding the new ones?"
Lazar smirked. "Not you."
Veyla's voice crackled in her earpiece. He's lying. Tracking his pulse. He's scared.
Ravenna took a step forward.
"No one ever wins Deadman's City," she said. "They just survive it long enough to curse the next bastard in charge."
Lazar stepped aside.
"I didn't come to rule," she said. "But if I must become the thing you fear just to stop what you are—then so be it."
She pulled out something then.
Not a weapon.
Not a bomb.
But a small, cracked device.
Jace recognized it instantly.
"Rav, wait—"
She smashed it.
The walls around them groaned.
Veyla screamed in her mic. You triggered the Pulse Grid!
A low hum surged through the room—power draining from every cybernetic implant in a five-mile radius.
Kalir twitched on the floor.
Half the Council dropped their comms.
Guns sparked and died.
Only Ravenna stood still.
Only the ones with flesh alone still breathed clean.
"Now we're equal," she said.
No tricks.
No tech.
Just blood.
Just words.
"Deadman's was built on lies," she said, staring each of them down. "Let's see what truth tastes like."
And with that, the real war began.
Not with bullets.
But with choices.
One faction at a time.
One betrayal at a time.
One city, bleeding slowly under her feet.
The Pulse Grid didn't just level the playing field.
It flipped the entire damn board.
Outside the Spire, half of Deadman's City's high-tier operatives went dark. Muscle-enhancement rigs failed. Auto-aim systems glitched mid-shot. Surveillance drones dropped from the sky like burnt-out birds. Every cyber-augmented merc found themselves helpless—like lions turned lamb.
But inside the Spire, Ravenna moved through the power void like a ghost wrapped in gasoline.
She didn't wait for the council to recover.
She stormed the breach they never expected.
Kalir's guards were the first to go down—choked by their own twitching enhancements. Lazar Vale reached for a blade embedded in his hip, only to find it locked in its sheath by a dead magnet. Cassian mowed down the last of the Crimson Breed's tech-snipers as they staggered blind through the corridor, optics flickering static.
And still, Ravenna didn't flinch.
Veyla's voice buzzed in her ear again. "I tapped into their emergency evac routes. Vale's trying to make a run for the sewerline near the chapel vault. He won't get far if you cut west."
Ravenna didn't answer. She was already moving.
Her feet found the back passages like she'd built them. Ghost corridors. Kill-zones. The parts of Deadman's Spire never shown on any map. Blood from her last fight hadn't dried under her armor, and still she pushed forward, boots hitting steel like war drums.
Around a corner, Vale's footsteps echoed. Fast. Desperate.
She called out without warning, her voice ragged with something between fury and prophecy.
"You ran Olympus like a god, Lazar. Now you crawl like a roach. You want peace? This is what it costs."
He didn't stop. Just fired a blind shot behind him, sparks ricocheting off rusted panels.
She didn't dodge.
She walked through it.
And tackled him to the floor.
He fought like a man drowning. Sloppy. Terrified. Hands searching for non-functional tech.
"You're not even worth a bullet," she whispered.
And then she crushed his throat with her elbow, slow, deliberate, as his eyes bulged in shocked silence.
No grand speech.
No ceremony.
Just the end of one more name from the old world.
Elsewhere — Jace Cross
The Pulse Grid had backfired in ways Ravenna hadn't anticipated.
Jace crouched behind a decaying terminal on the third tier, keeping pressure on a leg wound from a misfired shot.
He gritted his teeth. The agents from the Council of Eleven hadn't gone dark like the others. They'd adapted. Old-school. Flesh-and-bone killers. The kind the city used to spit out before AI made death efficient.
And they were hunting him.
"Rav," he whispered into his now-dead comm. "I hope you're not dead yet. Because I could really use your brand of crazy right about now."
Bootsteps grew louder.
He checked his sidearm. Two rounds left.
Perfect.
The first attacker came in low—a girl with black warpaint and a blade she didn't seem to care about hiding. Jace ducked her swing, grabbed her wrist, and redirected her straight into the rusted corner of the wall. Her head split open like a cracked fruit.
One down.
The second one was smarter. Waited. Watched.
Jace looked up and saw the glint of steel reflected in the terminal glass.
He spun just in time to take a knife across his cheek. Blood sprayed.
But his counter-punch sent the attacker sprawling.
And that's when he heard it—her footsteps.
Heavy. Intentional.
Ravenna.
"You look like hell," she said, crouching beside him.
"You should see the other guys," he muttered.
She helped him up.
"Are we done?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
Because they both knew—
It was only just beginning.
Meanwhile — Deep Below the City
There were rooms even Ravenna didn't know.
Labs buried so deep even Olympus had forgotten they existed.
And inside one such chamber, a boy sat strapped to a chair, eyes black as oil, veins pulsing like circuits. He was ten years old.
And he wasn't human anymore.
A voice cooed softly from behind mirrored glass.
"Soon, my little storm. Soon, we'll give them a new god. And not even Red Sin will see it coming."
A whisper of code echoed through the chamber.
And somewhere far above, a bloodstained neon cross flickered to life on the ruins of Olympus.
The next night, the city changed its scent.
Gone was the usual mix of oil and ozone, of steel and piss. No. That night, Deadman's City reeked of something older.
Ash.
As if somewhere, something sacred had been burned.
Ravenna stood at the edge of the Wastes, boots sunk ankle-deep in the grave-dirt of District Nine. Around her, the remains of Olympus flickered with forgotten light. Her coat moved slow in the wind. Her eyes didn't.
She wasn't looking at the skyline.
She was staring at the ruins beneath it.
Beneath Olympus had been a vault. And beneath the vault… something else.
Jace stepped beside her. He didn't speak. He knew better. When Ravenna went silent like this, it meant the past was speaking louder than anything else.
When she finally moved, it was a whisper of motion.
"Bring the cutter," she said.
Jace turned, gave the signal.
Behind them, Kellin emerged with a plasma drill as tall as he was, powered by a portable core stolen from a Syndicate walker. He grunted as he rolled it forward, teeth clenched around a toothpick soaked in synthetic morphine.
"You know what's under there?" Kellin asked.
Ravenna didn't look at him.
"I know who they buried under it."
She knelt and traced a sigil on the broken ground. Blood from her fingertip dripped into the grooves of ancient carvings.
The earth pulsed.
Jace felt it in his bones.
Like a heartbeat… but reversed. Like something waking beneath the city, rather than within it.
He took a step back.
"Rav, what is this?"
She looked at him—no smile, no comfort, no explanation.
"Justice," she said.
The cutter screamed to life.
And below the old concrete, something opened.
Not a vault.
Not a tomb.
A chamber.
Old tech. Biomech. Hybrid of flesh and circuitry. Designed before the last collapse. Before the cyber wars. Before even the Syndicates.
It had a name once.
Project Eden.
And it was still alive.
Somewhere across the city — Cassian POV
Cassian waited in the Red Annex, smoking a rolled stem laced with dreamdust. His eyes tracked a girl across the room—blonde, artificial smile, built like the clubs loved them. She was bait. He knew it. Didn't care.
Because his mind wasn't on pleasure.
It was on choices.
The moment Ravenna activated the Pulse Grid, something had changed. Not just in the city. In her. She was no longer fighting to survive.
She was fighting to purge.
He'd seen that look before—in his commander's eyes, just before they wiped out a rebel enclave full of civilians. Not hatred. Not rage. Just purpose, sharpened into something cruel.
His drink buzzed.
Message.
Encrypted.
He opened it.
❝You have 36 hours to deliver her, or we pull the contract.❞
— The Blackroot Collective
Cassian crushed the glass in his hand, bleeding into his whiskey.
He had served Ravenna for seven years.
But there were debts even loyalty couldn't erase.
Underground — Project Eden Awakes
Ravenna stepped into the chamber.
Lights flickered overhead, dim green pulses crawling across the wet ceiling like insect eyes blinking open. Pods lined the walls. Hundreds. Some broken. Some still humming.
She moved to the center console—flesh-wrapped metal, a blend of bone and code. Jace followed, his steps hesitant now.
"Tell me this isn't another weapon," he said.
"It's not," Ravenna said.
Jace stared at her.
"You believe that?"
Her silence was louder than any lie.
Veyla's voice crackled through their backup comms. "I've scanned the chamber. Ravenna… there's a consciousness running through it. It's not just tech. You woke something."
Ravenna reached out and touched the console.
And the pods began to open.
One by one.
Steam hissed.
Eyes blinked.
Flesh moved.
And then a child stepped out.
Not a boy. Not a girl. Something in between.
Pale. Hairless. Marked with sigils that glowed beneath the skin. Eyes like mirrors. No emotion. No fear.
Ravenna fell to her knees.
Because she remembered this child.
It wasn't from her past.
It was her sin.
She had authorized this project once.
Before she became Red Sin.
Back when she wore a uniform and answered to gods in suits and silence.
"Subject Zero," she whispered.
The child turned.
And smiled.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Location: Olympus Sub-level 19 | Time: Unknown
The child didn't speak at first.
It didn't need to.
The chamber responded to its breath.
Lights surged. Data streamed from nowhere. Screens that hadn't worked in forty years came online with code that no one living could translate.
Jace took a step back.
"What is this, Rav?"
Ravenna didn't blink.
Her eyes were locked on Subject Zero.
The child walked forward, bare feet touching the cold steel like it was home.
"I remember you," it said. Its voice was soft. Too soft for this place.
"You were the one who told them to stop. You screamed. You begged."
Ravenna's breath caught.
"And they didn't listen."
Behind them, Kellin moved nervously. "That… that thing isn't right. It's not human. It ain't breathing like us. It ain't looking like us."
Ravenna rose slowly.
"No," she said. "Because it's better than us."
Elsewhere — Sector 13: Blackroot Hub
Cassian sat across from a woman wearing gloves made from skinned knuckles. Her face was pale. Not from fear—just a lack of sunlight. Her name was Madame Virel.
"You're late," she said, sipping dark tea. "We've already lost three assets in the field."
Cassian didn't apologize.
He dropped a drive on the table. "Everything you asked for."
She didn't touch it.
"Not enough," she said.
Cassian didn't flinch. "You want Ravenna. I can give her to you."
"No," Virel said. "We want the city. She's just in the way."
Cassian clenched his fist under the table.
"You betray her, and you die slowly," he said.
Madame Virel smiled, cold and eternal.
"You already betrayed her, Cassian. We're just helping you finish the job."
Back beneath Olympus
Ravenna moved through the chamber now, watching as more pods cracked open.
There were dozens of them.
Children. Teenagers. Some half-grown. Some with limbs replaced by chrome. Some with eyes like starlight. Each one a failed miracle.
"They made weapons," Jace said quietly.
"They made orphans," Ravenna corrected.
Then she turned to the console. "But I can make them soldiers."
She entered a code.
Her blood was the password.
The chamber trembled.
Outside, in the ruins above, a ripple of static rolled through the street—all tech in a ten-block radius went dead. Streetlights exploded. Drones crashed.
And the Syndicates started screaming.
Because the Pulse Grid hadn't died.
It had evolved.
Underground | Olympus Ruins — Later that night
The chamber had gone still.
The new recruits—if you could even call them that—were curled in makeshift beds across the chamber's edge, their bodies still recovering from stasis. Kellin snored somewhere against a generator. The only light came from the pulse-glow in the ceiling, soft blue humming against the shadows.
Ravenna sat alone, shirt half-unbuttoned, back against the wall. Her coat lay draped over her lap, gun close by.
She was trying to forget the past.
But Jace was still awake.
And he wasn't trying to forget a damn thing.
He stepped close. Quiet. Slow.
She didn't look up when he approached—but her voice broke the silence like a blade slipping into velvet.
"You came to ask if I'm still human."
Jace paused, standing over her.
"No," he said. "I came because I remember what it feels like… to need something you're afraid of wanting."
That got her attention.
Her eyes flicked up to him—sharp, silver, hungry.
And hollow.
"What makes you think I'm afraid?" she asked.
Jace dropped to one knee in front of her.
Not touching. Not yet.
"Because you keep holding back," he said. "But I see it every time you look at me. In the tunnels. In the fights. When you tell me not to follow you, but you never say no."
She watched him.
Studied him.
Then slowly—dangerously—she unbuckled her gun belt, letting it slide to the floor between them.
"Then stop talking," she said.
And he did.
Jace pushed her against the wall, hands greedy, mouth finding the place where her neck met her shoulder. She gasped—low and sharp—fingers tightening in his hair.
He kissed her like she was oxygen he'd been denied for years.
Ravenna bit his lip, drew blood.
Then spun him hard—pressed him to the floor, straddling him.
She rolled her hips once.
Slow.
Deliberate.
No mercy.
His cock was already hard against her, thick with tension and want. She ground down just enough to make him ache for her. Teasing. Brutal.
"You think I want you?" she whispered against his jaw.
Jace grabbed her hips, bucked upward, groaned.
"I know you do."
She laughed, dark and low.
Then yanked her shirt open—no bra. Just pale skin, inked scars, and the kind of breasts a soldier would die with in his memory.
Jace's mouth was on her nipple in a second—tongue swirling, teeth grazing, hands gripping her thighs tight.
"You want control?" he growled.
"I am control," she hissed.
He flipped her.
Hard.
She hit the mattress with a thud—and before she could counter, he'd yanked her pants down, grabbed her hips, and slammed into her from behind.
Doggy.
Ravenna moaned—raw and unfiltered.
He fucked her like he fought: precise, hard, and relentless.
The slap of skin filled the chamber. Her nails scratched deep trenches into the mattress. Her eyes rolled back as he pounded her deeper.
She didn't beg.
But she grunted his name.
Over and over.
"Jace… fuck—fuck, yes…"
He reached around, fingers rough on her clit, rubbing fast and hard.
Her orgasm hit like a gunshot.
Her whole body shook.
And still—he didn't stop.
He grabbed her hair, pulled her back into him, kept thrusting, groaning, hips slamming hard enough to bruise.
And when he came—it was with a shudder and a curse, hot inside her, breath ragged in her ear.
They collapsed together.
Breathing hard.
Sweating like fugitives from their own pasts.
But outside?
A drone hovered in the dark.
Red light blinking.
It had seen everything.
And transmitted it… up the chain.
To someone waiting in a tower of black steel.
A woman in a dress made of knives.
A woman who smiled when she saw Ravenna come undone.
"Found you, Red Sin," she whispered.
Then gave the order:
"Activate the Seraphim."
Location: Outer Sector 22 | 4:02 A.M.
Rain bled from the sky like the gods were weeping. Old buildings leaned like drunks, their bones soaked in rust. The street was a graveyard of neon signs and broken promises. Trash swirled in puddles. The kind of night you could disappear in. The kind of night killers loved.
Jace lit a cigarette, still feeling Ravenna on his skin.
He stood at the edge of a ruined overpass, overlooking what used to be the Grand Exchange. The city felt wrong—like it was holding its breath.
Kellin came jogging up, coat flapping like torn wings.
"We got movement," he panted. "Multiple nodes just lit up along the Seraph Grid. Virel's people are active. And they're not subtle."
Jace dropped the cigarette and crushed it.
"What are we dealing with?"
Kellin wiped rain off his brow.
"Seraphim. Modified operatives. Full-body augments. Silent. Lethal. They don't talk. They erase."
"Shit." Jace cracked his knuckles. "How many?"
Kellin didn't answer at first.
Then: "Seven."
Jace's stomach dropped.
Seven Seraphim.
Trained to kill gods.
And now they were hunting Red Sin.
Elsewhere — Olympus Ruins
Ravenna stood in the chamber alone. The others had gone topside.
She faced the mirror they used to calibrate the pod vitals—her own reflection barely visible through the flickering screen.
She looked different.
Eyes darker.
Skin more scarred.
Lips bruised from Jace's mouth.
She touched her stomach.
Felt something… off.
Too soon to be sure.
Too dangerous to ask.
But her instincts never lied.
And her instincts whispered: Change is coming.
3rd District Borderline — Moments Later
The Seraphim dropped from the rooftops like falling stars.
Seven of them.
Each wore a mask carved from white alloy, skin stretched taut over synthetic muscle. Their movements were silent—except for the hum of the energy blades housed inside their arms.
They didn't blink.
They didn't hesitate.
They hunted.
And they'd locked onto the pulse signature left behind in the Olympus ruins.
Target: Ravenna Noir.
Alias: Red Sin.
Order: Erase.
Back in the Streets — Underground Exit
Jace caught Ravenna by the arm as she emerged from the tunnel.
"We've got incoming," he said. "Seraphim."
She stilled.
"How many?"
"Seven."
She didn't flinch.
Instead, she grinned.
"I always wanted to die like a legend."
Jace gripped her tighter. "You're not dying. Not tonight."
Kellin ran up, breathless. "We got one chance. There's a ghost train—an old maglev line under the district. Still runs once a day on emergency cycles. We hijack it. We move fast."
Ravenna raised a brow. "You sure about this?"
Kellin nodded. "No. But I'm more scared of those things than I am of dying in a train crash."
She cracked her neck.
"Fair."
Location: Derelict Maglev Station
The station was a tomb.
Old metal. Broken rails. Blood on the walls from some long-forgotten purge. Rats the size of cats.
The trio made their way down the maintenance path, torches flickering.
Then—
A sound.
A high-pitched whine.
Jace turned.
Too late.
The first Seraph dropped behind him.
Ravenna reacted first—firing two rounds point-blank into the Seraph's mask. The bullets sparked. Cracked. But didn't penetrate.
The Seraph's blade slashed.
Jace ducked, rolled, grabbed Kellin and shoved him behind cover.
Ravenna charged forward.
Her blade was faster than her gun now.
She slid under the Seraph's next strike, came up spinning—slashed across its spine.
It turned.
No face. No voice. Just death.
They fought in silence.
Steel on steel.
Breath against breath.
Jace joined in—shooting point blank into the Seraph's legs while Ravenna took the head.
It twitched once.
Then fell.
One down.
Six to go.
Interlude — Virel's Tower
Virel watched from her throne.
She wore a dress made of piano wire and bone charms. Her left hand held a glass of something red. Not wine. Not blood. Something older.
Beside her, Cassian watched the screen.
"She'll survive," he said.
"She always does," Virel replied.
Then turned to him.
"But when she does… you know she'll never forgive you."
Cassian said nothing.
Because he knew she was right.
Back on the Maglev Rail
The train was coming.
Old. Screeching. Sparking.
Kellin jumped first.
Then Jace.
Ravenna turned one last time.
And saw all six Seraphim standing at the tunnel mouth.
Waiting.
Watching.
Like ghosts in the dark.
She flipped them off.
Then jumped.
Inside the Train
It was chaos.
Sparks.
Steel.
Terror.
But they were alive.
Jace pulled her in close.
"You're insane."
Ravenna grinned against his mouth. "You bring it out of me."
He kissed her again—this time slow. Deep. Her body melted into his, breath hitching as his hand slid down her waist and gripped her tight.
But before it could go further—
A low voice spoke from the shadows.
"You left the door open."
They turned.
And saw the child from Olympus.
Standing in the last car.
Alone.
Eyes glowing.
"No one escapes the Gate," it said.
And behind them…
The Seraphim were on the roof.
Riding the train.
Like angels of vengeance.
The child didn't blink. Didn't move. Just stood there like some phantom born from the city's sins. Ravenna's breath hitched—not out of fear, but recognition. That face. The eyes. It wasn't the first time she'd seen them in nightmares.
Jace stepped in front of her, hand slowly going to his holster. "What the fuck are you?"
The child tilted its head. A small smile curled its lips, but it didn't touch the eyes. "Not what.When."
Before they could react, the train screamed. Not from the rails, but from above—steel bending under the weight of war.
The roof peeled.
One of the Seraphim dropped in like death's own answer.
It landed in a crouch, steam coiling from its mask. Red light pulsed from its eyes, scanning. Target locked.
Ravenna moved first.
Her boot slammed into the emergency panel. The side door hissed open mid-speed, wind howling in.
"You wanna fight?" she said. "Let's fucking fly."
Then she tackled the Seraphim straight out of the train.
Gone. Into the dark.
Jace shouted. Moved for the door.
But Kellin grabbed him. "She made her choice. She'll live. She always does."
Jace stared into the black nothingness where she fell.
He didn't believe that.
Not this time.
The fall broke bones.
Ravenna hit steel scaffolding, rolled, and landed in sewer water two levels down. The Seraph crashed beside her, slicing the water like a blade. Pain shot through her arm—dislocated. She growled, slammed it against the wall until it snapped back into place.
The Seraph rose.
She spit blood and grinned.
"You're uglier up close."
The fight was fast. Brutal. Her blade screamed as it scraped its armor, but the weak spots—the neck, the eyes, the joint gaps—those were what she hunted.
One strike.
A feint.
Another—then she bit down on her lip hard as she slammed her dagger under its mask.
Right through the throat.
It died slowly.
She didn't blink.
She stood over it, blood pouring down her chest, soaking through the thin shirt Jace had half-torn off hours ago.
She touched her stomach again.
Still that feeling.
Alive.
Too alive.
Elsewhere, Jace was done being held back.
He moved through the train like a man possessed, taking out anything in his way—two more Seraphim trying to get in through the back door. One went down from three rounds in the neck. The other he tore apart with a steel pipe and fury.
Kellin was somewhere behind him, shouting warnings, calling out exits.
But Jace had only one target.
Ravenna.
He needed her like the city needed fire—destructive, necessary, beautiful.
When the train reached the next junction, Jace didn't wait for it to stop. He dove off, rolled down the embankment, and started searching.
He was going to find her.
Or burn this entire fucking city trying.
Meanwhile…
Ravenna wandered through the underlevels, limping.
The adrenaline was fading.
Blood loss hit her like a drunk lover.
She pressed herself against the wall, smearing crimson handprints as she moved.
Then—light.
A flame flickering from an old maintenance room.
She stumbled in.
Collapsed.
And that's when she saw him.
Cassian.
Sitting.
Waiting.
Holding a gun in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
He didn't move. Didn't even blink.
"I told you," he said. "You'd come back to me."
She didn't speak.
Didn't have the strength.
He walked over. Pulled her up by the jaw. Looked into her eyes like he was searching for a soul he once knew.
Then he said softly, "Is it mine?"
Her eyes widened.
The cigarette fell from his mouth.
"I always finish what I start, Ravenna," he whispered.
Then he kissed her.
And she let him.
Because her body was frozen between hatred and heat, between the past and the man who once broke her—and might be the father of what was now growing inside her.
Outside, Jace kicked through doors.
Every shadow could be her.
Every scream might be too late.
He was turning feral—no longer the agent, no longer the careful tactician. He was something else now.
Something born of loss.
He kicked in the final rusted gate—
And saw her.
On the floor.
Cassian over her.
Their mouths locked.
His world split in two.
Jace didn't breathe. Couldn't.
His heart slammed so loud he was sure they heard it. The rusted gate echoed as it closed behind him, but they didn't even flinch.
Ravenna's eyes locked with his.
Something ancient passed between them. A scream behind her gaze. A plea buried in silence. And in that frozen second, Jace saw it all—the years of pain, the war in her veins, the way she bled for love and hate alike.
Cassian turned.
He smirked, slow and poisonous. "Ah," he said. "The new lover arrives."
Ravenna shoved Cassian back.
Not gently.
Not apologetically.
She stood, swaying slightly, blood drying like paint down her thighs, her chest, her hands.
Jace was already moving.
Cassian didn't flinch. Just raised his pistol, pointing it between Jace's eyes.
"I should've killed you in the Eastern Bloc," Cassian said.
"You tried," Jace replied, cold. "Didn't go so well."
Ravenna stepped between them. "No. No guns."
Jace's voice was low. "Move."
"You shoot him," she said, "you start something none of us can end. You think I'm fucked up now?" She turned, her voice breaking. "You haven't seen me broken."
Jace's jaw flexed.
Cassian lowered the weapon slightly.
Only slightly.
"She still tastes the same," he said.
That's when Jace snapped.
He lunged, fist colliding with Cassian's jaw. The sound was thick—bone and fury. Cassian staggered back, hit the wall, and came up swinging. The fight turned savage, almost sexual in how close their bodies crashed. Blood spilled, teeth cracked, a knife scraped steel and skin.
And Ravenna…
She didn't stop them.
Not right away.
She watched.
Watched two men bleed for her, over her, around her. One who'd given her a reason to keep killing. The other, a reason to maybe stop.
Cassian went down first, breath heaving, blood oozing from his temple.
Jace stood over him, face shadowed in the half-light.
"I should end you," he said.
"Then do it."
"Not yet," Jace snarled. "You're going to watch her leave you."
He turned to Ravenna, blood on his lips, heat in his chest. "Let's go."
But Ravenna didn't move.
Instead, she walked slowly to Cassian. Looked down. And whispered, "Next time you touch me without permission, I'll gut you through your cock."
Then she turned to Jace, eyes blazing.
"Let's finish this."
Undercity rail system — Zone 9. Two hours later.
They regrouped with Kellin at an old weapons cache buried beneath a shuttered monorail stop.
Kellin looked between them, reading the heat in their eyes, the tension in their silence.
"Am I… interrupting something?"
"No," Ravenna said. "We're past interrupting. We're in the middle of ending."
She opened the crate.
Inside were weapons the Syndicate thought they buried decades ago. Modified energy rifles, flame-tipped knives, custom gear forged in black labs.
Jace whistled low. "This is warstock."
"It's revenge," Ravenna said.
Then she stripped her top—right there, in front of them. Blood crusted her skin, her muscles twitching from the fight.
Jace looked away.
Kellin didn't.
"Take a fucking picture," she growled.
He turned around fast.
Jace handed her a cloth. She wiped herself down roughly, then pulled on a fresh tactical vest. Tight. Form-fitting. Deadly.
She holstered two curved daggers at her hips.
Slid a black-etched pistol behind her back.
And tied her hair in a high, blood-slicked braid.
Jace couldn't stop looking.
Not just because she was dangerous.
Because she was his kind of dangerous.
Later. Topside. 3:04 A.M.
They moved like ghosts.
The city didn't sleep. It never did.
But it had parts that died after dark.
And that's where they walked now—through the alleys that forgot the sun, across rooftops that still whispered of murder, along streets where even God didn't look down anymore.
Their target: the Syndicate's Heart.
A tower buried beneath the city's old financial district. Long abandoned, now crawling with shadows.
And Seraphim.
Lots of them.
Kellin stopped on a fire escape. Looked down.
"Seven guards. Drones. Thermal tripwires. This is insane."
Ravenna smiled.
"Insane is how we win."
And then she jumped.
She hit the first rooftop silent.
Jace was behind her, gun drawn, eyes cold.
Kellin dropped last, muttering every saint's name he could remember.
The plan was simple.
Kill. Burn. Escape.
But plans never survived her.
Inside the tower.
The halls were tight. Glass and iron. Old marble tiles cracked under boots.
They moved floor by floor, clearing it like a fucking purge.
Every Seraph that came at them? Gone. Heads snapped. Guns silenced. Blood spread like art on the walls.
Then they reached it.
The Core Room.
A cathedral-sized vault of servers and black walls—humming, pulsing, alive with the city's most protected secrets.
Ravenna stepped inside like it was her church.
Jace moved beside her. "What now?"
She looked at the mainframe.
Touched a hand to its surface.
"Now," she said, "we bring them down."
—
Sirens howled far off—distant wolves to a blood moon. But within the Core Room, the silence felt holy. Sacred. Ravenna stood before the server monolith like a sinner returned to chapel, her breathing shallow, chest rising and falling beneath the armored corset still sticky with blood.
Jace stood beside her, steady, watching her fingers ghost over the panels like a lover reacquainting herself with an old flame.
"This is where it started," she whispered.
"What started?"
She turned to him.
"My erasure."
Jace's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Ravenna pulled a drive from her side, plugged it into the console. Blue light washed over her face. "Years ago, this system held files on the Syndicate's Project Belladonna—untraceable assassins, women bred from trauma and turned into weapons."
She turned the screen toward him. Her name flickered in red across archived data. Birth name: unknown. Subject designation: RED SIN.
"This is where they wiped me," she said. "Stripped everything. Made me Red Sin—a name forged in murders and lies."
Kellin stepped forward, stunned. "You're saying… you were created by them?"
"Reforged," she said. "Broken. Reassembled. Then unleashed."
She looked at Jace.
"I was never free. Not really."
Jace didn't speak.
He stepped closer. Touched her wrist.
"You are now," he said. "With me."
Ravenna looked at his hand. Then kissed it.
Once.
Soft.
Then turned back to the screen, jaw locked.
She began the upload.
Files decrypted. Data burned into her drive.
Every secret. Every contract. Every kill order.
She was going to leak it all.
Crash their black market networks.
Expose the puppet strings that ran the city.
But that's when the room shook.
Power cut.
Red emergency lights kicked in.
Then came the voice.
Cold. Metallic. Ancient.
"REDSIN: RECALL ORDER INITIATED."
Her body stiffened.
Kellin backed up.
Jace reached for his weapon.
"What the hell is that?"
Ravenna's eyes went blank.
She dropped to her knees.
"Fuck," Jace hissed. "She's being triggered."
Kellin moved fast, hands over her temples. "They still have control nodes in her spine—fuck fuck fuck—they're activating it remotely!"
Jace grabbed Ravenna. "Can you stop it?"
"I don't—wait—yes, maybe, but I need time!"
Suddenly, Ravenna's head snapped up.
Eyes glowing red.
Her hand shot to her knife.
And she lunged for Jace's throat.
She wasn't in control anymore.
Jace ducked under the first swing, but she was fast—inhumanly fast.
She moved like a machine. Fluid. Lethal.
He didn't want to hurt her.
But she wasn't giving him a choice.
He caught her wrist mid-slice, twisted, pinned her to the floor, shouting her name over and over.
"RAVENNA!"
Nothing.
Just a red gaze locked on his jugular.
She screamed—guttural, broken.
Kellin scrambled to her side, yanking a knife from his belt.
"Hold her—just—hold her!"
He sliced open the back of her neck.
Blood sprayed.
Then sparks.
The metal node inside her spine blinked, pulsed, then fizzled out.
Ravenna collapsed.
Eyes wide.
Breathing.
Alive.
Jace caught her before she hit the ground. "I got you. I got you."
She clutched his shirt. "They still own parts of me, Jace. I thought I was free. I'm not."
"You will be," he whispered.
He looked to Kellin. "Get the drive. We torch this place."
Kellin pulled the data chip.
Jace helped Ravenna to her feet, one arm wrapped tight around her waist. Her body trembled—not from fear, but fury.
She was tired of running.
Tired of being their weapon.
She was going to end it.
Tonight.
Back on the surface — 5:48 A.M.
The sky was cracked open, not quite dawn, not quite dark. That cursed in-between hour when nightmares bled into waking life.
Ravenna stood on the rooftop of the Syndicate tower.
Wind tore through her braid.
Behind her, the servers burned—lit with explosive charges Jace had planted minutes ago.
She watched the flames climb.
A funeral pyre for her past.
Jace stepped beside her. Said nothing. Just watched with her.
And then she turned to him.
The firelight danced across her skin.
Her eyes were wet. Not with tears, but with rage barely held in.
"I'm done being their creation," she said.
"You always were more than that."
She looked at him. Really looked.
Then pushed him against the rooftop wall.
And kissed him like a woman dying for something that made her feel alive.
They didn't go back underground that morning.
They didn't speak for a while either.
They fucked in a warehouse a few blocks away, inside a glass-walled office overgrown with vines and soot.
She rode him hard, pressed against the glass, the city watching as her body demanded everything he had.
He gripped her waist like she was the only real thing left in the world.
They didn't make love.
They fought with their mouths, with their nails, with every piece of pain they didn't know how to say.
She came gasping his name.
He followed seconds after, groaning against her neck, his hands lost in her sweat-slicked hair.
And when it was over…
She curled into his chest.
"I want them all dead," she whispered.
"We will," Jace said.
"But slowly," she added. "I want them to feel it."
Jace smiled.
"Then we start with Cassian."
—
The rain came down like knives.
By nightfall, the Syndicate was already bleeding.
Explosions echoed from their northern node in District 6—two entire blocks leveled. A fire in their southbound drug route. Servers fried in Sector 4. And worse, whispers were spreading. Red Sin was back. And she wasn't alone.
Cassian Verrick sat in his obsidian throne, shirtless, tattooed with ancient codes only a few still understood. Around him, a council of elites murmured—nervous, angry, afraid. The kind of fear that stinks in a man's sweat when he knows the predator has his scent.
Cassian raised a hand.
Silence fell like judgment.
"She's making noise."
The council remained quiet.
"She's tearing through cells faster than we can bury them. And this—" He gestured to the flaming map of their compromised zones, "—this is not a storm. This is a reckoning."
Someone finally spoke. A man with glass eyes and ink down his neck. "Then let's kill her again."
Cassian looked at him.
"You kill an idea?"
The man blinked. "No, but—"
Cassian snapped his fingers.
A shadow dropped from the ceiling.
The man's throat opened like wet fruit.
Cassian leaned back as the blood sprayed.
"That was the wrong answer."
He stood.
"Deploy the Bone Furies. Call back the Apostate Guard. Activate Mother Mercy."
One of the others gasped. "But she's—"
"I said activate her."
He stepped down from the dais.
"Ravenna wants to burn gods?" He smiled, slow and evil. "Then let's send her a taste of hell."
Location: The Black Strip, Eastern Undercity
Jace's boots splashed through filth as he moved through the tunnel, Ravenna at his side, cloaked in midnight. Her body still sang with pain and vengeance—an edge to her gait, an unsheathed blade in human skin.
Kellin trailed behind them, muttering codes into a hacked wristpad. "We have three hours before the central relay locks again. We hit Syndicate's mid-spine through the metro crevice, plant the coil bombs, then pull back before sunrise."
Jace nodded.
Ravenna? She said nothing.
Her silence had grown darker lately.
Deeper.
More… deliberate.
Jace wasn't sure what she was becoming.
But he was falling for it anyway.
They reached the breach point.
An old elevator shaft buried beneath a crumbled cathedral—the kind where people once prayed to gods long dead. Jace hoisted the cage open, metal screeching, and they descended into a belly of blackness few had seen and lived.
It was there that the first Fury struck.
Fast.
Silent.
From the wall.
Ravenna twisted mid-air, blade catching the gleam of a throat.
Blood arced.
Another dropped from the ceiling—spikes for fingers, stitched lips, a war scream erupting from behind sewn flesh.
Jace fired three times. The bullets tore through its side but didn't stop it.
Ravenna did.
She screamed. A wild, sonic burst that cracked the thing's skull open.
Then silence again.
Kellin stared.
"What are they?"
Ravenna wiped the blood from her cheek.
"Bone Furies. Failed projects. Left in the dark too long."
"They look like they never stopped growing," Jace muttered.
"They didn't," Ravenna said. "They just forgot how to die."
Location: Syndicate Core Network — Deep Node Gamma
The room glowed with green data. Wires coiled like serpents, monitors pulsed with stolen lives, and in the center—Mother Mercy.
She looked nothing like her name.
Her skin was leather sewn tight over shifting bone. Her eyes were glass, and her voice was honey poisoned with cyanide.
"Wake her," Cassian said.
The scientist hesitated. "Sir, once she's fully awake—"
Cassian grabbed his face, forced it toward the screen.
"Do it."
Mother Mercy's eyes blinked.
And every light in the node died.
A child's voice whispered through the dark:
"Where is Red Sin? I want to kiss her face… and peel it."
Cassian smiled.
"Then go. Take everything."
The screen burst into static.
Back on the street — 3:03 A.M.
Ravenna stood over the body of the last Bone Fury.
Its chest caved in.
Its mouth stitched open to scream.
Kellin was bleeding from the ribs. Jace had a burn across his arm. But Ravenna? Ravenna stood untouched, panting, her face stained red but her posture regal.
She turned to the street.
And saw the girl.
At first, just a silhouette.
A child in a white dress.
But her feet didn't touch the ground.
Her hands were claws. Her smile was teeth.
Mother Mercy.
She floated closer.
And whispered:
"Ravennnnnaaaa…"
Ravenna didn't blink.
She simply said, "You were my sister once."
The air dropped ten degrees.
Jace whispered, "What the fuck is that?"
Ravenna stepped forward.
And smiled.
"She was the only one who survived the training before me. She died inside the labs. I burned her body myself."
Mother Mercy's neck twisted with a wet crack.
"Liar."
Then she charged.
The collision was brutal. Glass shattered. Asphalt broke. Sound cracked.
And in the dark…
Sister fought sister.
Creator met destroyer.
Sin met mercy.
And mercy was a monster.
—
The warehouse exploded in colorless light.
Ravenna hit the ground first, skidding across cracked tile, blood trailing from her cheek. Mother Mercy hovered above, not flying, not walking—just moving in a way that mocked gravity. Her white dress rippled like smoke, her eyes twin infernos of glitching memories and childhood nightmares.
Jace fired round after round—headshots, heartshots—but nothing dropped her.
"Bullets don't work," Ravenna gasped, pushing to her feet.
"Then what does?" Jace growled.
Ravenna's eyes flashed.
"Me."
She lunged again, twin daggers unsheathed, her body a blur of vengeance and memory.
Mother Mercy met her mid-air, claws extended.
They clashed like falling stars.
—---------------------------------------
[POV: Ravenna]
The moment I touched her skin, I remembered it all.
The screaming halls of the lab.
The steel baths.
The ice injections.
She had cried beside me in the dark.
Her name used to be Mira.
My first friend. My only kin.
They told us to fight.
I refused.
She didn't.
And they rewarded her.
They remade her.
Now her mouth hissed words my nightmares still whispered.
"Red Sin doesn't deserve to exist."
I slammed her into a steel girder.
Her spine cracked.
But she laughed.
"I loved you," she whispered, before slashing my stomach wide open.
Blood sprayed the walls.
I screamed—and kept going.
Pain was home.
Pain was familiar.
I stabbed her in the neck.
And she kissed me.
A wet, cold kiss, teeth and tongue and hatred.
"You left me," she moaned.
"I buried you," I replied, pushing the second blade through her spine.
She dropped to her knees.
"I'm still here…"
I decapitated her.
Only then did she stop smiling.
Only then did the silence return.
—
[Location Shift: Abandoned Haven Loft, Sector 3]
Jace stitched her up slow, careful.
She didn't flinch once.
Kellin stood at the window, watching for drones, eyes hollow. "That thing... that child... she could've killed all of us."
"She almost did," Jace murmured.
Ravenna exhaled.
"She was family."
"You had family?"
She didn't answer.
Just turned her face to the cracked mirror on the wall.
Half her hair was soaked in blood. One eye swollen shut. But she smiled. Not out of joy.
Out of clarity.
"They only ever gave me one choice," she said. "Kill to survive."
She touched the healing gash on her side.
"But I'm choosing something else now."
Kellin snorted. "Like what? Love? Peace?"
"No," she said. "War. But my way."
Jace met her eyes.
And in that look, something broke open.
A flood of heat.
Of want.
Of shared damnation.
He crossed the room.
And pulled her into him.
They kissed like they'd just escaped hell.
Because they had.
—
The clothes came off in pieces.
Not ripped—peeled. One button at a time. One strap loosened, then slid down slow, like foreplay was an act of worship.
Ravenna straddled him.
Naked, scarred, glorious.
She held his face and watched him as she lowered herself onto his cock, inch by pulsing inch.
He groaned her name.
She leaned into his neck. Bit it.
"Tell me," she whispered, riding him slow. "Tell me you're mine."
"You know I am."
"Say it."
"I'm yours."
She ground against him, deeper now.
And when she came, it was violent.
Like a scream that never reached the air.
He came soon after, buried deep, holding her like the storm outside might tear them both apart.
But it didn't.
Because they were the storm.
—
[Later: Rooftop, same night]
Ravenna smoked alone.
Eyes cast to the distant skyline.
A figure stepped from the shadows.
Kellin.
"We leaked the data. Global channels. Anonymous networks. The Syndicate's masks are melting fast."
She nodded. "Good."
He hesitated. "Cassian's gone underground."
"I'll drag him back up."
Kellin swallowed. "And when you do?"
She turned.
Her eyes burned.
"I gut him."
Kellin met her stare. "And then what?"
She paused.
Flicked the cigarette off the edge.
And smiled.
"I burn this whole fucking city."
—
The morning didn't come.
Not in the Undercity.
Not where the sun was just a rumor bleeding through cracks above forgotten bones.
Sirens wailed in the distance—sweet, shrill songs of another Syndicate node collapsing. Red Sin's virus had spread, not just through networks, but through fear. Fear of her name. Her face. Her fury.
Jace stood shirtless at the edge of the rooftop, steam rising from his skin, bruises painting his ribs like war art. Behind him, Ravenna moved like smoke—silent, precise, wrapped in nothing but one of his shirts, stained with dried sex and gunpowder.
She slid behind him, arms around his waist.
He leaned into her touch, almost involuntarily.
"You ever wonder," he muttered, "what it would've been like… if we'd met before all this?"
She kissed his shoulder, slow. "You wouldn't have liked me back then."
"Why?"
"I still believed people could be saved."
He turned. "And now?"
"Now I believe they can be broken better."
Jace laughed, low and ragged. "Goddamn, I love you."
She kissed him again, this time harder. "Then come help me finish what we started."
[Location: Syndicate Outpost — Sector 12]
The building looked like a cathedral built by demons.
Black marble. Steel gargoyles. Towering gates of iron and bone.
Inside: death.
Ravenna, Jace, and Kellin stormed through the front line like prophecy in motion. Bullets screamed. Grenades bloomed.
Ravenna moved like a goddess possessed.
Every slice of her blade was intimate, an artful purge. One man tried to run—she put a dagger in the back of his knee, dropped him, then slit his throat as she walked past.
Jace watched her with awe.
She wasn't just winning.
She was cleansing.
Purifying a disease the city had been too cowardly to face.
By the time they reached the core chamber, the floor was wet with thirty corpses.
Cassian Verrick stood alone, arms behind his back, black-gloved hands resting on the hilt of an obsidian cane. His white suit was immaculate, bloodless.
"Red Sin," he said calmly. "The firebrand returns."
"I'm not here to talk."
Cassian nodded. "Then strike."
Ravenna didn't move.
Because the walls moved instead.
Ghostskins.
Twelve of them.
Tall, hooded, silent.
They flickered—one second visible, the next, gone. Phased technology, decades ahead of anything public.
Each one carried a weapon older than war.
Cassian smiled. "You didn't think I built my empire without gods, did you?"
Jace raised his rifle. "We've taken worse."
Cassian chuckled.
"These aren't soldiers, boy. These are devotion given flesh."
And then they attacked.
The room exploded into chaos.
Jace ducked a blade that passed through solid steel like water. He rolled, fired—nothing. The Ghostskin phased, reappeared behind him, swung.
He caught the blade with his rifle and screamed as sparks flew.
Ravenna met her enemy head-on.
Steel clashed.
Flesh tore.
Blood danced.
But she adapted.
She learned.
And then she danced too.
Her knives blurred.
She leapt, flipped, twisted in mid-air.
Kicked a Ghostskin in the throat, twisted with momentum, slit his side open before he phased again.
He collapsed.
The others paused.
She smirked.
"You can die."
They shrieked.
Charged.
Ravenna didn't back down.
And neither did Jace.
Side by side.
Two blades. One war.
Kellin, in the meantime, had slipped into the chamber's control node.
Fingers flying across the data keys, he bypassed biometric locks, decryption firewalls, and unlocked the vault beneath them.
The Syndicate's black box.
A cube of evidence, codes, and dirty secrets.
He grabbed it, stuffed it into a reinforced pouch.
Then he looked up…
And found her.
Cassian's hidden ace.
She stepped from behind the vault.
Tall.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Eyes like sapphire razors. Skin like frostbitten porcelain.
A weapon in the form of a woman.
The Goddess Project.
She was nude but not naked—her body encoded with bioluminescent glyphs, glowing like constellations.
"Kellin," she whispered.
He froze. "You—know me?"
"I was made to."
Her hands flexed.
And the room froze.
Every screen shattered.
Kellin dropped to one knee, nose bleeding.
She walked toward him, hips swaying like death in slow motion.
"I am Eve. I was made for Genesis. But you? You're still crawling in Eden."
She raised her hand.
Kellin screamed.
Then—
Ravenna burst in.
She tackled the Goddess at full speed, slamming both of them through a wall into freefall.
Jace followed, yelling her name.
The three of them crashed through levels.
Ten stories.
Landing in the substructure.
Concrete collapsed.
Water gushed.
And in the dark, only Eve rose.
Unharmed.
Smiling.
"You really want to die with her, Jace?"
He raised his weapon.
"I want to live with her."
And fired.
——————————————
They hit the floodwater like dying gods.
Eve stood still, waist-deep in the dark current, unfazed by the debris and screaming metal overhead. Jace came up choking, hauling Ravenna into his arms. Her shoulder was shattered, blood pumping slow and thick from a gash at her ribs—but her eyes were wide open, locked on the enemy.
Eve's smile glowed through the murk like a curse.
"You love her," she said, walking toward them, water parting like it feared her.
"More than the war," Jace growled, chambering a round.
Eve tilted her head, like she was dissecting the thought. "Then I will keep her. In pieces."
She vanished.
Reappeared behind him.
Too fast.
He twisted just in time, her blade grazing his neck instead of severing it. She spun again, this time aiming for Ravenna—
But Ravenna bit her hand.
Hard.
Eve screamed, recoiling.
"Bitch," Ravenna rasped, staggering to her feet. "I've bled better gods than you."
They fought.
No longer soldiers.
Not even assassins.
But monsters made perfect through agony.
Ravenna clawed. Bit. Screamed her grief. Kicked Eve square in the face, took a blade in the thigh, and still kept coming.
Jace threw her a pistol.
She caught it midair.
One shot.
Dead center.
Eve stumbled.
Twitched.
And grinned.
"Wrong caliber."
Ravenna didn't reply.
Instead, she pulled a silver detonator from her belt and shoved it into Eve's mouth.
"Chew on this."
Then she kicked her jaw shut.
And jumped.
—
The explosion was small.
Controlled.
But loud enough to bring the ceiling down.
Jace caught Ravenna mid-air, both of them crashing into a maintenance shaft filled with rust and shadows.
They didn't speak.
Just breathed.
Loud.
Together.
Alive.
—
[Location: Safehouse — Echo Line Ruins]
Kellin ran diagnostics on the black cube while Ravenna lay on the cot, shirtless, stitched, iced, and bandaged. Jace sat beside her, running his fingers over her knuckles, watching her ribs rise and fall.
"I thought you died," he whispered.
"I did," she croaked. "Then I remembered I owed you an orgasm."
Jace laughed, broken and raw. "You're impossible."
"And you're mine."
Kellin cleared his throat. "Not to ruin the afterglow, but this cube? It has everything."
"Define everything," Jace said.
Kellin turned the screen.
Dozens of files.
Names.
Accounts.
Experiments.
Child soldier blueprints.
Video footage of Cassian personally executing defectors.
And deep in the center—a locked subfolder labeled Project Pantheon.
"What's that?" Ravenna asked, sitting up.
Kellin chewed his lip. "The Syndicate's next move."
He clicked it open.
And the screen filled with faces.
Thousands of them.
Stored, catalogued, bred in labs.
Modified.
"Those aren't just enemies," Jace said slowly. "They're replacements."
"Clones," Kellin whispered. "Modified human replicas… of us."
And at the center—
A still image of Ravenna.
Younger.
Eyes wide.
But unmistakably her.
Ravenna stared.
"That's me," she said flatly.
"No," Kellin replied.
"That's Version One. You're Version Thirteen."
—
[Scene Break – Echo Line Ruins, Later That Night]
Ravenna couldn't sleep.
Not after that.
She stood naked under the cracked ceiling, rain leaking through, lightning shadowing her scars. Jace came up behind her, bare chest warm against her back, his arms curling around her waist.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he whispered.
"That I'm not real."
"You bleed. You break. You fight. You fuck. You love. If that's not real, then neither am I."
She leaned back against him. Let herself breathe. Let herself feel him.
"Version Thirteen, huh?" she murmured.
"Lucky number."
She turned in his arms, pressing her forehead to his. "Then make me forget the first twelve."
Their kiss was slow.
Heavy.
She straddled him on the rain-drenched floor, water dripping down her spine, her body slick against his. She didn't ride him with fury this time—but with need. With surrender. With trust.
He met her rhythm.
Kissed her every scar.
Bit her lips as she moaned.
Her hands in his hair, his mouth on her neck, and the world outside vanished.
They didn't just fuck.
They found each other again.
And when they came, it wasn't lust.
It was home.
—
[Dawn — Underground Broadcast Hub]
Ravenna stood in front of the world.
Face uncovered.
Voice raw.
"The Syndicate built gods in secret. They cloned us. Tortured us. Killed us. And lied to you."
Behind her: proof.
Images.
Footage.
The truth.
"They called me Red Sin like it was a threat," she said. "Now I make it a promise."
She leaned forward.
"To every survivor. Every rebel. Every mother who buried a son. Every orphan like I was."
A beat.
"I'm coming for them."
Static.
Then:
"WE ARE ALL RED SIN."
The world caught fire.
And Ravenna? She smiled.
Because this wasn't the end.
It was only the first strike.
—
[Hours Later — Abandoned Cathedral, Sector 9]
The storm hadn't stopped.
It raged against the city like it was mourning the sins Ravenna had dragged into the light. Inside the cathedral, the glass was long shattered, and the altar had become a war table—blueprints, maps, stolen ID chips, spent bullet casings. Holy ground turned battlefield.
Ravenna sat on the stone edge, legs bare, a black tank top clinging to her like second skin. Her hair was wet, tangled, streaked with blood that wasn't hers. Jace knelt in front of her, unwrapping a blood-soaked bandage from her thigh.
"You know," he muttered, "most people rest after nearly dying."
She looked down at him, eyes gleaming. "Most people aren't me."
He didn't smile.
Not this time.
He found the bullet lodged in her flesh and removed it with careful fingers.
She winced.
But didn't make a sound.
"You're going to bleed out one day just to prove a point."
"If it buys me one more second to kill them, I'll bleed like a river."
Jace stood slowly, his chest brushing her knees. His hands, stained with her blood, cupped her face.
"You don't have to do this alone anymore."
She blinked.
Something unspoken moved between them.
"I know," she said.
And then she kissed him.
Not lust.
Not rage.
But surrender.
Her hands slipped under his shirt, peeling it from his body. His mouth found her throat, tracing the ridge of a scar with his tongue. She gasped as he lifted her, set her down on the cold stone, and slid her panties aside.
"I want to feel you now," she whispered. "Not later. Not if. Now."
He didn't hesitate.
He dropped his pants, pressed against her slick heat, and pushed in slow—deliberate. Her breath hitched. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Their rhythm built like thunder, each stroke a promise he wasn't afraid to keep.
Ravenna dug her nails into his back, pulling him deeper.
Harder.
He lifted one of her legs higher, changing the angle, making her cry out into the echoing void of the ruined cathedral.
"Say it," he whispered.
Her breath caught. "I love you."
"No," he growled, thrusting deep. "Say who you love."
"You. Jace Cross."
And when she came, it was like a fuse snapping, sending shockwaves through her nerves until she collapsed against him, trembling, gasping.
He followed right after, groaning her name into her mouth.
They stayed like that.
Sweating.
Entwined.
Alive.
—
[POV: Kellin — Lower Sanctuary, Cathedral Basement]
Kellin didn't believe in fate.
But he believed in war.
And war had rules.
Like: never trust a man with clean hands.
He watched the video again—Project Pantheon's last entry. Someone in the Syndicate had injected live memories into a cloned host. And that clone had evolved.
Not just mentally.
But spiritually.
Emotionally.
He paused the screen on Ravenna's younger version.
And whispered, "You're not a clone. You're their reckoning."
He uploaded the entire drive to twenty different pirate nodes across the net. Burned it to disc. Hid it in encrypted tattoos on his arms.
If he died, the message wouldn't.
He took a deep breath.
The world would know her.
Not as Red Sin.
But as the last flame.
—
[POV: Ravenna — Cathedral Roof, Midnight]
She stood naked under the rain again.
Wounds still fresh.
The city burned far below, fires set by truth, lit by rebellion.
Ravenna's heart wasn't quiet.
It was furious.
She thought about the clones. About how many hers had died in cages. Stripped. Beaten. Used.
She swore on their bones: she would never let them be forgotten.
And never let the Syndicate create another version of her again.
Jace joined her, arms wrapping around her waist.
They didn't speak.
But their silence meant more than war cries ever could.
Together, they watched the skyline crack.
And in the distance—
Sirens.
Explosions.
The uprising had begun.
Ravenna turned, pressing her lips to Jace's chest.
"Let's give them hell," she whispered.
He kissed her forehead.
And replied, "No, baby. Let's make it."
—
—
[POV: Ravenna – Industrial Exclusion Zone, East Line Crater]
They moved under blackout.
Ten blocks deep into the dead sector.
No light, no power grid, no surveillance.
This was the place where the Syndicate dumped its failures—abandoned tech, bio-weapons, expired clones, memories too twisted to erase. Ravenna moved through it like a revenant, boots crunching over glass and ash, her fingers curled around the pistol Jace had cleaned for her at dawn.
Beside her, Jace and Kellin walked in tight formation, weapons drawn, senses strung taut.
The crater came into view.
A jagged wound in the city's skin.
Old cables and sewer arteries dangled from the torn earth like veins of a dead god. The air smelled of rust, rotted skin, and engine oil.
"This is where they made me," Ravenna said quietly.
Kellin's hand faltered on his rifle.
"You sure?"
She nodded.
"They called it Sector Null. It was erased from maps ten years ago. After the thirteenth trial batch."
Jace looked at her, his jaw hard.
"You mean after you."
She didn't answer.
But she walked.
They descended into the crater.
And the world changed.
—
[Below – Null Sector Lab Complex, Chamber N13]
The first thing they saw was the cages.
Small.
Steel-lined.
Lined up in long rows like library stacks.
Each one had a mattress. A drain. A screen playing religious propaganda on loop. And dried blood.
Some still had bones in them.
Ravenna didn't blink.
She pointed to one at the far end.
"That was mine."
Jace stepped closer, knelt beside it. The number on the cage read 013-R.SIN.
"You were a child," he muttered, horror in his throat.
"No," she said. "I was a weapon."
Kellin's voice broke the silence. "We need to find the control hub. If this place is still active—"
Lights flickered.
Then powered on.
And something moved.
Not in the shadows.
From the shadows.
A figure emerged.
Tall. Pale. Skin like melted wax. Eyes hollow.
Ravenna froze.
Her voice cracked.
"No..."
It smiled.
And spoke with her voice.
"You made it home, sister."
—
[POV: Jace – Chamber N13, Moments Later]
He raised his gun instinctively, but Ravenna pushed it down.
"Don't shoot."
"Why the hell not?" he hissed.
"Because that's... me."
Jace stared at the figure—at the warped mimicry of the woman he loved. Its face had her structure, but twisted, deformed, stretched wrong. Like someone had tried to sculpt her from memory, then forgotten what kindness looked like.
"What version is that?" Kellin whispered.
"Zero," Ravenna said.
Jace looked between them. "There was a zero?"
"She didn't survive the empathy graft. They buried her in code. Shut her body down. But she never left."
The clone grinned wider.
"You burned me alive, Red. And now you've brought them to finish the job?"
"No," Ravenna whispered. "I came to set you free."
The clone lunged—
But not at Ravenna.
At Jace.
Claws out.
Jace fired, hitting it in the leg. It stumbled—but didn't fall. Blood didn't spill. Wires sparked.
"It's part-machine," Kellin growled. "Cybernetic endoskin—Syndicate tech."
The thing hissed and launched itself again.
This time, Ravenna caught it midair.
They slammed into the cage wall.
Fists.
Elbows.
Rage.
It clawed her cheek open, but she headbutted it with a snarl. It grabbed her by the throat—only for her to snap its arm with a twist and drive her knife up under its jaw.
The machine stilled.
Then slumped.
And Ravenna caught it.
Held it.
Whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
Jace watched as her shoulders shook—not from fear. But grief.
For a piece of herself no one had ever mourned.
—
[Scene Break – Control Hub, Null Sector]
Kellin cracked the terminal.
And the world shifted.
Blueprints of the city.
Secret labs.
Locations of sleeper agents.
And one blinking signal…
ACTIVE: PANTHEON PROTOTYPE – LOCATION UNKNOWN.
"What is it?" Jace asked.
Kellin paled.
"They're building one more."
Ravenna stepped forward.
Eyes burning.
"Then we find it."
She downloaded the data. Turned to the others.
"We don't go back. We don't rest. This ends when they do."
Jace nodded. "What do we call this op?"
She stared at the screen.
At the word PANTHEON.
And whispered:
"Call it Excommunication."
—
[POV: Ravenna – Abandoned Rail Line, Hours Later]
The sound of the rail tunnel was a memory.
Water dripping. Metal creaking. Echoes that never belonged to anyone alive.
They moved fast.
Ravenna in front, her black coat flaring behind her like a war flag, blood still crusting one side of her collar. Jace followed closely, his rifle drawn but lowered. Kellin took the rear, muttering signal scans, rerouting surveillance pings, and feeding false coordinates to Syndicate drones.
"This tunnel leads to where?" Jace asked.
Ravenna didn't turn.
"The Chapel of Masks."
Kellin groaned. "The fuck's that?"
"The birthplace of the false saints," she said. "Where they injected God into machines."
The tunnel opened into a massive underground terminal, long abandoned. It smelled of sulfur and forgotten prayers. Ancient propaganda posters hung on the walls, flaking apart: REBIRTH AWAITS.SUBMIT YOUR SIN TO THE CODE.YOUR FLESH IS A LIABILITY.
"Holy shit," Jace muttered.
They reached the center of the chapel—a dais surrounded by rusted steel pews. Blood stained the floor. Not dry. Not old.
Fresh.
And waiting for them were five figures in hooded robes.
One stepped forward.
The robe dropped.
It wasn't human.
It had once been.
But now its mouth had been sewn shut. Its eyes replaced by rotating surveillance lenses. Its skin was pallid, stretched over chrome.
A voice hissed from its throat, filtered through static:
"You are not welcome, Heretic."
Ravenna didn't hesitate.
She shot it in the mouth.
It dropped, gurgling smoke.
The others surged.
Kellin hurled an EMP charge.
The room erupted in sparks.
Jace rolled beneath a swinging pipe arm and emptied a clip into the creature's torso—wires snapping, flesh sizzling.
Ravenna moved like a phantom—knife in one hand, pistol in the other, dancing through them like a ghost made of vengeance. She slit the throat of the tallest, flipped over the last one, and buried her blade in its skull from behind.
Silence.
Blood dripping.
Kellin was panting. "What were those?"
Jace stepped over one. "Monks. Wired straight to the SynNet."
Ravenna approached the altar.
Her eyes locked on a terminal built into the wall.
A keypad. A retinal scanner.
And a phrase written in crimson:
"Only the Fallen May Enter."
She reached into her coat.
Pulled out a syringe.
Stabbed it into her thigh.
Her pupils blew wide, veins lighting up beneath her skin.
She leaned forward—and the scanner accepted her.
The altar slid open.
Revealing a stairway.
Down.
Always down.
—
[POV: Jace – Sub-Level Theta, Beneath the Chapel of Masks]
They walked into a grave.
That's what it felt like.
Rows of clone tanks, most shattered. Some still held forms inside—half-formed limbs twitching in nutrient gel, faces caught mid-scream. The smell was chemical rot.
Kellin was recording it all. "We drop this on the Net, every firewall in the city burns."
"No," Ravenna said.
"Why the hell not?!"
"Because this isn't about public shame. It's about annihilation. I want their leaders weeping blood before they know they've lost."
She stopped at a console marked PANTHEON: ARCHITECT NODE.
Her hand hovered over the activation switch.
Jace stepped beside her.
"You sure?"
"I'm tired of asking that," she said. "Let's burn heaven down."
She flipped the switch.
The room roared to life.
And from a hidden wall—
A coffin rose.
Inside wasn't a clone.
It was a man.
Perfect.
Untouched.
Suspended in cryo.
And wearing Jace's face.
He staggered back.
"What the actual fuck?!"
Kellin stared. "They cloned you?!"
Ravenna's voice was ice. "No. They didn't just clone him. They replaced you."
Jace looked at his double—still frozen.
"Am I… the original?"
No one answered.
Ravenna touched his shoulder.
"You feel real to me."
He turned to her, eyes raw. "What if I'm not?"
"Then I'll love every broken copy of you until I find the soul they tried to erase."
—
[POV: Unknown – Location Classified]
He watched the feed in silence.
The old man with the Syndicate ring on his hand.
Skin like old parchment.
Breathing slow.
His voice crackled through the room:
"Activate Protocol Leviathan."
The screen flickered.
PROTOCOL LEVIATHAN ARMED.
TARGET: RED SIN.
OPERATION STATUS: TERMINATE.
He smiled.
And whispered, "She thinks she's the fire."
He tapped his ring once.
"She hasn't seen the flood."
—
[POV: Ravenna – Lower Quarantine Chamber, Pantheon Node]
The silence down here was cruel.
Soaked in static. Sharp with the memory of screams.
Ravenna stepped through the breached wall into a side chamber the map didn't show. Her boots crunched over surgical tools—scalpels, bone needles, memory extractors. She knew the scent before she saw the body.
Scorched flesh.
Synthetic lubricant.
And pheromones.
She didn't blink.
The room was still warm.
And someone was watching.
"You should've stayed above," a voice cooed from the dark.
Female.
Sultry. Familiar.
A moment later, the woman emerged, stepping barefoot from the shadows, her long obsidian hair spilling down her spine like wet ink. Her eyes glowed blue. Cybernetic. Her lips red like hunger. And her body—
Ravenna tensed.
"Velza," she said flatly.
The woman smiled.
"Hello, Red Sin."
She wore a transparent slickcoat, nothing underneath but blood-streaked synthskin and a control collar blinking green at her throat.
Velza tilted her head.
"You came looking for truth. You always do. But you forget… down here, truth undresses you."
She stepped close.
"Do you know what they made me for, Ravenna?"
She didn't answer.
Velza's smile widened.
"Sex reconditioning."
She traced a finger down Ravenna's cheek.
"They used me to reprogram soldiers. Break minds. Teach obedience through pleasure. You can't fight when your nerves are moaning."
Ravenna shoved her back. "That didn't work on me before."
"No," Velza purred, licking her lips. "But it broke your sister."
That stopped Ravenna.
"…what?"
Velza reached behind her. Dragged a chain.
A body limped forward from the dark—female, older, eyes burned out and replaced with mirrors. Collar marked UNIT: 015-R.SIN.
"Aria," Ravenna whispered. Her voice cracked.
"She's still functional," Velza purred. "But barely. She's forgotten pain. Forgotten language. But not touch."
Ravenna stepped forward—
And Velza struck.
Faster than logic. A whip of bioelectric cable wrapped Ravenna's throat. She gasped, dropping to her knees.
Velza straddled her, pulling the cable tighter. "Still think you're in control, Sin?"
Ravenna's eyes burned.
Then her hands moved—fast.
Two fingers found the button beneath her collar.
FLASH DISCHARGE.
The EMP cracked the air.
Velza screamed—short-circuited, collapsing backward.
Ravenna stood over her, chest heaving, collar singed.
She stared down at her.
"I control the damage."
Then she turned to her sister.
Untied the collar.
Cradled her.
"I'm sorry I left you," she whispered. "I'm going to rewrite everything they did to you. Even if it means burning the world."
Behind her, Jace entered the chamber—weapon raised, face hard.
"What happened?"
Ravenna didn't look at him. "She found my last weakness."
He stepped closer. "Then let me take care of it."
She turned.
Their eyes met.
And in that moment, something snapped.
Not in anger.
In need.
—
[POV: Jace – Ravenna's Bunker, Safehouse Sector 9]
He hadn't spoken in hours.
They left the ruins behind.
The lies.
The faces.
The weapons.
And now—inside her bunker, Ravenna stood by the concrete shower, stripped to skin, steam rising from her back like smoke off scorched marble.
Jace didn't speak.
Just watched.
And waited.
She turned.
Water sliding over her tattoos.
Scars like prophecy across her stomach.
Eyes rimmed with the fire of a thousand unspoken wars.
"Say it," she murmured.
He crossed the room.
Voice hoarse.
"You're the only thing that makes sense to me."
She reached for him.
Pulled him in.
Their mouths collided—wild, raw, nothing romantic. This wasn't love.
It was war.
He slammed her back against the cold wall. She gasped, legs wrapping around his waist. His tongue claimed her, deep and desperate. Her nails raked his back, drawing blood.
And then her voice—raspy and dark—whispered:
"Fuck me like I'm your last breath."
He didn't hesitate.
Pants dropped.
Sheathing himself inside her, slow and deep.
She moaned, head back, lips parting around his name like it was both curse and prayer.
His thrusts grew harder. Rougher.
Water crashing down their bodies.
She cried out, nails digging into his shoulders.
"Harder," she snarled.
And he obeyed.
She gripped the wall, arching her back. "Touch me there—yes, fuck, Jace—"
He bit her shoulder.
She came undone.
But he didn't stop.
He turned her.
Bent her.
Doggy.
Her ass arched toward him, dripping with heat, slick with need.
He entered again—deeper this time.
Her fingers scraped the tile. Every thrust hit home.
She cried out, over and over.
"Yes—there—don't stop—don't fucking stop—"
He grunted, pumping into her like a storm unleashed.
She came again.
Trembling.
Weak.
He gripped her hips, poured every memory, every lie, every nightmare into her body—into this moment where nothing else existed.
Then his breath hitched.
Release crashed into him like lightning.
He held her tight.
Still inside her.
Their bodies shaking.
Steam all around them.
Silence.
But not emptiness.
Only a dangerous calm.
Then she looked over her shoulder, hair drenched, lips swollen.
"Round two?"
Jace smirked.
"Always."
—
[POV: Ravenna – Same Night, Aftermath in the Bunker]
She lay on her side, sweat drying on her neck, heart still hammering like a riot. The sheets beneath her were tangled in the storm they just survived. Jace's body curved behind hers, his arm draped possessively across her hip. His hand rested just under her ribs like he was still afraid she might slip away in the night.
Neither of them spoke.
The room hummed with silence—but not peace. No. Peace was a myth they'd stopped chasing a long time ago. This was survival. Intimate and scorched.
Jace's lips brushed her shoulder.
"You didn't cry," he murmured.
She didn't look at him. "I don't cry for sex."
"It wasn't just sex," he said.
That made her pause.
Then she turned, eyes locking with his.
"You sure about that?"
He didn't flinch. "Yeah. Because if it was, I wouldn't still want more."
She straddled him—slow, dangerous. Her body still humming, sore, greedy. She ran her fingers down his chest, nails teasing old bullet scars.
"Then shut up and show me," she whispered.
And again—they burned.
—
[POV: Kellin – Outside, Monitoring Sector 9 Perimeter]
Kellin lit a cigarette and adjusted the drone frequency. He knew damn well what was happening inside the bunker. The audio feed buzzed like a porn channel with perfect acoustics.
He smirked. "About fucking time."
Then he froze.
The drone picked up movement.
Six heat signatures. Fast. Non-human.
"Kellin to Red," he hissed into the comms. "They found us. Six inbound. Reaper-class synthetics. Not responding to standard IFF. I repeat—Reapers inbound!"
No answer.
"Kellin to Jace. Goddamn it, where the hell are—"
The bunker roof exploded.
—
[POV: Jace – Mid-Thrust, Interrupted]
The ceiling cracked.
Then fire.
Steel rained from above as a Reaper-unit crashed through like a god of war—eight feet tall, plated in matte obsidian armor, blue plasma blades humming from its wrists.
Ravenna dove off the bed.
Jace rolled, snatched the pistol under the mattress.
They were both naked.
Didn't matter.
Ravenna slid, grabbed her twin blades from under the bedframe.
"Kill it!" she shouted.
The Reaper launched forward.
Jace fired.
Two rounds hit.
No effect.
The Reaper grabbed him, lifted him into the air. Its voice rasped from its chest:
"OBJECTIVE: RECLAMATION OF ASSET 9-Ω."
Ravenna sliced across its spine.
Sparks burst.
It dropped Jace.
She flipped, landed behind it, stabbing upward—blade shoved through its neck, twisting, wires snapping.
But it wasn't alone.
Another smashed through the south wall.
Then a third.
And a fourth.
Jace grabbed his rifle. "Kellin, we're blown! Evac route now!"
Kellin's voice cracked over the line. "There is no evac! They're jamming me—I'm pinned outside the bunker!"
Ravenna's voice was ice. "Then we kill our way out."