Monday
The city wakes to blood and plastic sheeting.
It's all over the morning news — a pretty anchor trying not to gag as she reads the teleprompter:
> "A victim was found near the old viaduct, surgically mutilated, organs removed, and the body stitched closed. Police say this is the first of its kind. Details are withheld, but detectives confirm it's the work of a single individual — now dubbed The Surgeon."
Selene watches the broadcast from the breakroom at the morgue. Her coffee goes cold in her hands. Jess stands behind her, hand over her mouth.
> "God, what kind of freak does that?" Jess whispers.
Selene's mind is already moving — the cut patterns, the clean scene, the cold logic. This isn't The Flock's chaos. This is method. Ritual. Pain turned into art.
In her pocket, her phone buzzes — Micah: You seeing this? Looks like someone wants your job.
---
Tuesday Night
She hunts. She follows whispers — stolen records from Phelps, Micah's tapped feeds, back-alley rumors.
But she's late. Always late.
The second victim is an addict — a small-time informant who sold gossip to crooked vice cops. Selene finds him alive — barely — in an abandoned dental office reeking of bleach and old blood.
She tries. She really tries. She slices through padlocks, claws through drywall. He's strapped to a surgical table, mouth taped shut, eyes wide and empty when she tears the gag away.
Too late. The Surgeon's work is done. One lung gone. Stitched neat like a textbook.
The only clue — a note pinned to the victim's chest: "Corruption is cancer. I am the scalpel."
---
She flees when sirens wail. But not fast enough.
Detective Ward corners her outside the building — gun raised, eyes tired and furious under a rain-slick streetlamp.
> "Hands where I can see them, Raven."
She freezes — dark wings dripping rain, talons curled tight.
> "Put the toys down and step away."
She growls. "He's gone. I was too late."
Ward sneers. "Because of you — this freak thinks he's playing doctor in my city. Congratulations."
"This isn't The Flock. You know that."
"Don't you lecture me. You think you help? You make them bolder. They escalate to outdo you. Now I've got a corpse missing a lung and you—"
He steps closer — close enough she can see the gray stubble on his jaw, the weary regret in his eyes.
> "—you think you get to decide who lives and dies. Well guess what — so does he."
She almost lunges — almost. But her shoulder still aches from bullets that should've killed her weeks ago.
He lifts his gun an inch higher — his finger doesn't shake.
> "One move. Go on. Give me an excuse."
A flicker of wings in the dark — one of Micah's drones hums overhead. Ward's eyes snap upward. She uses the heartbeat — slips sideways into the night.
A single black feather drifts to the wet street at his feet.
---
Wednesday
Back at the morgue — her safe place. Her lie.
Jess corners her by the lockers, voice soft but eyes sharp.
> "Selene. Be real with me. You've been weird. Stranger than normal weird. Is this you?"
"What?"
"This Surgeon freak. You hear everything down here. You get close to all the city's filth — maybe… maybe you know too much?"
Selene wants to scream. Wants to tell her friend to run. Instead she just nods. "I'm fine, Jess. Really."
Jess hugs her tight anyway — the only warmth that feels real these days.
---
Thursday
Micah paces The Nest, headset crackling with Ward's police radio feed.
> "Ward's tearing the city apart. Guess who he's blaming? Hint: big black feathers."
Selene ignores him. She sharpens her talons. Rechecks the new drone he modified — sleeker wings, better night cams.
Micah tries to lighten it. "Hey, at least you're famous. Infamous. Semi-famous. Hey, you want new merch? I'm thinking 'I Survived The Raven, But The Surgeon Didn't' — catchy, right?"
She glares. "If he gets a third, it's on me."
---
Friday Night
He does. And this time, it cuts deeper than flesh.
Jess doesn't show up for shift. No call. No text. Selene's stomach knots.
Phelps mumbles: "Oh, they found someone in the old printworks on 12th. Female. Same freak show."
Her vision tunnels.
She's there before the cops. She claws through rusted doors — cloak slick with oil and fear. And she finds him — Dr. Lucien Harrow — his mask surgical, his hands precise, blade gleaming under a single dangling bulb.
Jess lies on the table, half-drugged, tear tracks drying on pale skin.
Harrow doesn't look up. His voice is calm, clinical, warm.
> "Ah, you're early. Good. Observe. There's art in the cut, you know. The city rots inside them — so we cleanse the rot."
"Jess," Selene breathes — steps forward.
Harrow flicks the scalpel, grinning behind his mask. "She gossiped. Fed the filth. She's next. But you — you look like a masterpiece waiting to be opened."
She doesn't wait for him to finish.
The fight is savage. Close. No shadows — just steel and breath. He cuts her once, twice — ribs, thigh. She feels the hot tear of flesh, the cold rush of rage.
Jess stirs, gasping. Sees her — the Raven — not Selene, but she can't care.
Micah's voice crackles in her ear: "Selene — come on — you're not dying in a janitor's closet, I swear to God—"
She pins Harrow against a steel column — drives a talon through his throat. It's not clean. It's not pretty. It's not surgical.
It's justice.
---
Later
Ward arrives to find the Surgeon's body bag zipped shut under flickering hazard lights.
Jess cries in Selene's arms — half-conscious, safe, broken. She'll remember nothing but a black shape and the sound of wings.
Ward sees the feather beside the body — fresh, black, undeniable.
He meets her eyes from across the room — no gun this time, just silent rage and reluctant respect.
---
The Raven didn't save them all. But tonight — tonight she saved one.
And for a heartbeat, that's enough.
---
END OF CHAPTER FIVE