The silence was deafening, suffocated by the stench of scorched metal and the unspoken fear of the landmines. Theodore was rigid, his boot keeping the landmine from detonating. The eight armed men were frozen, their knives poised.
The man who had appeared in the ruined archway, stout, impeccably dressed in a dark wool suit that looked expensive against the grime, and carrying a smooth wooden walking cane, was now the center of attention. The custom pistol he held was still smoking faintly.
The men immediately lowered their knives, their previous bravado dissolving into weary deference.
"Boss," the scarred leader mumbled, shifting awkwardly. "We almost had them. Why... why did you come out all the way here?"
The boss flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve with an air of mild annoyance.
"I was nearby. Thought I'd ensure you didn't mess up," he said, his voice a calm, refined baritone that carried over the rubble. His eyes, however, were not on his subordinates. They were fixed, with chilling intensity, on Eta and Theta.
"Oh... what a fascinating anomaly. The heat... the speed,"
he mused, a disturbing intellectual curiosity replacing any anger.
"Hold them both down, boys. Pin those two little firecrackers. I want them intact for study."
He then turned his attention to the rest of the immobilized group, his gaze resting on Emmett (Delta).
"I'll finish the others,"
he stated, raising his unique gun and taking aim at the center of Emmett's chest.
Briar (Alpha), Felix (Beta), and Beatrice (Epsilon) instantly tensed, their muscles screaming at them to move. Emmett's face, however, remained unnervingly calm, a mask of cold discipline, even as his heart hammered a frantic rhythm of pure fear against his ribs.
Briar was the first to break the tension. "Please,"
she choked out, tears gathering in her eyes. "Don't kill any of us. We'll leave here immediatelyand never come back."
The Man ignored her, focusing entirely on his target. He took slow, deliberate steps toward Emmett, his attention entirely focused on the placement of his own expensive, polished shoes to avoid the landmines. He moved closer, closer, until the muzzle of the ornate gun was mere inches from Emmett's chest.
At point-blank range, the Man paused, his brow furrowing slightly. He felt a fleeting, irritating sense of déjà vu.
*Where have I seen those eyes before?*
He bashed the intrusive thought away.
"Any last words, boy?"
he asked, his voice now entirely flat, bored with the inevitable.
Emmett didn't speak. He couldn't. His throat was seized with a confusion that momentarily eclipsed his fear.
The Man tightened his finger on the trigger. Briar's heart pounded so hard she felt dizzy. The sight of the gun pressed against Emmett's chest was too much for her.
She screamed one last time, desperate and raw.
"No! Please! Don't kill Emmett!"
The other children instantly shot Briar a look of pure, cold horror.
Why did she expose his name out loud?
But the Man didn't shoot. The muzzle remained pressed to Emmett's chest. His eyes, which had been narrowed in concentration, widened slightly. The intent to kill vanished, replaced by a dumbfounded look of intense, searching recognition.
He slowly repeated the name, savouring the syllables.
"Emmett..."
He leaned in, his tone shifting from casual menace to chilling formality.
"Emmett Cogsley Thorne?"
Emmett, shaken by the man's sudden change, could only give a tight, fractional nod.
The Man's face brightened with a disturbing, feverish excitement—a smile that was gone as quickly as it came. He lowered the gun, his attention completely shifted.
He turned to his men.
"Leave the anomalies," he commanded, waving dismissively at Eta and Theta. "Change of plans. Forget the execution. Take young lord Emmett."
The men scrambled to obey, immediately releasing the twins and seizing Emmett by his arms and legs, hoisting him up roughly.
"No!"
Briar screamed, her desperation exploding into furious action. She ignored Corbin's frantic shout of, "Alpha, don't move! Landmines!" and rushed forward in a desperate, impossible fury to save Emmett.
Her foot landed squarely on one of the hidden mines.
The explosion was immediate and violent. The noise was a deafening crack. Briar was launched backward with concussive force, slamming into a section of the ruined brick wall. She slid down the surface and crumpled into the debris, instantly unconscious, a stark line of blood sliding down the wall from her head.
Theodore watched the brutal magnitude of the blast, his body tensing in shock. He watched, helpless, as The Boss and his subordinates carried the stunned Emmett carefully through the minefield and into the steam-powered van and drove off, the van's wheels crunching over the debris.
The twins rushed to Briar's side, their faces pale with shock. He noticed Corbin quickly bending down, snatching up something shiny from the ground, and shoving them into his pocket.
Theodore let out a long, ragged sigh, his focus fractured by the sight of Briar's still body and Emmett's abduction. In a moment of absolute, exhausted negligence, he subconsciously shifted his weight onto his other leg, taking the pressure off the first landmine.
The sound that followed was a second, inevitable, metallic:
TICK.