Chapter 19 — Jeratan Kabus
Scene 1: The Ambush
The fog at East Dock was a living thing.
It curled between stacked containers, rolled across the cracked asphalt, and swallowed sound in a damp, metallic hush. The sodium lamps overhead sputtered, throwing weak halos that made the shadows seem thicker, hungrier.
Arkellin moved like he belonged to the night. His steps were deliberate, weight spread evenly, each footfall soundless against wet ground. His breath was slow, steady—controlled—but his senses sharpened with every step. He caught the scrape of boots two rows away, the faint metallic click of a safety catch being thumbed off, the rhythm of lungs that weren't his.
The Dock was alive with predators.
He didn't flinch. Instead, he adjusted. Eyes scanning the maze, mind dissecting angles. Containers stacked five-high made corridors of steel; echoes would play tricks here. His fingers brushed the rusted pipe jutting from a loading crane as he passed, testing its weight. Hollow. Weak. Not useful.
A whisper of air shifted. Too close.
Arkellin pivoted.
The first man lunged from the fog, blade flashing. Arkellin caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted hard—bone snapped, the knife clattered to the ground. Before the man could scream, Arkellin rammed his elbow into the side of the skull, sharp and brutal. The body dropped, limp.
The second attacker came from behind, faster. Arkellin didn't look—he listened. The displaced fog gave him the direction, the rushed exhale told him the timing. He shifted his stance, pivoted, and ducked low. The swing of a length of chain cut air above his head.
Arkellin surged upward, shoulder slamming into ribs. The chain-wielder gasped, air exploding from his lungs. Arkellin's hands moved without hesitation: grab, yank, coil the chain around the man's throat in a fluid motion. A choke. A pull. The struggle was short. The body collapsed into the mist with a dull thud.
Silence returned.
He stood still, chest rising and falling with calm precision. His knuckles were wet—not with his blood, but theirs. The smell of rust and salt mingled with the iron tang, seeping into his lungs.
But this wasn't victory. Not yet.
Arkellin knew these weren't hunters; they were bait. The Dock had always been a stage for betrayal, and he had seen this play before. The broken wrist, the chain-wielder—cheap sacrifices meant to distract, to slow him, to remind him of ghosts.
He wiped his hand against the side of a container, leaving a dark streak across the steel. His mind worked fast: ambush spacing, where the next wave would come from, where the fog was thickest. He calculated distance to the car, exits, cover. Kindrake's precision, Arkellin's instinct. Both beating as one.
The sound came again—faint, deliberate. Three sets of footsteps this time, circling.
Arkellin's lips curved in a grim smile. He straightened, rolled his shoulders, and gripped the dropped knife in his hand.
The Dock wanted to finish what it started.
"So be it," he muttered. His voice was calm, but his eyes were fire.
He stepped deeper into the fog, ready for the next shadow.
The Dock whispered in broken rhythms—chains clinking, cranes groaning, gulls crying unseen. Arkellin pressed deeper into the maze of containers, knife in hand, breath even. His mind mapped sound and shadow, predicting where the next strike would come.
Then he heard it.
A muffled gasp. A scuffle of shoes dragging on wet steel. Not his. Not trained.
Feminine.
His chest tightened instantly. He knew that sound—resistance without technique, panic disguised as courage.
Myra.
Arkellin froze mid-step, eyes narrowing into the fog.
A hundred meters away, Myra struggled. Two men had surged out of the mist, catching her by surprise as she trailed too close to the crane line. One caught her wrist, twisting it painfully behind her back. The other shoved a cloth toward her mouth.
She fought back with reckless desperation—kneeing, scratching, biting. Her heel cracked against a shin; one man cursed, nearly letting go. But they were stronger, trained to grab and drag.
"Boss said she's worth more alive," one hissed.
"Then hold her still!" the other barked, jerking her head back.
Myra's heart pounded. Fear clawed at her throat, but she bit down hard on the hand near her mouth, drawing blood. The man yelped, slapping her across the face. Her vision blurred.
Still, she twisted, kicking, refusing to fold.
Arkellin's pulse slammed against his ribs. And with it, memory.
Not Myra's voice. Another voice. Another night.
A woman screaming in the rain.
Blood blooming across white fabric.
Her body slipping from his arms onto the Dock, eyes already fading.
His hands helpless, stained red.
He gritted his teeth.
Not again. Never again.
The trauma clawed at him, but this time something else anchored him—Kindrake's cold clarity. Where Arkellin's past threatened to drown him in grief, Kindrake's mind sharpened every detail: distance, angles, numbers. He saw the Dock not as a grave, but as a chessboard.
He inhaled once, steady. His muscles coiled like steel cables.
The man holding Myra yanked her upright, twisting her arm until she cried out. Her defiance faltered, tears cutting through fog and sweat.
And then—silence shifted.
The attacker's head snapped up. Too late.
Arkellin burst from the mist.
He moved with brutal precision, knife flashing once. The man behind Myra screamed as steel opened flesh across his forearm. Myra dropped free, stumbling forward. Before she could fall, Arkellin caught her, pulling her behind his chest in one fluid motion.
The second man lunged. Arkellin twisted, shoulder driving into ribs, elbow hammering the jaw. Bone cracked. The attacker crumpled, spitting blood onto wet concrete.
Arkellin's knife hand didn't hesitate. A downward arc, controlled, meant to disable. The man shrieked, collapsing with a cut tendon.
Myra clutched the back of Arkellin's shirt, trembling. Her breath came in sharp sobs, her cheek still stinging from the slap.
He didn't look back at her, but his arm shifted just enough to shield her more fully, body squared against the remaining fog. His voice was low, rough, carrying both anger and relief.
"You shouldn't have come."
The two men were still breathing, groaning in the fog—but Arkellin's instincts warned him this wasn't finished. The Dock never left survivors who could return to hunt later.
He tightened his grip on the knife, the steel gleaming faint in the sodium light. Myra's fingers clutched his shirt from behind, trembling, her breath warm against his back.
"Stay behind me," he said. The command was quiet, but it brooked no refusal.
The first man tried to rise, cradling his bleeding arm. Arkellin moved faster. He kicked the man's knee sideways—bone snapped, the scream muffled by the fog. Without hesitation, Arkellin spun the knife in his palm and pressed the edge to the man's throat, just enough to silence him.
His eyes were cold, not wild. This wasn't rage. This was calculation. He angled the blade at the jugular, then flicked it away, cutting the man's shoulder instead—enough to ensure he wouldn't lift a weapon tonight or tomorrow.
He pivoted to the second, the one still coughing blood on the asphalt. Arkellin stooped low, pressed a knee into his chest, and disarmed him with a sharp twist that snapped fingers. The man howled; Arkellin leaned closer, whispering words only he would hear:
"Run. Tell your boss the Dock doesn't forget me either."
Then he struck once with the pommel, knocking the man cold.
The fog swallowed the noise. Only Myra's ragged breathing filled the silence.
Arkellin finally straightened, wiping the knife against his sleeve. His hands were steady, but his jaw was clenched tight enough to ache.
Behind him, Myra's voice broke in a whisper. "You… you were going to kill them."
He turned, meeting her wide eyes. She was flushed from the struggle, a red mark still across her cheek where she'd been slapped. Even shaken, her beauty burned through the mist like fire.
"They would've killed you," he said simply.
Her throat worked as she swallowed. "I told you—I wanted to stand beside you. I thought—"
"You thought wrong." His voice cut sharper than the knife. Then, softer, as if the words had clawed out of him without permission: "And you almost got yourself killed."
Myra's lips trembled, caught between defiance and guilt. She stepped closer, ignoring the blood on the ground, ignoring the fog, ignoring everything but him. Her hand touched his chest—hesitant at first, then firmer, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat beneath.
"I wasn't afraid," she whispered. "Not when you were here."
Arkellin's eyes closed for the briefest second. He felt the echo of the past—the Dock, the woman he couldn't save, blood soaking his hands. But Myra was alive, warm, trembling against him.
He caught her wrist gently, lowering her hand from his chest. His grip lingered longer than necessary, torn between pushing her away and keeping her close.
"Don't test me like this again," he said, voice low, raw. "Next time, I may not reach you in time."
Myra's breath hitched, her lips parting as if to answer, but the fog shifted again—voices echoing in the distance, more footsteps crunching against steel.
Arkellin's head snapped toward the sound, knife rising once more. The Dock wasn't done with them yet.
The mist thickened, rolling in from the sea like a living wall. The sodium lamps along the pier sputtered, some dying altogether, leaving stretches of darkness between faint pools of orange.
Arkellin's knife gleamed as he shifted his stance. Myra stood just behind him, still clutching his sleeve, her breath shallow, her eyes wide. The metallic scent of blood clung to the air, mixing with salt and rust.
Then came the sound.
Boots. Many of them. Crunching in rhythm across wet asphalt. Left. Right. Behind.
The fog gave them shape before it gave them faces—shadows multiplying, closing in between the stacks of containers. The scrape of weapons being drawn echoed from all sides.
Myra's grip on his arm tightened. "They're surrounding us…"
"I know." Arkellin's voice was low, steady. Too steady.
From the heart of the fog, a voice rose. Cold. Mocking. Familiar.
"You can't run, Andy." The words cut through the mist like a blade. "The Dock remembers."
The footsteps halted all at once, a perfect circle tightening around them. Shadows waited at the edge of the lamps, unmoving, patient, like predators savoring the moment before the kill.
Arkellin didn't flinch. He angled his body to shield Myra, his knife raised, his eyes hard with fire. The name they used—the name tied to the body he wore—echoed against the hollow steel walls.
Myra pressed closer to him, whispering just loud enough for him to hear, "What… what do they mean? The Dock remembers?"
His jaw tightened, memories clawing at him from the corners of the fog—betrayal, blood, the sting of old death. He didn't answer her. Not yet.
Instead, he stepped forward once, feet steady on the slick ground, and growled into the mist:
"Then let it remember how I finish what you started."
The fog pulsed with silence for a heartbeat. Then the shadows moved.
And the Dock closed in.