The door swung inward on rusted hinges, groaning like something dying.
Jade stepped through.
The smell hit him first—sharp, chemical, layered beneath something older and fouler.
Blood. Sweat. Fear so thick it clung to the walls like a second skin. His stomach turned, but his face remained still, expression locked behind the cold mask he'd learned to wear.
The room was smaller than the hall outside.
More intimate. And somehow, that made it worse.
Four cages lined the walls, each one barely large enough for a child to lie down in. The bars were thinner here, more decorative—as if whoever designed this place had wanted it to look less like a prison and more like... what? A collection? A gallery?
Jade's hands clenched at his sides.
The suppression runes carved into the floor pulsed faintly, their red light casting jagged shadows across the stone. They were stronger here, denser, woven with more care.
Designed not just to contain, but to break.
His gaze swept the room, taking in details with the clinical precision of someone who'd learned long ago that survival meant noticing everything.
Three of the cages held children.
The fourth was empty, its door hanging open, dried blood smeared across the floor inside.
Jade forced himself to look at the occupied ones.
The first cage, nearest the door, contained a boy. Ten, maybe eleven. His dark hair was matted with filth, his face swollen with bruises so deep they'd turned black. He sat curled against the bars, knees drawn to his chest, eyes open but unseeing.
An omega. Jade could tell from the faint mark lingering beneath the rags barely covering his body.
The boy didn't react to the door opening.
Didn't flinch. Didn't move.
Jade's throat tightened.
In the second cage, a girl lay on her side, barely conscious. She was younger—eight, perhaps. Her clothes were torn, her arms covered in bruises shaped like fingers. Her breathing was shallow, labored, each exhale rattling in her chest like something broken.
A beta. No mark, but the scent of infection clung to her skin, sharp and sickly sweet.
Jade's jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
The third cage—
He stopped.
A girl sat there, pressed into the far corner as if trying to disappear into the stone itself. She was older than the others, maybe twelve or thirteen, with dark hair that might have been beautiful once but now hung in tangled, matted clumps around her face.
Her eyes—wide, dark, haunted—fixed on him the moment he stepped closer.
She flinched violently, arms coming up to shield her face, a broken sound escaping her throat.
"No—please—not again—"
Jade froze.
His chest constricted painfully, something twisting deep inside him that felt too much like memory. Too much like the rain-soaked nights when he'd begged strangers not to kick him again, when he'd curled in alleys and prayed to gods he didn't believe in that someone—anyone—would help.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said quietly.
His voice was soft, stripped of the cold edge it had carried in the hall outside. Not commanding. Not clinical. Just... gentle.
The girl didn't lower her arms. Her whole body trembled, breaths coming in sharp, panicked gasps.
Jade crouched slowly, making himself smaller, less threatening. His bloodied hands rested on his knees, visible, open.
"I'm getting you out," he said.
The girl's eyes—those dark, shattered eyes—darted to his face, then away, as if looking at him too long would invite punishment.
"You're... lying..." she whispered, voice cracked and raw. "They all... they all say that..."
Jade's hands tightened on his knees.
"I'm not them," he said.
"They said... they'd let us go... if we were good..." Her voice broke, tears spilling down her cheeks. "But we were good—we were so good—and they still—they still—"
She couldn't finish. Sobs choked the words, her whole body shaking with the force of them.
Jade exhaled slowly, forcing down the fury threatening to consume him. Not now. Not in front of her.
"Your sister," he said quietly. "Fourteen. She's alive. She's waiting for you."
The girl's breath hitched. Her arms lowered slightly, just enough for her to see him fully.
"You... you're lying..."
"I don't lie," Jade said. And it was true. In this life, at least, he'd learned that lies were a waste of breath. "She's in the other hall. She sent me to find you."
The girl's lips trembled. "She's... she's really...?"
"Alive," Jade confirmed. "And I'm taking you to her. Both of you are leaving this place tonight."
For a moment, the girl just stared at him.
Then, slowly—so slowly it hurt to watch—something flickered in her eyes.
Not hope.
But the possibility of hope.
She nodded once, a tiny, fragile motion.
Jade stood and moved to the cage door. The lock was more complex than the others, layered with runic script designed to drain mana from anyone who tried to force it open.
He didn't force it.
He simply froze it.
The metal contracted violently under the sudden cold, stress fractures spiderwebbing across the surface. Jade gripped the lock and twisted. It shattered in his hand, fragments of frozen steel tinkling to the floor like broken glass.
The door swung open.
The girl didn't move at first. She stared at the open cage as if it were a trap, as if stepping through would trigger some new horror.
"It's okay," Jade said softly. "You can come out."
She shifted forward hesitantly, one hand gripping the bars for support. Her legs shook as she stood, barely able to hold her weight.
Jade reached out—slowly, carefully—and she flinched again but didn't pull away.
"I've got you," he murmured.
Her hand, small and cold, slipped into his.
He moved to the other cages next, working quickly but gently. The boy didn't react when
Jade opened his cage, didn't even seem to register that the door was open. Jade had to carefully lift him, cradling the child against his chest. The boy's body was painfully light, all sharp angles and fragile bones.
The younger girl stirred weakly when Jade reached her, eyes fluttering open. She made a soft, confused sound, like she couldn't understand why someone was being gentle.
"You're safe now," Jade whispered, brushing matted hair from her face.
He couldn't carry all three. Not safely. Not without—
A sound echoed from the hall outside.
Footsteps.
Jade's head snapped toward the door, every muscle in his body tensing. His Void Sense flared outward, brushing against—
Nothing.
No. Not nothing.
Concealed presences.
At least four. Maybe more. Moving with the practiced silence of professionals, not the drunken swagger of the mercenaries from before.
Jade's eyes narrowed.
Reinforcements.
Or worse—handlers.
He set the younger girl down as gently as he could, his hand lingering on her shoulder. "Stay here," he said quietly. "Don't make a sound."
Fourteen's sister gripped his sleeve suddenly, eyes wide with terror. "Don't—don't leave us—"
"I won't," Jade said, meeting her gaze steadily. "But I need to make sure no one else comes through that door."
Her fingers trembled but slowly released his sleeve.
Jade stood and moved toward the doorway, his steps utterly silent. Frost began creeping along the walls again, spiraling outward from where he walked, the temperature dropping with each breath.
He reached the threshold and paused, listening.
The footsteps had stopped.
Silence pressed against his ears, thick and oppressive.
Then—
A voice, low and cold, drifted through the corridor.
"The barrier's down. The merchandise is compromised."
Another voice, rougher. "What about the asset?"
"Doesn't matter. Burn it. Burn everything."
Jade's eyes flashed.
Burn it.
His gaze snapped back to the children behind him—three fragile lives huddled in cages, barely clinging to existence.
They were going to burn them.
The frost spreading from Jade's feet suddenly erupted outward in a violent wave, coating the walls, the floor, the air itself in jagged sheets of ice.
The temperature plummeted so fast the moisture in the corridor crystallized instantly, tiny ice shards glittering like shattered diamonds.
Jade stepped into the hall.
Four figures stood at the far end, dressed in sleek black armor, faces hidden behind featureless masks. Combat specialists. The kind you hired when you needed something done right.
One of them held a plasma torch, already ignited, its flame casting hellish orange light across the frozen corridor.
They saw him.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then the one with the torch raised it, finger tightening on the trigger—
Jade moved.
He didn't blink this time. Didn't teleport.
He ran.
His small frame became a blur of motion, boots barely touching the ground as he closed the distance in nanoseconds. The lead specialist barely had time to react before Jade was on him, one hand slamming into the man's wrist.
The joint froze instantly, ice spreading up his arm with vicious speed.
The man screamed, the plasma torch clattering from his grip.
Jade twisted, using the man's frozen arm as leverage, and snapped it at the elbow. The limb shattered like glass, fragments scattering across the floor.
The man collapsed, shrieking.
The other three opened fire.
Plasma bolts and accelerated rounds tore through the air, searing, deadly. Jade twisted between them, impossibly fast, impossibly small, his body moving with the fluid grace of someone who'd learned to fight in spaces where hesitation meant death.
One bolt grazed his shoulder, burning through fabric and skin.
Jade didn't flinch.
He raised his hand, and the floor erupted.
Spears of ice shot upward in a chaotic forest, forcing the specialists to scatter. One wasn't fast enough—a spear punched through his thigh, pinning him to the ground. He screamed, clawing at the ice, blood pooling beneath him.
The remaining two flanked Jade, moving with practiced coordination. One drew a blade—mono-molecular edge, glowing faintly with heat. The other raised a plasma pistol, tracking Jade's movements with cold precision.
They attacked simultaneously.
Jade dropped low, the blade slicing through the air where his head had been. The plasma bolt scorched past his ear, so close he felt the heat singe his hair.
He slammed his palm against the floor.
Ice exploded outward in a radial wave, jagged and uncontrolled. It caught the blade-wielder mid-step, encasing his legs up to the knees. The man grunted, trying to wrench himself free,
Jade kicked him.
Not hard. Just enough.
The man toppled backward, his frozen legs snapping clean off at the knees.
His scream was brief before shock silenced him.
The last specialist stumbled back, weapon trembling. "What—what the fuck are you—?!"
Jade straightened slowly, blood dripping from his shoulder, frost crawling up his arms.
His eyes fixed on the man with hollow, terrible focus.
"Your retribution" Jade said softly.
The specialist turned and ran.
He made it three steps before chains of ice wrapped around his throat, yanking him backward with brutal force. His body hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the air from his lungs.
Jade walked toward him slowly, deliberately.
The man clawed at the chains, gasping, eyes wide with animal terror. "Wait—wait—we were just following orders!"
Jade crouched beside him.
"I know," he whispered.
Then he pressed his hand against the man's chest.
The ice spread slowly. Deliberately. Creeping across ribs, through muscle, into organs.
The man convulsed, mouth open in a silent scream, every nerve lighting up with frozen agony.
Jade watched until the light left his eyes.
Then he stood and turned back toward the room.
Toward the children waiting inside.
His hands were shaking now—just slightly.
Blood and frost coated his palms, his arms, his clothes.
He forced himself to breathe.
Not done yet.
He couldn't break. Not yet.
Not until they were safe.
He returned to the back room, where two pairs of eyes watched him with expressions too complex to name.
Fear. Awe. Confusion.
"It's clear," Jade said quietly, though his voice carried a new edge of exhaustion. "We're leaving."
The sister rose shakily, supporting the younger girl. The boy still didn't move, staring at nothing.
Jade lifted him again, cradling the child carefully.
"Stay close to me," he said.
And together, they walked out of the room.
Out of the cages.
Into the frozen corridor lined with bodies and blood.
Toward the possibility of freedom.
....