Lucien stepped around the corner.
The hunter was slumped against the wall.
Young. Around his age, maybe younger. Dark hair plastered to her scalp with blood. Her armor was ruined—torn open, crushed, its original quality still obvious even destroyed. Gear that probably cost more than he made in a year. Her left arm hung wrong, twisted at a sick angle. Her legs were folded beneath her, bent past anything legs were meant to do.
Blood had spread beneath her, a wide, ugly pool. Nearly three feet across. Black under the emergency lights.
Her right hand was pressed to her chest. She was gripping something small and dark, knuckles bleached white. Lucien couldn't see what it was.
"Hey." His voice thinned out on the word. He swallowed. Tried again. "Hey—can you hear me?"
Her head turned. Slow. Deliberate, as if every inch of movement cost her something. Her eyes were sharp when they found him. Awake. Focused.
"Stop."
Lucien froze.
"Turn around." She coughed. Blood spilled down her chin and dripped onto the wreckage of her armor. "Leave. Now."
"You're hurt. I can call—"
"You can't help me." Her voice was coming apart, wet and uneven. "Nothing here can help me. You need to run."
His hand found the radio without him deciding to do it. Reflex. Training meant for drills, not this.
"What happened?" he asked. "Was it a breach? The rift—"
"Not the rift." Her gaze slid past him, toward the dark stretch of corridor beyond. "Something worse. Someone."
"Someone did this to you?"
She didn't answer. Her grip tightened around whatever she was holding.
Lucien pressed the radio. "Greaves. East corridor, past Storage C. Injured Awakened. Critical condition. I need medical and backup."
Static. A pause that stretched long enough to feel wrong.
Then Greaves came through, voice flat. "What do you mean, injured Awakened?"
"I mean she's dying. There's blood everywhere. I need help."
"I'm on my way. Stay put."
The hunter heard it. Lucien saw the moment land behind her eyes—a shift, pain pushed aside by calculation.
"Tell him to stay back." She tried to sit up. Failed. Her arm gave and she slid down the wall, leaving a fresh red smear behind. "Tell him not to come. Please."
"He's already moving. Just hold on—"
"It's still here." Her voice dropped, thin as breath. "Somewhere in the building. Waiting. If he comes, he dies. If you stay, you die. Do you understand?"
Lucien's throat tightened. "What is? What's still here?"
She opened her mouth.
Footsteps cut her off.
Measured. Calm. Coming from deeper in the corridor, past the loading bay doors. Closing the distance.
Her eyes went wide. Not panic—terror. Raw, stripped bare. Her hands began to shake.
An Awakened. Someone who walked into rifts and came back alive. Shaking in her own blood.
"Too late," she said.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence. Then a voice, drifting out of the dark.
"Yo."
Casual. Almost friendly. A thick accent Lucien couldn't place. The voice continued, switching languages—Mandarin, maybe. The tones rose and fell in patterns Lucien didn't understand.
Neither did the hunter.
Her face drained of color.
A figure stepped out from the loading bay. Human. Average height. Average build. Nothing that should have stood out—except the way they moved. Unhurried. Loose. A predator without urgency.
They spoke again, still in Mandarin. The cadence suggested a question.
The hunter's breathing sped up.
"Help me up," she whispered. "Now."
Lucien didn't hesitate. He slid an arm under her shoulder and pulled.
She weighed almost nothing. Blood loss, maybe. Or whatever kept Awakened bodies functioning past reason. Her legs buckled twice before they held.
They started moving. Slow. Uneven. Her good arm stayed clamped to her chest. The bad one dragged uselessly at her side. Blood smeared the floor behind them.
The chaser watched. Didn't follow. Just stood there, head tilted, speaking softly. Curious. Patient.
Lucien's radio crackled.
"Cross! I'm coming in from the west junction!"
Greaves. Twenty feet back, rounding the corner at a jog. Gun already in his hand—standard issue, more for comfort than effect.
"Greaves, don't—"
The gun barked. Three shots. Deafening in the enclosed corridor.
The chaser moved.
Lucien looked back.
Greaves was shouting. The gun was still up. His mouth was open, forming words Lucien couldn't hear through the ringing.
Then Greaves wasn't whole anymore.
One blink, a man standing.
The next—pieces sliding apart. Torso separating from waist. An arm dropping free. A head tipping sideways at an angle no neck should take.
The parts hit the floor in wet sequence.
Greaves was gone.
No scream. No time for one.
Lucien's legs locked. The hunter yanked him forward.
"Move. Move."
They crashed through a door on the left. An office—desk, chairs, filing cabinets. Her weight dragged them both down. They hit hard, tangled in the doorway.
The door stayed open.
The hallway stretched back toward what remained of Greaves.
Footsteps resumed. Steady. Unrushed.
Her hand fisted in Lucien's collar. The grip was iron despite everything—despite the blood loss, the shattered bones, the thing walking toward them. She pulled his face close.
Her eyes were clear now. Calm. The fear was gone, replaced by something colder.
"Open your mouth."
"No."
The word cracked as it came out. Lucien tried to pull away. Her grip didn't shift.
"I need you to open your mouth."
"No. I'm not—I don't—"
"Please." The word broke her voice. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I need you to open your mouth."
He shook his head. Tried to pry her fingers loose. They didn't budge.
The gap between them. Between what he was and what she was. He'd seen Awakened on monitors, watched them rattle reinforced platforms just by walking past.
Seeing it wasn't the same as feeling it.
Her other hand rose. Found his jaw. Fingers pressed into the hinges, into nerves he didn't know existed. White fire tore through his skull. His mouth opened. A scream lodged uselessly in his throat.
She reached into her armor and pulled out what she'd been holding.
A crystal. Silver. Faceted. The emergency lights fractured across its surface. A hard-edged polyhedron, about the size of a ping-pong ball.
I should not have come.
The thought arrived whole and undeniable. He should be home. Asleep. In six hours he should be packing the car, listening to Leo complain about the playlist. He should never have answered the phone. Never taken the shift.
She shoved the crystal into his mouth.
It caught on his teeth. She forced it harder. Edges scraped enamel and sliced his gums. His own blood flooded his tongue—hot, coppery. The crystal was too big. His jaw stretched. Something clicked. Cartilage. Bone.
Pain detonated through his head.
Her hand clamped over his mouth and nose, driving the crystal back toward his throat.
Lucien gagged. His body convulsed, rejecting it. She held him down. Her weight was nothing—barely ninety pounds of broken girl—but the strength behind it was wrong. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
The crystal scraped down his esophagus. Tore tissue. Lodged where it shouldn't fit.
He swallowed.
Reflex. Survival clawing over everything else.
The crystal dropped into his chest.
She released his mouth and grabbed his hair, forcing his face down toward the floor. Toward the blood pooling beneath her.
"Drink."
He tried to turn away. She shoved his face into it.
"Drink or it kills you for nothing."
His lips hit the blood. Warm. Thick. It coated his tongue, slid down his throat. He gagged. She didn't let go. He drank. Swallowed. Animal necessity, nothing else. The taste was wrong—metal and sweetness and something burning underneath.
She let him go.
Lucien rolled onto his back, gasping. His chest burned. The crystal sat beneath his sternum, foreign, already being rejected.
Then the seizure hit.
Every muscle locked at once. His spine arched off the floor. His teeth clamped so hard he felt one crack. His hands clawed at the concrete, nails splitting, fingers bending wrong.
His blood was changing. He could feel it—cells bursting, dying, replaced. Veins bulged under his skin, dark lines spreading from his chest up his neck and down his arms.
Black blood beneath brown skin.
He coughed.
Blood sprayed from his mouth. Not a trickle. A flood. It soaked his shirt, pooled beneath him. His body was emptying itself. Making room.
The crystal moved.
It burrowed deeper. Consumed. His sternum cracked. Ribs separated. Something inside him was being carved away, hollowed for something else.
His heart stuttered.
Skipped.
Stopped.
Started again—wrong. Slow. Heavy. Each beat sent pressure through his skull, his vision pulsing red.
The hunter watched from the doorway. She'd dragged herself upright. Her eyes were wet.
"I'm sorry," she said, fading. "There wasn't another way. It can't have it. It can't—"
She coughed. Blood spilled. Her head slumped.
Lucien tried to speak. His throat was full of blood. His lungs were full of blood. Everything was blood and fire and the crystal rooting into his chest.
His heart stopped again.
This time, it didn't restart.
The crystal pulsed once. Cold light behind his ribs. Then it began to grow—tendrils spreading through his chest cavity, wrapping around dead muscle, consuming it. Building something new.
Lucien's eyes stayed open. He couldn't close them. He stared at the ceiling. At the lights. At the shadows.
He watched himself die.
The hunter's breathing slowed. Stopped.
The office went quiet.
Footsteps approached. Measured. Unhurried.
The chaser stepped inside. Looked at the hunter first. Crouched. Checked for breath. Found none.
A blade appeared in their hand. Short. Curved. Efficient.
They drew it across her throat.
Then they turned to Lucien.
Brown skin gone gray. Eyes open. Blood everywhere. The chaser crouched again, checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
They muttered something in Mandarin. A curse. A sigh.
The blade crossed Lucien's throat. Clean. Deep.
The chaser straightened, scanned the room once, then again. The artifact was gone. Bonded and failed. Host dead. Payload destroyed.
Another curse. Quieter.
They opened the window. Cold night air rushed in.
They jumped.
Gone.
The office remained.
Two bodies. Blood cooling. Emergency lights pulsing.
Lucien did not move.
He did not twitch.
He did not breathe.
He was dead.