The moment the Sentinels stepped through the doorway, the chaos didn't fade.
It didn't taper off reluctantly or wind down like a dying engine.
It died.
Instantly.... Violently.
As though an invisible hand had reached in and strangled every sound in the room at once. One heartbeat the air was thick with grunts, curses, crashing furniture, and the wet smack of fists against flesh. The next heartbeat, nothing.
Absolute, suffocating silence.
Thorne and the blonde-headed boy remained locked together on the floor in a grotesque tangle of limbs... fists still cocked halfway through their arcs, chests heaving, sweat and a thin smear of blood glistening on the blonde's split lip. But the instant their eyes registered the silver insignia glinting on the Sentinels' dark uniforms, both boys froze. Not out of fear, exactly. More like prey animals that had just realized the predator in the room was something far older, far colder, and infinitely less forgiving than either of them.
