The pressure around Jonah's throat tightened violently.
The pain exploded through his neck as the invisible force crushed harder, cutting off air he had left. His body hung helplessly above the pavement, muscles straining uselessly against something he couldn't touch.
Beside him, Arianna choked desperately.
Her fingers, clawed at her throat hard enough to tear skin, panic flooding her eyes as she struggled against the force suspending her in the air.
"Jonah-!"
Her voice came out broken.
Weak.
The six hooded figures surrounding the house remained perfectly still beneath the fog. Their raised hand never trembled. Jonah couldn't even see their faces beneath the darkness of their robes, but he could feel their attention focused entirely on her.
Not him.
Her.
Adrian reacted instantly.
His silver-coated Desert Eagle came up.
"Put her down!"
Gunfire exploded throughout the street.
The first bullet tore through the shoulder of one of the dark figures, but barely reacted. The robe shifted unnaturally around the impact as if there wasn't a real body underneath.
Adrian fired again.
And again.
Silver flashes ripped through the fog while Djin trapped inside the House shrieked violently.
Then something smashed through the front windows.
Glass exploded outward.
A dark shape launched from the house like a starving predator finally released from its cage.
"ADRIAN!"
Jonah's voice came out strangled.
Too late.
The Djin slammed into Adrian and drove him across the pavament.
Its claws tore through his coat and raked across his chest.
Adrian cried out blood as sprayed across the street.
The creature was massive.
Exposed muscle wrapped around a skeletal frame that barely looked stable. Its elongated arms ended in hooked claws, and its face was little more than the streatched jaw packed with jagged teeth.
The Silver Desert Eagle slipped from Adrian's hand and skidded across the pavement.
The Djin immediately lunged for his throat.
Adrian caught it with his forearm.
The impact nearly broke his arm.
"GET OFF ME!"
The creature shrieked directly into his face. Its breath smelled like rot. Like stagnant water and open graves.
A claw carved another deep line across Adrian's chest.
Pain shot through his body.
The Djin raised its head, opening its mouth wider than any living thing should have been capable of.
Then Adrian's hand disappeared beneath his coat.
Steel flashed.
His combat knife plunged upward into the creature's neck.
Black fluid erupted across his face.
The Djin screamed while Adrian twisted the blade harder.
The creature convulsed violently before collapsing inward, its body unraveling into black smoke that scattered into the fog.
For a second Adrian remained on one knee. Breathing hard, blood soaked through the front of his shirt.
The wounds weren't fatal.
But they were deep.
When he looked up, his expression changed immediately before he fainted.
Because the cultists hadn't moved. Not once.
As if Adrian had never been a threat.
As if he didn't matter.
Arianna's body jerked violently in the air.
"Jonah-!"
The sound tore through him.
Jonah forced his arm upward inch by inch.
Every muscle in his body screamed in protest.
His vision had already begun darkening at the edges.
But he kept pushing.
Kept fighting...
Kept reaching for the gun.
Arianna's eyes searched desperately for Jonah.
Tears streamed freely down her face as she fought against the invisible grip crushing her throat. Her figers dug into her own neck until thin lines of blood appeared beneath her nails, but nothing loosened the pressure.
"I.. can't.."
The words barely escaped her.
Jonah felt something inside him break.
"LET HER GO!"
His voice echoed through the empty street, raw enough to hurt his own throat.
One of the hooded figures slowly titled its head toward him. The movement was untarually smooth, almost mechanical, and when it finally spoke, the voice that emerged didn't belong a single person. It soundede as though dozen of voices - young and old, male and female- were speaking in perfect unison.
"She sees. It's perfect."
The words rolled through the fog like a verdict.
A cold wave settled over Jonah's body.
The pressure around Arianna's throat tightened again.
She gasped sounlessly, her body trembling violently as her feet dangled helplessly above the pavament.
"No!" Jonah shouted.
The cultist ignored him completely.
Behind Jonah, Adrian forced himself back onto his feet despite the blood soaking through the front of his coat. Every breath looked painful, but he raised his silver gun anyway, refusing to let the weapon fall.
"Jonah!" he shouted "Shoot them!"
Jonah fought against the invisible force with everything he had left.
Every inch he raised his arm felt like trying to lift a mountain. His muscles screamed. His vision blurred, and blood rushed loudly through his ears until it drowned out almost everything.
Finally..
The barrel lined up.
He pulled the trigger, The Desert Eagle roared.
One of the hooded figures vanished into a cloud of black smoke as the bullet passed straight through its chest.
It changed nothing.
The remaining cultist never flinched.
They stood motionless beneath the fog, their hands still raised toward Arianna as though Jonah's resistance had been expected from the very beginning.
Arianna looked down at him.
Their eyes met, for a brief moment.
Everything else disappeared, the cultists, Djin, gunfire's. Even the pain crushing his throat.
All Jonah could see was her.
Fear still lingered in her eyes, but something else slowly replaced it. Not hope, nor despair
Acceptance.
It was the same quiet smile she'd worn on difficult days when she'd tell him everything would work out somehow.
This time, she couldn't even speak.
She simply looked at him as if trying to memorise his face one last time.
Jonah shooked his head desperately.
"No...please...."
One by one, the cultists lowered their hands.
Then, with slow twisting motion of their wrist, they made the same movement together.
The sound that followed was horrifyingly small.
A single, dry crack.