[Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic violence, torture, and disturbing imagery. Reader discretion is advised.]
Dorne charged with monstrous force, right fist flying. Nero didn't dodge. He didn't counter immediately. He stepped slightly left and slammed his right elbow into Dorne's incoming punch.
The impact shattered Dorne's ring finger. He didn't stop—fists, kicks, knees came at lightning speed. Nero met each strike with precision, elbows smashing Dorne's fists again and again, palms redirecting blows, his body moving fluidly to dodge the rest.
Each strike from Nero broke Dorne's bones; each graze from Dorne cracked Nero's own elbow, but it healed instantly. Dorne pressed harder, fists becoming sloppy with every bone-cracking elbow. His fingers were mangled, unable to form a proper fist.
Dorne froze, staring at his ruined hands—bones fused wrong from incomplete healing. Pain throbbed in every joint.
Nero's voice cut cold through the chaos. "Looks like you were wrong. Your cheap healing doesn't work like mine. Does it hurt to even move your fingers?"
Dorne's palms shook. Anger and pain contorted his face. "What did you do?"
Nero advanced slowly, deliberate. "Just checking something… after seeing the scar on your arm."
Dorne tried to slam Nero away with an open palm. Nero sidestepped, grabbed Dorne's wrist with his right hand, and smashed his left elbow into Dorne's own. The elbow snapped backward with a crack. Dorne let out a deafening scream, bones fusing incorrectly as they healed.
Nero held Dorne's mangled thumb. "Does it hurt?"
Tears streamed down Dorne's face. "Yes!"
Nero twisted the thumb backward. The bone dislocated mid-fusion. Dorne's scream tore through the air.
He swung left, but Nero grabbed his collarbone and ripped it free from its socket. Blood sprayed as Nero poked out Dorne's right eyeball, the bleeding sealing over instantly—but the eye was gone.
Dorne swung again. Nero kicked his right knee. The kneecap shattered; the joint bent backward unnaturally. His scream was raw, primal.
Nero closed his fist and hammered Dorne's jaw repeatedly, bone after bone splintering. Dorne's healing tried to catch up, fusing incorrectly. He tried to crawl away; Nero stepped on both ankles repeatedly until they crumbled.
"Your healing," Nero said coldly, "doesn't realign broken pieces. It just fuses them wrong."
Blood coated both of them. Dorne writhed under pain, trying to escape. Nero mounted him, raining punches into shoulder blades until they snapped and fused incorrectly. Dorne was paralyzed, trapped in agony.
Nero stepped off, eyes burning, voice low, trembling with fury. "You killed Eli. That boy had a future. You stole it. I promised him… I'd make him a toy."
From a nearby rundown house, Thom took aim at Nero. His finger tightened on the trigger, a shot rang out.
It wasn't Thom. It was Vinn, from the edge of the forest. Thom's head exploded, brains and bone splattering—the threat gone instantly.
Nero didn't flinch. He stood in front of Dorne. "You made me break my promise to Eli."
He set his left foot squarely on Dorne's skull. Dorne tried to beg, but words wouldn't form—jaw broken, fused wrong, mangled.
Tears mixed with blood on Nero's face. His voice cracked, raw and haunted. "You killed him… in such a gruesome way."
With a wet crunch, Nero pressed down fully, crushing Dorne's skull. Blood pooled around them, brain matter and bone scattered. Dorne's strength, his healing—none of it mattered. He was gone.
Vinn stepped out from the trees, CH padding at his side. Nero watched him approach. "Where were you? They killed Rhea," Nero asked.
Grief carved Vinn's face. "I know. They even killed Kato." He tightened his grip on the sniper. "I shouldn't have fallen for their lie."
"When did you get here?" Nero asked.
Vinn kicked at Dorne's corpse. "Not long ago. I followed my gut—and I realized it was a trap." He began to tell the story.
A few hours earlier, Kato, Vinn and Thom had split up to search for Nero. Vinn pushed ahead while Kato handed a radio to Thom and fell back. Vinn had gone far enough that something felt wrong; instincts screamed trap. He started back toward the town, then saw movement in the bushes and raised his pistol, keeping low.
Out of the undergrowth stumbled an old goat—CH. The animal had slipped into the forest to hide. CH had watched Jaren carry the Hell-Lizard's severed arm into Ilana's house and had heard talk of killing him for his head. Terrified, the goat fled and ran straight into Vinn.
They ducked into cover together. From the trees came Ilana's voice—muttering and searching. "Where the hell did that fucking goat go? I need to bring him back to Thom's house." She added casually, "That soldier woman is already dead. Maybe Thom killed the other one already."
Vinn froze. He understood who she was talking about. Rhea.
He shot first to stop her from calling alarm. The suppressor swallowed the sound; Ilana screamed as the round tore through her left femur, collapsing her into grass. She groped for a handgun; Vinn put another round through her wrist to make her drop it. She tried to crawl, dragging a bleeding leg, groaning with each ragged breath. He fired again into the back of her knee—bone shattered, a howl that split the night.
Vinn stepped out of the bushes, moonlight falling across his shoulders. Ilana saw him and spat, "You— you shot me. Why?"
Vinn crouched, expression empty. He pressed the still-warm muzzle of his pistol to her forehead; the metal hissed and smoked where skin met hot barrel. Her scream was torn and raw.
So this is torturing, he thought, and the thought surprised him with how simple it felt.
"Please—please stop," Ilana begged.
Vinn eased the barrel away. "Why did you kill Rhea?" he asked.
She tried to answer; the words came out broken. "I don't—" Before she could finish, Vinn fired into her shoulder. She flailed, blood pooling around her.
"Don't fucking lie to me." He grabbed her jaw, forced her face to the side, and pressed the gun to her cheek. The small burn mark smoked. "I heard you talking. About how Rhea died. About Thom's plan."
Ilana moaned and finally coughed out the truth: "Dorne killed the female soldier. Thom—he might have already killed the other. Nero's trapped under Thom's basement. We plan to offer him to the king of those creatures in return for immortality… and a blessing."
Vinn's voice went cold. "What about the children? Are they part of this?"
Ilana's eyes flickered. "With the blood of the children and the goat's head. We'll open a gate—like the ones you hear about. A doorway. It will take us out."
Vinn stood. "You people are sick—using your own children as offerings."
"Please—don't kill me," Ilana begged.
Vinn didn't hesitate. He raised the pistol and squeezed. The silenced shot lost in the forest's sounds. Her body slumped. CH shuffled from the brush and stood beside Vinn for a moment, then followed him as he ran back toward the town.
They arrived to find Nero locked in combat with Dorne. Vinn's eyes snagged on Thom, half-hidden in a ruined house with a rifle trained on Nero. He shouldered his sniper in one fluid motion—no suppressor, no time—and fired. The rifle cracked; Thom's head snapped back, a red bloom on the floor. The shot echoed off the empty roofs.
Back in the present, Nero asked, "Have you seen Anika?"
"No," Vinn said, scanning the houses.
Anika stepped out of her doorway with a towel wrapped around her hair as if she'd only just come from the bath. As she moved, the towel loosened and slipped from her head, falling soundlessly to the ground. Her long dark hair spilled free,felling in soft, damp curtains across her face; a few strands clung to her cheek, shadowing one pale eye. She wore a simple, dark dress that hung loose from her shoulders, sleeves layered and a touch frayed at the edges — practical, unadorned, something that absorbed light rather than reflected it. Her posture was still, the kind of calm that felt like a held breath.
Something left her doorway-shadow and slid after her — not a person, but a smear of darkness learning to keep shape. It pooled and drew itself thin into a grin that did not belong to any mouth, two white eyes catching the moon like dull coins. The mass stitched itself into jagged teeth and ragged wings of soot, crawling softly as if it were ink trying to remember the outline of a thing.
Anika glanced down at Dorne's body and then at Nero. "I'll have to find more kids and pawns," she said softly, clinical and cold. Then she looked at Nero with a smile like a blade. "But first—I'll rip you to pieces. Touch my pets again and you'll learn not to."
The shadow behind her shifted like a coat settling; its grin widened in answer, a silent, hungry echo.