The two white vans flew north on I-94 doing ninety-five, headlights off, guided only by the faint golden glow leaking from Sofia's forehead where it rested against Father Elijah's shoulder in the lead van.
Marcus Ruiz drove like a man who had once trained for this exact apocalypse.
Diego rode shotgun—literally—twelve-gauge across his knees, brown scapular flapping against his chest every time they hit a pothole.
Sister Mary Grace was in the second van with the children and the grandfather, one hand on the wheel, the other holding a rosary the size of a police baton.
Every radio station was the same voice now: Prince Alessandro, calm, soothing, promising that the nightmares would stop the moment you accepted the Mark.
At mile marker 38, the highway narrowed to a single lane blocked by a GEA checkpoint: floodlights, concrete barriers, two armored Humvees, and twenty enforcers in matte-black exosuits. A digital sign flashed red:
STOP · SCAN · EVOLVE
REFUSAL = TERMINATION
Marcus eased off the gas. "This is it. They've locked down every major road out of Chicago."
Diego racked the shotgun. "We ram?"
"No," Marcus said. "We pray."
He rolled the window down and held his old GEA badge out into the floodlights.
The lead enforcer—a woman with captain bars and eyes that didn't blink—walked forward, scanner raised.
"Badge is void," she said in a flat voice. "Step out for immediate processing."
Marcus looked in the rear-view mirror at Father Elijah cradling Sofia.
Then he did the most insane thing possible.
He started praying out loud, loud enough for the external speakers on the van to carry it.
"Our Father, who art in heaven…"
Every enforcer within twenty yards flinched as if slapped.
Diego joined in instantly, voice cracking but strong.
"Hallowed be Thy name…"
The captain raised her rifle.
Father Elijah's deeper voice rolled from the back seat, gentle but unbreakable.
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…"
Sofia stirred in his arms. Her eyes opened—pure gold, no pupil, no white, just living light.
She sat up slowly, placed one hand on the dashboard, and finished the prayer in a voice that sounded like a thousand women speaking at once:
"…on earth as it is in heaven."
The scanner in the captain's hand exploded in a shower of sparks.
Every floodlight on the checkpoint popped at once, plunging the highway into darkness lit only by the moon and the glow pouring off Sofia like she was the monstrance now.
The enforcers screamed.
Some clawed at their right hands where the Mark suddenly blistered and smoked.
Others dropped their weapons and fell to their knees, sobbing in languages they didn't know they spoke.
One young man tore his helmet off and stared at Sofia through the windshield with sudden, human eyes.
"Help us," he begged. "It hurts. It's lying. Please—"
Sofia stepped out of the van barefoot, hoodie hanging loose, brown scapular swinging.
She walked straight toward the barricade.
Every enforcer who still had the Mark stumbled backward as if pushed by an invisible wind.
Father Elijah tried to follow, but Marcus grabbed his arm. "Let her go. Look."
Sofia stopped in the exact center of the checkpoint, raised both hands, and began the first Hail Mary of a new decade—soft, almost conversational, like she was talking to her mother.
"Hail Mary, full of grace…"
Golden light rolled out from her in perfect circles, like ripples in still water.
Wherever the light touched a Mark, the skin split open and black liquid poured out—then sealed again, clean and whole.
Twenty enforcers collapsed unconscious but breathing, freed.
The captain was the last standing. Her Mark had already been removed in the tunnel; now she just stared at Sofia with tears cutting clean paths through the soot on her face.
"You're the one from the chapel," she whispered. "I was ordered to bring you in alive."
Sofia smiled gently and placed her hand on the woman's cheek.
"Then come with us instead."
The captain dropped her rifle and fell to her knees.
Behind Sofia, the second van rolled up. Sister Mary Grace stepped out, surveyed the twenty unconscious or weeping enforcers, and whistled low.
"Kid just converted a GEA kill squad with one decade," she said. "Mary's not playing around."
Diego ran forward and hugged his sister so hard he lifted her off the ground.
Father Elijah stood frozen, staring at the perfect circle of unharmed asphalt where Sofia had stood—like a crop circle made of grace.
Marcus picked up the captain's rifle, checked the magazine, and handed it to her handle-first.
"Your choice, Captain. The Mark is gone. You're free."
The woman looked at the vans, at the children peeking out with luminous seals on their own foreheads, at Sofia glowing softly in the moonlight.
She took the rifle, slung it, and climbed into the second van without a word.
Sister Mary Grace grinned. "Welcome to the remnant, Captain."
They left the checkpoint burning gently behind them—no explosion, just a quiet, steady flame that lit the sky like a candle on an altar.
No pursuit came.
Forty miles later, Sofia finally spoke again, voice hoarse.
"I saw her," she whispered from the back seat. "Our Lady. She was standing behind the enforcers the whole time. Tall. Blue mantle. Smiling like a mother who just watched her toddlers take their first steps."
Father Elijah's hands shook on the rosary he hadn't stopped fingering.
"What did she say?" he asked.
Sofia leaned her head against the window, eyes drifting shut again.
"She said, 'Tell my children the Rosary is stronger than any army that has ever marched. Keep praying. I am crushing the serpent under your feet right now.'"
Then she slept.
Diego looked at his sister, at the faint imprint of the Host still visible on her hoodie, at the twenty-one new passengers crammed into two vans—former enemies now wearing hastily-blessed brown scapulars Sister Mary Grace had handed out like MREs.
He laughed once, shaky and incredulous.
"We just recruited an entire GEA platoon with ten Hail Marys," he said.
Marcus, driving again, glanced in the mirror and smiled for the first time all night.
"Welcome to Day One of the Tribulation, gentlemen," he said. "Population of the remnant: thirty-two and growing."
Far behind them, the checkpoint fire burned pure white now, visible for miles—like a beacon.
And somewhere in Rome, in a palace that used to be the Vatican, Prince Alessandro watched the satellite feed go dark and crushed a crystal goblet in his bare hand.
To be continued…