The med-bay lights glowed a low amber, the sort of hue engineers swore would soothe fractured minds and weary bodies. Tonight they only carved sharper edges into every shadow, turning the sterile room into a place of quiet judgment.
Tobias lay on the narrow bench, wrists finally unbound yet still aching with the memory of cold metal biting into skin. Phantom restraints circled his arms like invisible cuffs, a constant reminder of how close he had come to being locked away forever. Each breath pulled in the harsh sting of antiseptic, mingled with the faint, lingering copper tang of blood that no cleanser could fully erase. Behind his eyelids, Amira waited in the darkness. Her eyes wide. Glassy. Accusing. Forever captured in that final heartbeat of shock.
He had killed her.
The certainty sat heavy in his chest, a stone he could not dislodge.
The door sighed open on well-oiled hinges.
Elyndra stepped inside alone. Her white coat remained immaculate despite the endless hours, exhaustion carefully concealed behind those calm violet eyes that had seen too many wounds and too few miracles. She carried no tray of sedatives, no humming scanners, nothing but a silence that settled over the room like fresh snow. Without a word she sat on the edge of the bench, close enough for him to catch the subtle scent of starlight and sage that always lingered after she worked her spells.
"You're awake," she said, her voice soft yet edged with unbreakable resolve.
For a long moment he could not reply. Words had turned to gravel in his throat, impossible to force out.
She waited. Patient as the endless drift between stars.
At last the gravel shifted. "Every time I close my eyes, I see her," he rasped. "My hands slick with blood. It cooling against my skin like it was marking me as its own. I did it, Elyndra. Whatever is waking up inside me finally tore free and took her life."
Elyndra studied him in silence, her expression giving nothing away. When she spoke, her words came measured and precise. "You surfaced from blackout covered in her blood, yes. But you were drugged heavily, drained of strength, and plunged into terror. Certain compounds shatter memory the way dropped glass fractures into dangerous shards. The mind tries to fill the gaps, often with the worst possible story. You know this from field training. We all do."
"I woke up covered in her blood," he repeated, voice splintering. "That part is not a trick of the mind. That part is real."
"Her body told another tale entirely." Elyndra leaned forward slightly, holding his gaze. "No defensive wounds anywhere. No burst of fae magic lingering in the air. No indication she struggled or fought back. In her final moments, whoever stood before her was someone she did not fear. That is not the mark of a man losing himself to instinct. That is the mark of careful, cruel staging."
The air rushed from his lungs as though she had struck him. He stared at her, the room tilting dangerously. "You're saying someone framed me."
"Every scan, every spell, every trace of evidence points exactly there." Her eyes blazed now with quiet fury. "You do not get to surrender to a convenient lie simply because it hurts less than searching for the truth. Not while I still breathe. Not while any of us still stand with you."
He turned his face toward the wall, jaw locked so tightly pain flared along the joints. "Then lock me up anyway. Chain me. Spell me. Drug me. Whatever it takes to keep me from hurting the people I care about."
"No." The refusal rang through the room sharp and clear, like ice cracking across a frozen lake. "You are not some beast to be caged and forgotten, Tobias. You are one of us. You are family. And we protect our own, even when they try to push us away."
Her hand came to rest over his heart, palm warm and steady against the frantic thunder beneath his ribs. The rhythm betrayed him completely, hammering as if desperate to break free.
He closed his eyes. Tears escaped despite every wall he tried to build. "I am terrified," he whispered, the admission raw and ragged.
"I know," she answered, voice softening until it felt like a caress. "Hold tight to that terror. It proves the man is still there, still fighting the darkness. And we are fighting right beside him."
She remained until the gentle healing spell she had woven into the air finally drew him down into sleep. Her fingers stayed pressed over his heart long after his breathing evened out. Just before oblivion claimed him, he heard her whisper, so faint it might have been meant only for the listening shadows.
"We will hunt whoever did this to both of you. And they will learn what it means to cross us."
Darkness folded around him like heavy wings.
Yet something deep within listened closely, and for the first time, it felt less like an invader and more like an ally waiting to be acknowledged.
When awareness returned, the amber med-bay glow had been replaced by the familiar dimness of his own quarters. The sheets beneath him were crisp and clean, yet they still carried the faint medicinal scent of infirmary soap. Memory crashed over him in a brutal wave: Amira's lifeless stare, Seraphine's hollow denial, the suffocating weight of blood that had soaked into his very soul.
He sat up slowly, waiting for the room to stop spinning. Red rings circled his wrists where restraints had bitten deep, faint bruises blooming like dark flowers. He pressed a palm to his sternum. The fire inside lay quiet, unnaturally still, as though gathering strength for whatever came next.
Staying here, surrounded by these walls and their watchful silence, was impossible. Questions gnawed at him relentlessly, demanding answers the compound would not offer tonight.
He dressed in the dark with deliberate care. Black shirt sliding over skin still tender from healing spells. Fitted jacket settling across his shoulders like borrowed armor. Heavy boots laced tight. Each piece felt like a lie, protection he no longer deserved. When he passed the mirror, he paused just long enough to glimpse the stranger staring back: eyes glowing too brightly in the low light, faint threads of molten gold pulsing beneath the surface of his throat like veins of living fire.
The compound slumbered as he moved through its corridors, guided only by thin strips of emergency lighting. No patrols crossed his path. No alarms stirred. The night itself seemed to hold its breath.
The Devil's Playground never truly slept, and its crimson beast-jaw doorway yawned open in hungry welcome. Inside, the after-hours crowd had thinned to scattered clusters of predators who wore their danger openly. Music throbbed low and heavy, a heartbeat for the lost and the damned. The silver-haired bartender glanced up from wiping down the scarred counter and froze, recognition tightening his features.
"You again," he muttered, voice laced with caution.
Tobias rested both forearms on the bar and leaned in. "That night with the fae girl. You remember it."
The bartender's rag slowed. "Hard to forget a pair like you. You lit up the whole room." His gaze swept over Tobias, lingering on the coiled tension in his frame. "You don't look like a man here for another drink."
"I'm here for the truth." Tobias kept his voice low. "Did anyone follow us when we left?"
The bartender cast a quick glance around before answering. "Well one figures lingered near the edges all night. But its hard to make out in here. They moved strangely, like the strobes couldn't quite catch them properly. They slipped out right after you. And earlier…" He hesitated, lowering his voice further. "One of them leaned over your drink when you looked away. Dropped something small and pink. Dissolved instantly. I figured you saw and didn't mind."
Kael's carefree grin flashed across Tobias's mind. Let's let loose, brother.
Only it had never been Kael at all.
The floor seemed to drop away beneath him. He gripped the edge of the bar to stay upright. "You're certain."
"As certain as I am that the sun rises over the spires." The bartender's eyes softened a fraction. "Whatever trouble you stepped in, kid, tread carefully. This city eats the careless."
Tobias pushed away from the counter and strode back into the night. The wind whipping between the towers cut straight through his jacket, but the chill could not reach the ice now spreading through his veins. Someone had watched. Someone had drugged him. Someone had murdered Amira and arranged every detail to point directly at him.
The broken pieces of that night had been shattered deliberately, and he was finished trying to reassemble them alone.
He chose the longest route back, boots striking wet pavement in steady rhythm, neon reflections rippling like spilled blood across puddles. Every alley mouth seemed to watch. Every distant engine hum sounded like pursuit closing in.
"Such a determined stride," a velvet voice purred from the shadows of an alley ahead. "You almost look dangerous tonight."
Seraphine stepped into the fractured neon glow as though the darkness itself had shaped her. Silver hair spilled like liquid moonlight over pale shoulders, catching every flicker of crimson and violet from the signs overhead. Crimson eyes gleamed with sharp delight as she began to circle him slowly, movements fluid and predatory.
"You slipped out without permission," she murmured, voice curling around him like scented smoke. "Very bold. Very naughty, Tobias."
"I needed answers the compound refuses to give me tonight."
"You needed something far more primal." She paused just short of touching him, fingertips hovering inches from his chest where heat already stirred in response. The air between them crackled with unspoken power. "You are burning brighter than I have seen in weeks. Tell me, darling, what did you uncover in that den of sin that finally ignited the spark?"
He held her gaze steadily. "Someone watched us that night. Drugged my drink. Killed the girl and staged it to look like my doing."
Her smile curved slow and wicked, revealing just a hint of fang. "A frame job executed with exquisite cruelty. How utterly delicious." She leaned in until her lips nearly brushed his, cool breath raising gooseflesh along his neck. "You stand at the precipice of something new, something ravenous and beautiful. Do not fight it too fiercely. I find I very much want to witness whether you fall into oblivion… or rise into glory."
The fire inside him surged eagerly, recognizing her darkness as kin.
Before he could form a reply, she dissolved back into shadow, leaving only the lingering perfume of roses laced with copper on the night air.
The compound corridors felt endless upon his return, each stretch of hallway longer and more watchful than the last. He reached his quarters at last, slipped inside, and shut the door with deliberate quiet. Only then did he lean back against it, letting his pulse slow.
Kael waited in the darkness, leaning against the far wall with arms folded tight across his chest.
"I checked the med-bay," he said softly. "You were gone. Elyndra told me you needed rest, not solitary midnight walks through the city."
"I needed to see for myself."
Kael crossed the room in three measured strides, stopping just short of reaching out. "You are pulling away from us, Tobias. I feel it every time you look at me now, like you are already halfway gone." His voice cracked along the edges, raw with pain he rarely let surface. "I have buried too many brothers and sisters in this endless war. I have stood over too many graves and watched the light fade from too many eyes. Do not force me to stand over yours. Do not make me lose you to whatever is growing inside."
Tobias could not meet that pleading gaze. Guilt and grief knotted too tightly in his throat for words.
Kael's shoulders fell. "Fine," he whispered at last. "Shut me out if that is what you think you need. But I will still be here when you finally decide you are tired of running from the people who would die for you."
He left without another sound, the door closing with a soft click that echoed like the sealing of a tomb.
Moments later Garron filled the doorway, massive frame blocking the faint hall light entirely. He said nothing at first, simply regarded Tobias with those impenetrable golden eyes that had seen centuries of violence.
"I know where you went tonight," he rumbled at last.
Tobias's throat closed.
Garron stepped fully inside and shut the door behind him. "If the day ever comes that you lose control within these walls, if you ever become a danger to the squad, I will end it myself. Swift. Clean. No suffering." His tone carried the weight of absolute certainty; the same tone he might use to promise cover fire in battle. "That is not a threat. That is the only mercy I can offer if the worst happens."
Then he too was gone, heavy footsteps fading into silence.
Tobias slide the door shut until he sat on the cold floor, head cradled in trembling hands.
Alone.
Utterly, irrevocably alone.
The fire inside rose then, not in rage or violence, but in a warm, steady tide that curled through his limbs like it had always belonged there. For the first time it did not feel alien. It felt like recognition. Like coming home to a part of himself long buried.
He did not push it away.
He welcomed it fully, letting it flood every hollow space the night had carved into his soul.
The whisper returned, soft and coaxing, threading through his thoughts like silk on skin.
Ready when you are.
Tobias rose slowly and crossed to the window. Beyond the reinforced glass, Eldoria spread out in glittering deception, towering spires of the Accord piercing the clouds while the undercity flickered like a thousand dying embers. Somewhere in that maze of light and shadow, someone had silenced Amira not merely to frame him, but because she had been far more than a beautiful stranger in a crowded club.
Whispers circulating through rebel channels had marked her as a courier, carrying encrypted data, forbidden tech, perhaps even coordinates for strikes against the Accord's iron rule. She had worn danger the way other women wore perfume, and someone powerful had decided her secrets died with her, using Tobias as the perfect scapegoat.
They had chosen poorly.
He stared at his reflection superimposed over the cityscape, eyes now glowing with steady golden fire, veins pulsing bright beneath his skin like rivers of molten light. Something ancient and immense settled behind his ribs, clicking into place with finality.
He spoke into the stillness of the room, voice low and resolute, a dark vow that tasted of blood and long-awaited freedom.
"Then let's begin."