SophiaI never knew I believed in silence before.For years, I existed for action, for movement. A plan wasn't a thought—it was a shield, a weapon, a lifeline. But now that I gaze out over the skyline stretching endlessly before me from Alex's penthouse, all I possess is silence.The city pulsates beneath me, alive with noise, oblivious to the war growing in the shadows.Nathan is rallying.Bellion’s latest report confirmed as much. Nathan isn't just fighting to survive—he’s building something. Something bigger, something darker. He’s moved past desperation and into something far more dangerous: calculated vengeance.And Chloe? She’s still at his side. Whether she’s his accomplice or his pawn, I’m not sure. But she made her choice the moment she betrayed me.I gasp, holding my fingers to my temples. I should have known better. I should have anticipated Nathan's comeback.Now, I have no choice.I must end this.Footsteps approach me, distracting me from my concentration. Alex is in the
SophiaThe door slams shut behind us, entombing us in the dark.The quiet is deafening.Nathan's footsteps echo down the corridor, one by one by one, growing fainter and fainter.And then—nothing further occurs.I draw a slow, deliberate breath, forcing my heart to steady. The chill steel cage in my palm reminds me of the real world. The woman inside clutches my wrist, knuckles locked, eyes wide with something beyond terror.I hold her hand carefully. "We're extracting you."Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Just a stiff nod.Alex steps next to me, his stance tense. He's already scanning the room, the door, weighing the possibilities. His mind thinks fast, always planning three moves ahead. But even he understands we don't have much time left.Nathan just issued the rules.And we stepped right into his game.Bellion's voice crackles through the earpiece. "Report."Alex puts a hand to his ear, voice clipped. "We've got hostages. Dozen, at least. Nathan locked us in."There's a si
SophiaThe darkness is suffocating.I heard Nathan's voice last before the lights were extinguished—smooth, amused, in control.I am not going to give him that control.Not now. Never.Alex sits beside me, his breathing steady with the strain filling the air. The hostages cluster behind us, whispers of fear seeping into the silence. The steel door remains shut, not moving, trapping us in Nathan's carefully constructed trap.I take a deep breath, keeping my voice level. "Everyone stay close. Nobody moves without me."The woman holding my arm silently nods. The others follow suit, their expressions unreadable in the dimness of the corridor.Alex tilts his head, listening. His instincts are honed to a razor's edge, developed over years of working with high-risk deals and nasty men.Then he speaks—low, deliberate. "He's playing us."I already know that. The question is—how do we flip the game around?A soft crackle hums through the intercom again. Nathan's voice returns, silky smooth."Te
SophiaThe underground tunnel is oppressive, the wet air clung to me like a double layer of perspiration. The odor of mildew and stagnant water weighs heavy, my lungs filling with each breath. My pulse pounds against my ribs like a war drum as I tread, my boots sinking into the uneven ground.Alex is pushed up close against me, breathing stolidly but tense with fear. At our backs, the hostages shuffle in unsteady movement, their own terror whispering through the blackness. I can feel it thick on the air—fear repressed only barely, the atavistic need to run clamoring on their blood.We don't have time to be scared.We must move.Bellion's voice crackles in my earpiece—at last. "You're near the secondary exit. Security is thin on that side, but there's activity on the upper level. Nathan's men are clearing the perimeter."Of course, they are.I exhale a sharp breath. "How many?""At least six on the ground level, two at the service tunnel entrance."My fingers tighten. Six. Two more tow
SophiaThe night feels colder than it should.Bellion drives in silence, the low hum of the engine the only sound in the car. My pulse still pounds from our escape, but my mind is already sprinting ahead, calculating. Nathan won’t let this go unanswered. He never does.I stare out the window as the city rushes past in a blur of neon and darkness, my reflection barely visible against the glass.Alex shifts beside me, his body tense, his sharp eyes watching me. “You’re planning something.”I don’t answer right away. Not because I don’t trust him—I do—but because I need to put the pieces together first.“I’m thinking,” I say instead.He exhales through his nose. “That’s dangerous.”I glance at him, the corner of my lips tugging into a small smirk. “For who?”His lips press together, but there’s something unreadable in his expression. “For everyone.”I lean back into the seat, rolling my shoulders, trying to ease the tension coiled inside me. “Nathan’s next move will be aggressive.”Alex
SophiaChloe’s decision should feel like a victory.But victories against Nathan Carter don’t come without consequences.She sits across from me in the dimly lit safe house, her arms wrapped around herself. She looks small—smaller than I’ve ever seen her. The air is thick, tension coiling between us like a storm waiting to break.Alex stands nearby, arms crossed, watching her with careful calculation. Bellion leans against the wall, silent but present, his gaze as unreadable as ever.Chloe exhales sharply. “I don’t know why I’m here.”I arch a brow. “Because if you’d stayed, Nathan would’ve used you as a shield the moment he realized you were a liability.”She flinches, but she doesn’t deny it.Alex steps forward, his voice calm but edged with steel. “We need to know everything, Chloe. Every move he’s made. Every deal he’s secured. If we’re going to take him down, we can’t afford gaps.”She hesitates. “You think he doesn’t know I’m gone?”Bellion finally speaks, his voice smooth. “He
SophiaThe cold night air wraps around me as I step out of the safe house, but the chill running through my veins has nothing to do with the temperature. The city hums in the background, distant and unaware of the battle brewing in its shadows. I grip my coat tightly, my mind a whirlwind of thoughts."Nathan let me go."Chloe’s words play on a loop in my head, each repetition another reminder that something isn’t right. Nathan never lets go of leverage. He never surrenders control. Which means he didn’t need Chloe anymore—because he has something bigger.Alex walks beside me, his posture rigid, his mind undoubtedly racing in the same direction as mine. His sharp eyes scan the street, his body tense as if waiting for an unseen threat to materialize.“We need to move,” Bellion says from the car ahead. His voice is calm, steady. But I know him well enough to recognize the slight edge in his tone. Even he can feel it—something is shifting.Alex and I exchange a glance before sliding into
SophiaThe dock looms ahead, bathed in the glow of scattered floodlights. The scent of salt and gasoline hangs thick in the air, blending with the distant hum of cargo ships cutting through the dark waters. The entire place is crawling with Nathan’s men—armed, efficient, and ready.Nathan knew we were coming.I feel it in my bones, the undeniable certainty that we’ve walked into something more than just a weapons smuggling operation. He isn’t just moving product—he’s making a statement.And if we don’t act fast, it’s going to be in blood.Alex crouches beside me behind the stack of shipping containers, his eyes scanning the dock’s layout. “We count at least fifteen guards patrolling, plus whoever is inside.”Bellion’s voice is calm in our earpieces. “Your window is closing. If you’re making a move, it has to be now.”I exhale slowly, gripping my gun tighter. We’re outnumbered, but we’ve never let that stop us before.“We split up,” I say, my voice low but firm. “Alex, you take the eas
SophiaThe blades cut through the storm as if they didn't even notice the world was dead.Ember hadn't changed since we took off.She sat across from me... barefoot, still damp from the containment chamber, her hair hanging in tangled sheets down her back like wet silk. The blanket we’d wrapped around her shoulders had slipped to the floor, and she didn’t reach for it. She didn’t need warmth. She wasn’t shivering.She was watching.Me.Alex’s hand brushed mine again.Not gripping.Just reminding.I didn't glance at him. Not because I didn't. But because if I did, if I let my eyes fall into his... I'd tumble into that space we'd been keeping for weeks. The space where I was not a weapon. The space where I was simply. someone who must be held.But I couldn't indulge anymore.Because Ember hadn't blinked once since we left the facility. And I could feel her in my mind. Not like Harrow. Not gentle. Not probing.Like tension behind a wall that might shatter."She hasn't said a word since s
**Sophia**The tempest had moved on, yet the air was still heavy with its aftermath. The observatory was enveloped in a hushed stillness, interrupted only by the gentle buzz of the holo-table and the distant sound of melting snow dripping from the roof. Alex stood next to me, his unwavering presence providing stability in the wake of newfound knowledge.I turned the photograph of Ember over and over in my fingers, its edges soft from my touch. Her eyes haunted me, not for what they revealed, but for what they concealed. An emptiness. A reflection of the aspects of myself I dreaded to confront."Do you think she dreams?" I broke the stillness, my voice barely above a whisper.Alex shot me a sideways glance, his forehead creased in thought. "Dreams?""Ember. In that facility, all alone and stifled... Do you think she dreams?"He paused for a moment. "I'm not sure. But if she does, they’re probably not dreams we could comprehend."I nodded slowly, the weight of doubt pressing down on me.
**Sophia**Fear has a sound.It's not the shriek of terror, a wailing siren, or the sound of bones snapping underfoot. It’s more subtle, more intimate. Like a clock ticking quietly in the background that you only notice when it halts.That was the noise in the safehouse after Bellion slid the image across the table.Phase Zero. Ember.The girl in the picture couldn't have been older than twelve. Barefoot and in an oversized gray shift, her dark, deep-set eyes held a weight... eyes that saw through everything. Eyes that remembered everything they had been forbidden to forget.And she resembled me.No.She was a glimpse of who I might have become if no one had saved me from the flames.For what felt like an eternity, Alex remained silent. He just focused on the photo, his jaw clenched, tension building behind his eyes like a brewing storm.I slowly leaned back, my fingers gliding down my arms to steady myself, though my skin felt alien to me.“She was the first?” I inquired of Bellion
*Sophia*You don’t realize when the world comes to an end.Not all at once. Not in the dramatic ways that stories or alarms or heartfelt prayers suggest. It doesn’t erupt or wail, nor does it even ignite. It simply breathes out. Gently. Like a long-held breath that is finally released.That’s what the merge felt like.Not a blast.A capitulation.When Harrow pressed her palm against mine, I didn’t perceive her skin. I sensed her thoughts. Intruding into my own with the delicateness of a surgeon’s scalpel and the closeness of a memory belonging to someone else, a memory that nonetheless stirred sorrow within me.She wasn’t taking me. She was weaving herself into the voids Elara had left behind.And I... I welcomed her.Because deep down, even before this occurrence, I had always understood.I had never been complete.Not truly.Not since the serum redefined the essence of who I was. Not since Chloe silenced me and Nathan fed that silence with untruths.I had been shattered.Harrow wa
SophiaThe atmosphere remained unchanged.This signaled to me that something was amiss.Even after Harrow's collapse and Bellion's announcement of her being "in stasis" like a weakened deity, the tension did not dissipate. It hung in the air like pre-lightning static, dense, unseen, suffocating.Alex held me still.Not tightly.Just there.As if aware that a tighter grip might break something within me."She mentioned that I passed," I murmured.He stayed motionless. "What exactly were you being evaluated for?"I no longer needed to speculate.I knew."Humanity."Bellion paced by the monitor, manipulating switches that no longer responded. "All primary systems offline," he reported. "But the biometric imprint on this terminal… It's not just Harrow's. It's Sophia's. Intertwined. Overlapped.""What does that imply?" Alex inquired.Bellion turned to me.But his gaze...He wasn't seeing Sophia Mitchell anymore.He was observing an experiment beyond his comprehension."It means," Bellion a
SophiaIt started with the pulse.Not mine.Not even human.But something deep under the skin of the world, like a heartbeat struggling to batter its way out of extinction.We arrived in Zurich under an assumed name again. The city slept, unaware that war was seeping into its veins. I stepped off the plane into cold air that felt heavier than the altitude should have permitted. My skin crawled. My heart failed.Something had changed.No.Something had stirred.Bellion briefed us en route. The override didn’t erase the serum—it unlocked a dormant layer embedded by Elara herself. We’d barely touched the surface of what that meant. But the early fallout was already happening.Serum-enhanced operatives had gone dark in Oslo.Infected research techs in Toronto collapsed during a biometric scan.And in Cairo—a facility leveled in under four minutes. No explosives. No survivors.A few lines of blood on the security room wall:The code is breathing.I didn't know if I had written it.Or if so
SophiaIt didn't start with fire.It started with silence.A silence that didn't just ring in my ears—it sank. Deep. Into my blood, into the marrow of what I was. The command had been given. The override engaged. And for an instant of breathless stillness, the world held its breath around me.Then it began to come apart.Chloe hit the floor first. Her scream wasn't a sound—it was a rupture. A raw tear in the air. Her back was arched impossibly, her hands clawing at the floor as if she could pull herself out of what was happening to her.The serum was acting.But not as expected.Alex caught me as my knees buckled. Not from the override—I wasn't reacting. That was the first warning.I wasn't reacting at all."Sit down," he whispered."I can't," I said.Because if I sat, I wouldn't get up again.If I let go, I might come apart too.Bellion's voice came through over the comm. "Geneva line. Priority intercept."Alex didn't hesitate. He gave me the receiver.Nathan's voice hit me like cold
SophiaGrief is a luxury.I discovered that between the second bullet and the fifth betrayal. Between the coded dreams and the world Vesper hurled at me like jagged teeth. Between the still silent rot beneath my skin, where I lost grieving the woman I thought I was.Now I'm something else.We came into Switzerland on a forged identity. Bellion arranged for the papers, the bribes, the phony names. I didn't want to know how. That's the way men like Bellion operate—they make the evil look methodical. Clean.The air was burning here. Alpine. Pure. Mocking.As if this world had never been tainted by the filth of the serum.But I knew better.The old military camp excavated from the mountain—Codename: Coven—hadn't been left behind. Not precisely. Left behind meant forgotten. But this one had been entombed with precision. Kept intact. Like a grave waiting for its gods to return.Alex remained beside me on the ridge, his coat flapping behind him in the cold wind, his silence a language I coul
SophiaIt reads almost like poetry... betrayal, tastedof iron.I ought to have known. I ought to have noticed it in how Vesper's eyes never seemed to blink, in how her voice never faltered, not even when talking of Elara.... my mother, her protégé. But belief has a way of obscuring instinct. And hope? Hope is the best poison.Now it was too late.The stairwell exploded behind me in a blast of glass and power. I hit the stone hard, elbows scraping, breath ripped from my lungs. Dust choked the air. Rubble cascaded down the archway above me like a throat closing tight.And Vesper Thorn?She didn't flinch.She stood exactly where she'd been, hands clasped, the vial I hadn't noticed before glinting like a promise between her fingers. It was the color of bone marrow. Not transparent. Not blood. Something in between. Something ancient."You brought them here," I said, coughing. "You invited them."She didn't deny it."I told you," she whispered, "this was never about saving you. This was abo