I step forward. Another blow — shoulder-spike tearing through flesh, bone-cracking beneath. Blood sprays in wind-hot arcs. I taste salt and iron as I close the distance.
Arnab tries to raise his arms — panic wide as abyss. His eyes beg. I see confusion. Regret. Disbelief.
I duck under the next swing — lean low. His blade misses thin air. I slip behind him. Claw-hand clamps around his throat. My spurs bite into broken armor ribs.
His blood coats my fingers. He gurgles. His face goes slack.
And I sink my teeth in. Sharp, bone grinding teeth — teeth made for war, for hunger, for retribution.
The spit-sound of tearing flesh, the tearing of wind, the crack that echoes like the world’s breaking… then silence.
Arnab’s lifeless body collapses, limp, weak, waste. His blood pools beneath him — a dark stain on warped stone, a mark of reckoning.
I haul the corpse up. Arms burning, ribs screaming, but I grip bone and toss him forward.
The body lands at Trebuchet’s feet — heavy, loud. The impact rings. Blood spatters across the floor.
I don’t blink. I don’t hesitate.
“You’re next.” My voice rolls out low — steel-bent, cold, hungry.
Trebuchet doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even look disgusted. Just half-turns, red optic glowing, servo motors humming faint and calm in his damaged left arm. He steps forward one slow, measured pace. A grin — metal-tooth grin — splits his face.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
The air tastes like ash, iron, and bone.
The night sky beyond the compound hangs silent, waiting.
And I ready what’s left of my claws — the storm has a name now.
CHAPTER 25
FREYA
Dark alarms ricochet through the compound like a death knell — metallic, hollow, echoing off stone and steel. Screams fragment into bursts of terror and static crackle over comm panels. The night sky beyond the shattered windows glows dull-orange with fire and ruin. In that chaos, I move like a ghost on a cleaning shift — invisible, silent, and deadly.
I crouch low in the narrow maintenance corridor, chest pressed against cold ribbed metal plating. My boots are light, quiet on the corrugated floor. The suit’s scavenged armor plate shields my ribs — broken, but held together by cloth strips and grit. Every breath is hot, ragged, tastes like smoke and fear and anger. But I breathe. I press forward.
The corridor is bathed in unstable light — flashing red strips from the alert system, bits of flame dancing against the walls where torches and power conduits still burn, sparse sparks sputtering in tongues of hell. The smell hits me first: scorched insulation, smoldering wiring, the copper-sweet tang of blood on metal. I taste it on my tongue, bitter and energizing. I swallow hard.
I know these halls. I cleaned them. I swept dust off these plates, buffed the dull shine on the guard-rails, wiped fingerprints off consoles. I know every bend, every grate, every hatch. The traitors thought corridors alone would keep me lost. But I remembered.
I slip around a shattered supply locker, duck under a fallen girder. My fingertip trails over the scorch mark on the wall — evidence of flamethrower attack or mis-routed fuel lines. My pulse spikes. I steady it. Focus is supposed to be cold. Control over confusion.
Ahead — a guard, limp armor, frantic eyes, gripping a rifle like a scared child grips a toy. His breath huffs in ragged gasps; each inhale wheezes fire-stung lungs. He doesn’t hear me at first — or doesn’t expect me. I crouch lower, move on silent boots.
I grip the fire suppressor canister — long, metal, heavy. The kind issued to corridors for emergency extinguishing, now warped and leftover but still solid. I press the nozzle. A hiss of inert gas bursts out, cloud white and thick.
The guard’s shout tears through the air — but the gas loses his voice. He coughs, gags, coughs again, stumbles backward. I swing. Claw-hand arcs through air. His helmet shatters under bone-plate — armor groans. Flesh cracks. The world snaps sharp with pain. He drops.
I don’t pause to watch. I just move — boot over metal body, past lifeless arms, toward the heart of the compound: the central nexus. The command center. The brain of this betrayal.
The hallway opens onto a broad hall of consoles and holo-displays, all blinking red in alarm. Panels flicker. Data streams writhe like wounded serpents across screens. Warning lights flash. Doors lock. Sirens wail inside the compound — a symphony of collapse.
I duck behind a wrecked workstation. Sparks hiss from damaged wiring. I taste ozone. I press my forehead to the edge of the console, breathe slow. I wipe sweat across my face — sweat salty, gritty with ash. I swallow again. Focus.
My fingers find the override keyboard still faintly lit. My eyes flicker over the code readouts — red banners: “ALERT OVERRIDE LOCKED,” “SECURITY PROTOCOL ENGAGED,” “SYSTEMS SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.”
