Calm. Cold. Familiar.
Daniel.
“Welcome to my house,” he says.
I freeze.
“Did you think I wouldn’t see you coming? That I wouldn’t recognize my own blood walking through my front door?”
Jace raises his weapon, eyes scanning the corners. “Cover! Now!”
We scatter, behind crates, under cover, weapons up. But no guards pour in. No assault team.
Just his voice. Filling the chamber like a ghost.
“You always had her fire, Isobel,” Daniel continues. “I almost snuffed it out, but you’ve spent too long learning from people who don’t understand what true poweris.”
“Shut it down,” Jace hisses to Noah.
“I’m trying,” Noah growls, ripping into the wall’s control panel. “He’s overridden the primary circuit. We’re locked in.”
I clench my jaw. My grip tightens on my SMG.
“I should’ve killed you both the day I found her,” Daniel says. “But you…” There’s a soft, thoughtful pause. “You were a good experiment. Let’s see how far you’ve come.”
The lightscut out.
Darkness swallows the chamber.
Then— a faint, electric whirring. Something powering up. Multiple somethings.
Behind the glass, one of the cratesshifts.And then another.
Inside them?
Movement.
Jace curses under his breath. “He’s not sending guards.”
He lifts his weapon as the first crate doorblasts openand a humanoid form steps into the red-lit chamber.
“He’s sending machines.”
The first machine lunges from the shadows.
It’s fast. Too fast.
Metal slams into the floor with a screech as the humanoid form bounds forward, tall, silver-sleek, no face. Just a glowing red eye at its center and clawed limbs that move with terrifying precision.
Jace fires.
Rounds punch into its shoulder, sparking on contact, but it doesn’t stop. Itadjusts, jerks sideways, and comes again.
“DOWN!” Jace roars.
I dive left as the bot smashes through a crate where I stood seconds before. Splinters explode across the floor.
Tex meets it head-on.
