Amos draws a thin line of blood from James’s arm and passes a scanner over it. The device emits a low whine, then… nothing. The screen remains clear, and one of the researchers frowns and recalibrates the device before running the scan again, then a third time.
“That’s impossible…” she mutters.
“What is?” I ask, stepping forward now, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
“There’s no trace of dark residue,” she says slowly, lifting her gaze to meet mine. “No corruption. No shadow residue. It’s as if it was…scrubbed clean.”
The room stills.
“That can’t be right,” another researcher says. “We’ve never seen demon residue fully erased. Not even with the strongest healers. Not even with Alpha Damian.”
Amos exhales slowly, his eyes sharpening with something that looks dangerously close to awe. “Run the comparison,” he orders. “Against Damian’s injury.”
They don’t need to say more. I feel it then, a cold certainty settling into my bones as the data is pulled up side by side: James’s readings from before Sophie touched him, mine from the moment I was first injured in a demon attack, and then the current reading after last night’s attack.
Before, the report showed readings of contamination, demon residue clinging like tar to bone and blood.
After, there’s nothing. Clean lines. Pure readings. As if the demons had never touched us at all.
“That’s why he woke up,” Amos says, observing the readings. “Not because Sophie just accelerated his healing, but because she removed what was keeping him trapped in the coma.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. I remember the look on Sophie’s face when I walked into the room, and James had been awake. “She purified it,” the researcher whispers. “The demon corruption didn’t fade. It didn’t weaken. It was erased.”
The word echoes loudly in my head. Erased.
James looks between us, confusion knitting his brow. “You’re saying Sophie did this?”
“Yes,” Amos answers without hesitation.
James lets out a slow breath, running a hand through his hair. “Then she saved my life twice.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry.
“This changes everything,” one of the researchers says. “If she can neutralize demon corruption completely—”
“Then she’s not just a weapon, she’s a solution,” Amos finishes.
“And a target,” I say, my voice cutting through the room like a blade.
They all turn to me.
“The demons didn’t adapt by accident,” I continue, anger simmering beneath my calm. “They’re moving in pairs now, as if they’re testing us. If they sense what Sophie can do—what she is—they won’t stop until they either destroy her or take her.”
The silence that follows is heavy and thick.
Amos straightens slowly. “You’re right,” he says. “Which means isolating her would be a mistake.”
Relief flickers through me, brief but sharp.
“But it also means she must be protected at all costs,” he adds. “And informed…eventually.”
Eventually.
I look away, my jaw tightening as I think of Sophie locked behind a guest room door, building walls out of regret and fear, still convinced that last night was a mistake she can’t afford to make again. She barely trusts me as it is. If she knew that her touch could strip demons down to nothing, that the very thing hunting us now might be hunting her because of it—
She’d run. Or worse, she’d burn herself out trying to fix everything.
“I’ll handle it,” I say firmly. “For now, this stays between us.”
