It's not much.
But it's something.
And right now, that is enough.
Chapter Five: Jinx
Thefacilitylookslikeevery other building designed to hide monsters.
Clean lines. White walls. A sign out front that says "Alpine Fertility Institute" in tasteful gold lettering. The kind of place wealthy couples visit when they want a baby and nature won't cooperate. The kind of place that promises miracles behind closed doors.
The miracles here involve turning children into weapons.
We're parked half a click out, hidden in a copse of trees that shields the van from the road. Midnight turned to one about twenty minutes ago. The shift change should be happening now, guards swapping posts, attention divided, minds wandering toward the end of their watch.
The perfect time to breach.
Asher is a solid presence beside me, checking his rifle one final time. His face is calm, focused, all traces of the man who held my hand erased by mission protocol.
"East team, status." Jagger's voice crackles through my earpiece.
"In position." Asher's voice is steady.
"West team?"
"Ready." Marlee's tone is clipped. She and Thiago are on the other side of the building, waiting for our signal.
"Kira, Dom?"
"Rally point secure. Vehicles prepped." Kira's nervous energy bleeds through even over comms.
"Then we go. East team breaches first. West follows thirty seconds later. Converge on the children's wing. Ten minutes, people. Clock starts now."
Asher moves first.
He flows through the darkness like he was born in it. His shaved head catches the faint moonlight, and the rifle in his hands looks like an extension of his body. Behind him, I match his pace, my weapon ready, every sense tuned to the night around us.
The grass is wet with dew, soaking through my boots. The air smells like pine and frost and underneath that, antiseptic. The smell of the facility, bleeding out into the night.
The east entrance is a service door, tucked away from the main building behind a row of dumpsters. According to Jagger's intel, it leads to a maintenance corridor that connects to the children's wing. Minimal security. Easy access.
Intel is wrong more often than it's right, but still, I have hope this one is on the money.
Asher reaches the door first. He pulls a kit from his vest and goes to work on the lock. I stand watch, rifle up, scanning the shadows for movement. The night is still around us. Too still. The kind of stillness that comes before violence.
The mechanism clicks. The door swings open.
No alarms. No guards.
Too easy.
We slip inside. The corridor is dim, emergency lighting casting everything in shades of red, turning us into demons moving through hell. The air smells like antiseptic and decay. There’s a hint of fear, the kind that comes from torture or impending death. It’s old and stale, soaked into the walls, into the floors, into the very bones of this building.
I know that smell. The Foundry had it too. The smell of children learning that the world is pain.
"Corridor clear," Asher murmurs into his comm. "Moving to checkpoint one."
We advance in tandem, covering angles, watching shadows. The building is quiet around us. Too quiet. At this hour, there should be night staff, guards on patrol, something. Instead, there's nothing but the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant whir of ventilation.
