Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 80431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Valor just glared.
The AD typed with his one usable hand as he battled to stay conscious
Beep. Click. And the door swung inward.
The young woman clutched a child to her chest. She was thin and gangly, her skin barely clinging to her bones. Her face was gaunt, eyes sunken, probably from sleeplessness and fear.
They’re still alive.
During the interrogation, Zelmir told him his son was two years old. The boy didn’t cry as he stared, wide-eyed and silent.
Zorion lowered his weapon, hoping he wore an apologetic expression.
The boy reached his hand out—not towards his mother—but at Valor’s bloodstained hands.
It was as if he knew real evil…and he didn’t see it in them.
If Zorion didn’t accomplish anything else, finding the woman and child still alive would be enough for him.
Chief Aiken Oakley
Valor
The disciple moved first, swift and gentle, as he placed his hand against the woman’s back and urged her forward.
She gasped at the state of the AD, now lying slumped on the floor.
“He’s taking you to your husband,” Valor said, drawing her attention away from the mess at his feet.
The woman followed the disciple without question as if any place he took her was better than where she’d been.
Once she’d cleared the hall, Valor stared at the AD.
“Anyone else?” he asked.
The man spat blood. “No. You bastards.”
Valor didn’t react.
“I should’ve left you in the jungle to rot.” The AD grunted. “Biggest mistake I ever made was bringing you two back here.”
It felt as if he’d been backhanded. The words stung like poison.
Rage surged, immediate and unstoppable.
A vast jungle flashed before Valor’s eyes—animals in cages, then gunshots, flames, needles in his veins, electromagnets taped to his skull. Memory loss, poisons injected into him that made his blood boil. The agony, the burning, the foreignness all came back in searing flashes.
Valor roared before he began to repeatedly slam his fists into the AD’s face. Into bone. His screams dying beneath the crunch of flesh and cartilage.
Zorion never moved, didn’t try to stop him.
When it was over, the AD was no more.
Valor stared at his own hands, stained with someone else’s life.
He left Hank Madison there.
The walls trembled as another explosion rocked the facility.
Zorion gazed at him, his beautiful green eyes on fire.
“We need to go.”
Valor nodded once.
Smoke curled in thick ribbons throughout the corridors, with flames licking up the walls as sirens wailed in the distance.
Behind them, White Sector 30 would burn.
Jo’s voice crackled in their ears, sharp and urgent.
“If you’re not on the roof in three minutes, you’re going to encounter authorities you are not authorized to kill, only evasive tactics.”
“Hard copy,” Valor said, voice clipped but calm.
“Roof access straight ahead,” Jo stated. “Exit signs your mark.”
Valor saw it, glowing red like a beacon.
They were fifteen meters away from the door before the hairs on the back of Valor’s neck prickled to the point he had to stop.
His senses flared. Something wasn’t right.
Zorion came to a skidding halt.
“You feel that too?”
Valor nodded.
They took slow, silent steps, scanning the rooms ahead.
They went another couple of yards, and that was when they saw them.
On their left, behind thick reinforced glass, stood two figures cloaked entirely in white—barefoot, crouched, and motionless.
They were statues carved from frost. Heads low and covered. Their breathing shallow.
Zorion stopped mid-step, his bow half-drawn.
Valor eased up beside him, narrowing his eyes.
“Jo,” he rasped, “we’ve got company. I think we just found more Ravens.”
Static, then, “What? Where?”
“White Sector 30,” Valor said. “Holding chamber. Two figures. Silent, alert…waiting. Something might be off…”
Jo’s tone sharpened. “Get them out of there. Bring them to me.”
Valor glanced at the keypad. No code. No palm scanner. Just a black panel that might as well have been a laptop screen.
Zorion selected the right arrow and fired.
A fine flash of light and acid ate through the handle and panel. The smell of scorched chemicals saturated the air, and the door creaked open.
Zorion managed a single step forward before one of them shot forward and slammed into Valor’s midsection with enough force to send him crashing back into the wall.
Zorion barely saw the second one before he was already on him. Their white cloaks whipped around them as they moved.
He countered the first strike with the heel of his bow, but the next came from underneath, sweeping both legs from under him and sending him to the ground head first.
Zorion scurried backward, but these two anomalies were too fast and smooth, as if they’d been planning this exact moment for years and had it down to perfection.
“Jo,” Valor growled. “They attacked. The white ones are hostile.”
“Shit? Defensive tactics only!” she barked.
Zorion ducked another spinning elbow and countered with a twist of his bow, trying to trap the attacker’s legs. He missed.
His opponent pivoted in midair like gravity meant nothing.
Valor rose behind him, claws flexed and ready, but the first figure was already moving.