Chapter 69

Chapter 69
The juvenile ward smelled of bleach and sweat, an antiseptic attempt to hide the truth that the walls themselves were soaked with pain. Nathan had spent more hours here than he wanted to count—interviews, late-night check-ins, whispered promises to Jace that he wouldn’t let the boy vanish into the system like so many others. But nothing prepared him for the scene that greeted him now.

Jace was strapped to the narrow bed, body trembling, eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. His lips moved in a frantic blur, words spilling out like water from a ruptured pipe. Not English. Not anything Nathan recognized.

A nurse tried to press a damp cloth against his forehead, but Jace thrashed so violently the strap at his wrist tore against the metal frame, leaving a streak of blood.

“Nathan!” Marlene’s voice snapped him out of his frozen stance. She was already at the boy’s side, one hand gripping his arm, whispering like a mother would to a child in nightmare. “You’re safe, Jace. You’re safe. Just breathe.”

But Jace wasn’t listening. His voice rose, guttural, gutted, a torrent of syllables that chilled the room. Latin—or something close to it.

Nathan leaned closer, straining to catch the phrases. They sounded like scripture warped into something feral. He picked up fragments: Domine… abyssus… ignis…

“Do you understand him?” he asked the nurse.

The woman shook her head, frightened. “He’s been like this for ten minutes. We tried sedatives, but they barely touched him. It’s like…” She swallowed. “…like he’s not the one speaking.”

The words dug into Nathan. He’d seen children broken before, in different ways, but this—this was possession of a kind he couldn’t classify.

Marlene reached into her bag and pulled out her phone, dialing quickly. “I know someone. A friend from grad school. Languages are her thing. If anyone can make sense of this, she can.”

The nurse gave a doubtful look, but Nathan nodded. “Do it.”

An hour later, the ward’s back door opened to admit a woman with sharp features, glasses sliding down her nose, and the kind of presence that demanded attention even without words. Dr. Emilia Raines, professor of ancient languages, carried herself with quiet authority.

“Where is he?” she asked briskly.

Marlene led her to Jace’s bed, where the boy had quieted but still muttered in his sleep, lips twitching with half-formed syllables.

Emilia knelt, pulling a small recorder from her bag. She listened intently, adjusting the volume, her eyes narrowing. “Latin. Ecclesiastical, but corrupted. Not church Latin—older, cruder. Twisted.”

Nathan frowned. “What’s he saying?”

She closed her eyes, translating under her breath. “‘The pit yawns. The chained one stirs. The Lord of the Pit rises on the fire.’”

The words landed like a hammer in Nathan’s gut.

Marlene’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”

Emilia glanced at them, voice steady but grim. “This isn’t something a boy his age should even know. These phrases echo fragments from apocryphal texts. Warnings. Invocations.”

“Invocations of what?” Nathan pressed.

Her hesitation was telling. “Of a presence called Abaddon. In Hebrew tradition, the destroyer. In some Christian apocrypha, the angel of the abyss. To some cults… a god of fire and pit.”

Nathan’s throat went dry. The same name Jace had whispered. The same word Elijah had muttered. It wasn’t coincidence.

Emilia adjusted her glasses, her academic detachment faltering as she looked at the boy. “How does he know this? Has he had access to manuscripts, to religious texts?”

Nathan shook his head. “He was a foster kid. No libraries, no tutors, nothing but group homes and locked doors.”

“Then someone put this in him,” Emilia said softly. “Someone taught him, or… worse.”

Jace groaned suddenly, his voice cracking into another phrase. Emilia leaned close, scribbling. “‘The circle binds the child. The fire frees the god.’”

Marlene’s face drained of color.

Nathan stood, pacing, every nerve alight. The fire frees the god. It was the same refrain that echoed through tapes, through Elijah’s drawings, through the Civic Council’s rituals. It wasn’t metaphor anymore. It was a plan.

When Jace finally jolted awake, sweat soaking his shirt, his eyes were wild, pupils blown wide. For a moment, he didn’t recognize them. He fought the restraints, panic surging.

“Jace.” Nathan leaned in, gripping his shoulders firmly. “It’s me. Nathan. You’re safe.”

The boy’s breathing came in sharp, ragged bursts. “No… no safe… they’re in me… they won’t stop…”

“Who?” Nathan demanded. “Who’s in you?”

Jace’s lips trembled. He whispered a single word: Abaddon.

The room chilled. Emilia’s pen froze over her notebook. Marlene closed her eyes.

Nathan forced himself steady. “Jace, listen to me. You’re stronger than them. Whatever they put in your head, it’s not you. It’s not yours.”

But the boy shook his head violently. “You don’t understand. They made me watch. They said my silence was the door. Every time I close my eyes, he’s there. The fire. The pit. The masks.” His voice broke, turning into a sob. “I can’t stop it, Nathan. I can’t stop him.”

The nurse stepped forward as alarms began to beep from the monitor. Jace’s heart rate spiked, his body convulsing again. They sedated him quickly this time, and within minutes he slumped into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

The silence that followed was heavier than the screams had been.

In the hall outside, Emilia leaned against the wall, shaking her head. “You need to understand. This isn’t random. What he said—these aren’t just fragments. They’re structured. Ritualistic. Like he’s reciting a liturgy drilled into him.”

Nathan rubbed his face. “He was conditioned. Like Project ECHO, like the Council’s camp. They burned it into him.”

Marlene added quietly, “And Elijah too. They’re both carrying the same poison.”

Emilia’s gaze hardened. “Then it’s not just memory. It’s programming. They’re vessels for someone else’s script. And if this script speaks of fire and rebirth…”

“…then the solstice,” Nathan finished. “That’s what the stranger told me. That’s when it happens.”

The three of them stood in silence, the hum of fluorescent lights filling the void.

Finally, Emilia asked, “What are you planning to do?”

Nathan’s jaw clenched. He looked through the window at Jace’s fragile frame. The boy was barely fourteen, and yet they had carved him into an altar.

“I’m going to break the script,” Nathan said, voice low, dangerous. “Whatever they’ve put in him, whatever this Abaddon is—they’re not finishing it.”

That night, Nathan sat alone in his car outside the ward, watching the building’s lights flicker. He could still hear Jace’s voice in his head, echoing the same Latin phrase again and again: Dominus putei in igne surgit. The Lord of the Pit rises on the fire.

Every instinct told him it wasn’t just metaphor. It was a countdown.

And Hollow Creek was running out of time.