Chapter 191 Calder Lives

Chapter 191 Calder Lives
The courier tried to run before dawn.

Which honestly told us almost everything we needed to know.

The abandoned pharmaceutical facility had been under Blood Guard surveillance for less than six hours when motion sensors triggered near the southern loading tunnels. At first the guards assumed scavengers.

Then the man started shooting.

Now he sat strapped to a reinforced metal chair three floors beneath the estate with blood drying across his collar and terror leaking from every breath he took.

The interrogation room smelled like sweat, antiseptic, and fear.

Cold concrete walls boxed in the small underground chamber while a single overhead light burned harshly above the restrained courier. Blood streaked one side of his face where Vincent had broken his nose during capture. His left wrist bent at an unnatural angle beneath the restraint cuff.

He kept looking toward the door.

Like he expected something worse than us to walk through it.

That unsettled me more than the blood.

Darius stood beside the observation glass with his arms folded tightly across his chest while Mara reviewed recovered data from the courier’s encrypted drives.

Thane leaned silently near the corner of the room sharpening one of the Siberian blades with slow metallic strokes.

Vincent sat backward on a chair near the wall looking almost cheerful about the entire situation.

Fred remained outside the room entirely. I stood beside Darius staring through the glass at the trembling courier while my beast paced restlessly beneath my skin.

Not aggressive.

Alert.

The man inside the room looked ordinary.

Mid-thirties.

Dark hair.

Lean build.

The kind of person you’d forget seconds after passing him on the street.

Which probably made him useful.

Couriers survived by being invisible.

But right now

Right now he looked hunted.

Tessa enlarged several recovered files across the observation monitors.

“His name is Tomas Vale.”

Vincent blinked once.

“Related to the lab assistant that works at headquarters?”

“Brothers.”

Silence settled heavily through the observation room. Interesting.

Tessa continued quietly.

“Tomas handled biological transport routing and encrypted communications between eastern facilities.”

Darius’s expression hardened slightly.

“So he knows locations.”

“Yes.”

“And?” Vincent asked.

Tessa zoomed into the recovered courier logs.

“He reports directly to Calder.”

The room stilled.

Not rumor anymore.

Not fragmented traces through hacked transmissions.

Direct contact.

Direct orders.

Darius looked toward the interrogation room slowly.

“Bring him in.”

The Blood Guards entered first.

Tomas flinched violently the second the door opened.

Not defiance.

Instinctive fear.

Darius walked inside calmly after them.

The atmosphere in the room changed immediately.

Not louder.

Worse.

Quieter.

The kind of silence predators created before violence.

I followed a second later while Vincent practically strolled in looking entertained.

Thane remained near the door.

Blocking the exit.

Tomas’s breathing quickened the moment he saw me. Recognition flickered across his bruised face.

Then fear.

Darius pulled out the chair opposite him and sat slowly.

Controlled.

Still.

Terrifying.

Tomas swallowed hard enough I heard it.

“You’re making a mistake.”

Vincent laughed softly.

“Statistically unlikely.”

Darius ignored him completely.

“Where is Calder?”

Straight to it.

No games.

Tomas squeezed his eyes shut briefly.

“I don’t know.”

Lie.

My beast reacted instantly.

I stepped closer before I realized I was moving.

The courier’s pulse jumped violently.

“You do,” I said quietly.

He looked at me.

And something in his expression cracked immediately.

Not because of my words.

Because of what I was.

I recognized that look now.

People inside Calder’s system knew exactly what First Blood hybrids represented.

My existence frightened them.

Tomas shook his head shakily.

“You don’t understand.”

Vincent leaned back lazily against the wall.

“People keep saying that right before they explain things.”

No one smiled.

Darius’s voice dropped colder.

“We found the pharmaceutical facility.”

Tomas went pale.

“We found the containment pods.”

His breathing hitched.

“We found the transport records.”

Silence.

Then Darius leaned slightly forward.

“And we traced the Council encryption.”

That broke something.

Not fully.

Enough.

Tomas looked suddenly exhausted.

Like a man realizing the walls around him had finally collapsed.

“You shouldn’t be chasing him,” he whispered.

Darius’s expression didn’t move.

“Why?”

Tomas stared at the table for several long seconds before answering.

“Because he’s terrified.”

The room went still.

Vincent frowned.

“…Calder?”

Tomas nodded weakly.

My pulse slowed strangely.

I thought about the transmission again.

Darius’s gaze sharpened slightly.

“Afraid of who?”

Tomas looked genuinely sick now.

“You think he controls this?”

No one answered.

Because until recently

Yes.

We had.

Tomas laughed once.

A broken sound.

“He’s a prisoner with a laboratory.”

Cold slid slowly through my chest.

Darius’s voice became deadly quiet.

“Explain.”

The courier shook harder against the restraints.

“He can’t leave.”

Vincent straightened slightly.

“What?”

“He’s paranoid now,” Tomas continued shakily. “Checks every system himself. Never stays in one facility longer than a week.” His breathing fractured slightly. “He thinks they’re going to kill him.”

Darius leaned forward slowly.

“Who?”

The courier closed his eyes.

“He shouldn’t have continued the work,” Tomas whispered.

My stomach tightened sharply.

“He thought he could fix it.”Tomas continued quietly. “The early hybrids died too fast. The unstable ones became violent.” His throat bobbed shakily. “Calder thought stabilization could stop the suffering.”

My chest hollowed painfully.

And instead

He built better monsters.

Darius’s expression remained carved from stone.

“Where is he now?”

The courier shook his head immediately.

“I don’t know exact coordinates.”

Vincent sighed dramatically.

“Here comes the disappointing part.”

“I swear.” Tomas’s voice cracked. “He makes everyone move constantly.”

“Who?” I asked softly.

“The Architect,”he whispered.

“Who is the Architect?,” I asked 

Tomas hesitated for one second too long.

The room had already been tense before, thick with sweat, blood, and the metallic scent of fear, but the silence that followed his hesitation felt wrong. Heavy. Like the entire world had stopped breathing.

Then

Beep.

A sharp electronic sound cut through the room.

Everyone froze.

Beep. Beep.

Vincent’s eyes narrowed instantly. “What the fuck is that?”

Tomas jerked violently in the chair, panic flooding his face so fast it barely looked human anymore. His chest heaved against the restraints while his eyes darted wildly around the room, searching for something,anything.

“No… no, no, no”

The beeping quickened.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

His breathing turned ragged. Sweat poured down the sides of his face. Whatever color had been left in him vanished completely, leaving him ghost-pale beneath the bruises.

“You have to remove it,” he begged, voice cracking. “Please!please, you have to take it out….”

Vincent stepped forward sharply. “Remove what?”

Tomas looked at him with pure terror.

Not anger.

Not defiance.

Terror.

The kind that came from knowing death was already in the room.

“I didn’t tell them anything, I swear,” Tomas choked out desperately. “I swear to God, I didn’t”

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The sound became faster. Louder.

My stomach twisted.

“What is he talking about?” I whispered, but nobody answered me.

Tomas started thrashing against the chair hard enough to rattle the metal legs across the concrete floor. “Please!” he screamed. “Please don’t let it….”

The explosion cut him off.

A deafening crack ripped through the room.

For half a second my brain couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

Then warm liquid splattered across my face.

I gasped.

Tomas’s head was gone.

One moment he was screaming, eyes wide with terror

And the next there was nothing above his shredded neck but fragments of bone, torn flesh, and a violent spray of blood painting the wall behind him.

Brain matter hit the floor with wet, heavy sounds.

Someone shouted.

The chair toppled backward with a metallic crash as Tomas’s body convulsed violently on the ground, twitching in spreading pools of dark red.

I stumbled back so fast my legs nearly gave out beneath me.

Blood dripped down my cheek.

Something warm and thick clung to my shirt.

Oh God.

Oh God.

Vincent stood completely still, crimson splattered across his face and clothes, staring at the remains with cold disbelief.

The ringing in my ears drowned everything else out.

The smell hit next.

Burned metal.

Blood.

Something sickeningly organic.

My stomach lurched violently.

I turned away just as bile rose into my throat, gagging as horror clawed up my spine.

Behind me, Tomas’s ruined body kept twitching.