Chapter 23: A Prayer for the Damned

The world above them had shifted by the time they climbed out of the catacombs beneath Saint Eustace. The church stood in eerie silence, the pews cast in shadows longer than the hours should allow. The saints in the stained glass watched with cracked eyes, as if bearing witness to what should never have been unearthed. Colton moved first, gun low but ready, and Mara followed close behind, clutching the folder as if it were scripture.

“We can’t go out the way we came,” he muttered. “They’ll have eyes on every exit.”

Mara nodded. Her pulse hadn’t slowed since the moment she saw his face again. Part of her still questioned if he was real. But the weight of the evidence in her hand grounded her—this was real. The Saints were real. And her brother, reborn in fire, was her only way forward.

They passed through a vestry and down another side hall. Colton paused at a boarded window. He pried loose a plank and peered out.

“Clear?” she asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Then, “For now.”

They slipped into the dying daylight. The back alley behind the church smelled of wet stone and trash, and the world moved too normally around them—cars passed, dogs barked in the distance, and yet Mara knew they weren’t safe. Not even close.

Colton guided her three blocks on foot, weaving through crumbling alleys and narrow gaps between tenements until they arrived at a garage with its windows blacked out. He unlocked the side door and ushered her inside.

The interior was spartan—an old couch, a table covered in blueprints and photographs, a cot against the far wall. A makeshift sanctuary for a man who had lived too long in the margins.

Mara dropped the folder onto the table. “We scan it all. Digitize it. Make copies. Then we go to the press.”

Colton stared at the folder but didn’t touch it. “It’s not that simple. The Saints don’t play defense. The moment you show that to anyone, they’ll erase the witness, the evidence, and you.”

“I’m not scared of them.”

“You should be. They already killed every other member of Class 9B.”

Mara froze. “All of them?”

He nodded slowly. “By their own hands or by the Saints’. I’m the last.”

“What about the girl? The one who sent me into the catacombs?”

Colton’s brow furrowed. “Girl?”

“She looked about sixteen. Spoke in riddles. Said you were still down there.”

His face darkened. “No one’s lived down there in decades.”

Mara hesitated. “You think I imagined her?”

“I think you saw what they wanted you to see.”

She clenched her fists. “I don’t care. I’m done hiding. We go public.”

Colton looked at her, and something in his gaze cracked. “You’re braver than me.”

She gave him a bitter smile. “No. I just have more to lose now.”

He studied her face, then turned away. “I kept something else. A name you won’t like.”

“Whose?”

“Detective Calderon.”

The floor seemed to tilt beneath her. “He’s involved?”

Colton nodded. “He’s not just involved. He’s one of their handlers. He kept tabs on you from the day you joined the force.”

Mara’s blood went cold. Calderon had been her partner. Her mentor. He brought her into homicide, vouched for her after her first kill.

“That can’t be right.”

Colton stepped to the table, pulled out a photograph from beneath the stack. It showed Calderon, fifteen years younger, standing outside Saint Eustace beside a man with priest robes and a knife sheathed at his hip.

“They call him the Gatekeeper. He doesn’t get his hands bloody—but he opens doors for the ones who do.”

Mara sat down, the weight of it all pressing down on her chest. “He’s been in my house. He held my baby. He…”

Colton didn’t respond. There was nothing to say.

They worked in silence for the next hour. Mara scanned page after page into a secure drive. Names, photos, assignments. Colton added notes beside each one—whispers of what they did, how they vanished, who replaced them.

Then the power cut.

Everything went black.

Mara reached for her gun. “Backup generator?”

Colton moved quickly, pulling open a drawer and handing her a flashlight. “No time. They’re here.”

“How?”

“I burned the trackers, but it doesn’t matter. Once you entered that room under the church, they marked you.”

Heavy boots stomped outside. A vehicle door slammed.

Mara gritted her teeth. “How many?”

Colton peeked through the slit in the blackout curtain. “Three, maybe four. Suits. No badges.”

“Saints?”

“Or worse—proxies. They’ll try to take us alive.”

Mara racked her pistol. “They’ll be disappointed.”

The first blow hit the garage door with a thunderous clang. Dust fell from the rafters.

Colton pointed to a trapdoor under the table. “Tunnel. Leads two blocks north. But it’s narrow. We’ll have to crawl.”

She hesitated only a second before nodding. Together, they shoved the table aside and yanked open the hatch. The air below smelled of earth and damp cement.

Another crash. The door warped inward.

Mara dropped first, landing hard and crawling forward into the dark. Behind her, Colton followed, sealing the hatch just as the door above burst open.

Gunshots echoed from behind as boots thundered across the concrete floor.

Mara didn’t look back.

They crawled for what felt like miles. Her arms burned, lungs ached, and still they pressed forward.

At last, a grate above them. Colton pushed it aside and climbed out, then reached back to pull her up.

They emerged in the maintenance shed of an abandoned lot. The sun had dipped low. Sirens howled in the distance.

Mara collapsed against the wall, heart hammering.

“We can’t run forever,” she gasped.

“We don’t have to,” Colton said, holding up a USB drive. “We just have to send this to the right person.”

Mara nodded. “I know just who to call.”

His brow arched.

“Julian Greaves.”

Colton frowned. “He’s marked.”

“Then we’l

l mark them back.”

And for the first time since the nightmare began, Mara Vex smiled.

A real one.

Born not from relief—

But war.