Book 3 - Chapter 5
Jasper was moving before anyone else, his body a blur as he grabbed the emergency pack Kellan had shoved at him earlier. Weapons glinted inside—blades etched with runes that shimmered faintly in the red emergency lights, a compact crossbow with bolts tipped in silver, and vials of shimmering liquid that pulsed like captured lightning. Each item looked like it belonged in a myth, not a hospital. Jasper didn’t hesitate. He slung the pack over his shoulder and turned to me, his face carved from stone, his eyes burning with grim resolve.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
The words hit like a slap. Leaving? In this chaos? My throat tightened, panic clawing at my chest. “I can’t—Jasper, I can’t even walk—” My voice cracked, raw with fear and pain.
“You don’t have to.” His arms were around me before I could protest, lifting me like I weighed nothing. The sudden movement tore a scream from my throat, agony exploding through my shattered leg and ribs. My vision blurred, white-hot pain swallowing everything, but Jasper didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. His breath was ragged, his muscles taut as steel cables, but his grip never faltered.
The alarms were shrieking now, a relentless chorus that drilled into my skull. Red lights strobed across the walls, painting everything in shades of blood. Behind us, chaos erupted—doors splintering, voices breaking, the thunder of claws against steel. The sound was wrong, primal, like the earth itself was tearing apart.
I risked one last glance over his shoulder and saw it.
A shadow, long and twisted, gliding through the corridor like smoke. Eyes burning red. Teeth gleaming like knives. It didn’t run. It didn’t need to. It moved with the certainty of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere to go.
The supers weren’t just inside.
They were hunting.
Jasper ran, his boots pounding against the concrete, every stride a jolt of agony through my broken body. I clung to him, my fingers digging into his jacket, my breath coming in shallow gasps. The air was thick with fear, a living thing that choked every breath. Screams echoed down the corridors, high and thin, mingling with the guttural howls that grew louder with every heartbeat.
We hit the inner sanctum doors as the first creature slammed into the outer barrier. The impact reverberated like a cannon blast, shaking the walls, dimming the lights. Dust rained from the ceiling, and the runes etched into the steel flared bright—then flickered, their glow stuttering like a dying heartbeat. Guards fired into the darkness, their weapons spitting light and sound, but the shadows kept coming—relentless, unstoppable.
The doors groaned open, metal grinding against metal, and Jasper surged forward, muscles straining, breath ragged. Every second felt like an eternity. Another howl split the air—this one so close it felt like claws raking down my spine. The lights flickered again, plunging the corridor into momentary darkness. For that heartbeat, I saw nothing but glowing eyes and teeth.
Then we were through. The doors slammed shut behind us, the wards flaring bright, casting the sanctum in a harsh, sterile glow. For a moment, silence fell.
But it wasn’t peace.
It was the eye of the storm.
Jasper lowered me onto a cot, his movements gentle despite the urgency thrumming through him. My body trembled uncontrollably, every nerve screaming, every breath a jagged blade. I clung to his hand, my fingers weak but desperate, as if letting go would mean falling into the abyss.
Around us, people huddled in clusters, their faces pale, their eyes wide with terror. Mothers whispered prayers over crying children. Men gripped makeshift weapons with white-knuckled fists. The sanctum was supposed to be safe—the last refuge. But even here, the air felt wrong. Heavy. Charged. Like the walls themselves knew they were living on borrowed time.
Jasper crouched beside me, his hand gripping mine like a lifeline. His eyes were wild, burning with a ferocity that both comforted and terrified me. “You’re okay,” he said, his voice low, steady, but I could hear the tremor beneath. “You’re safe now.”
Safe. The word was a lie, and we both knew it.
Outside, the howls began again—low at first, then rising, a chorus of hunger that shook the walls. The runes pulsed harder, their glow flickering like dying stars. I swallowed hard, my throat raw, and whispered the truth neither of us wanted to face.
“The barrier isn’t holding.”
Jasper’s jaw tightened, his grip on my hand fierce enough to hurt. “It’ll hold,” he said, but his eyes betrayed him. They were fixed on the door, on the wards, on the cracks that weren’t there yet—but would be.
Time fractured after that. Minutes stretched into eternities, measured only by the rhythm of alarms and the pounding of my heart. Every flicker of the lights was a warning. Every tremor in the floor was a promise of death. I lay there, broken and helpless, while Jasper paced like a caged predator, his every movement sharp, restless. He kept glancing at the door, at the guards, at the shadows beyond the glass panels that showed nothing—but hinted at everything.
Finally, he stopped, his hands braced on the edge of my cot. His face was carved from stone, but his eyes burned like fire. “If they breach,” he said, his voice low, lethal, “we run.”
I stared at him, my breath hitching. “Run where? We’re locked in.”
“There has to be another way out,” he said. “Emergency routes for the emergency route.”
“And if those don’t hold?” My words tasted like ash.
His gaze met mine, fierce and unyielding. “Then we fight.”
I wanted to laugh, to scream, to tell him he was insane. I couldn’t even stand. My body was a ruin, a map of pain and fractures. But when I looked into his eyes, I saw something that stole the words from my throat.
He meant it.
He would fight for me. Kill for me. Die for me.
And that terrified me more than the supers outside.
The runes continued to pulse, but with each glow, the light grew weaker. Outside, the howls rose again, sharper now, almost triumphant. It was almost like this was fun for them—the hunt, the taste of fear in the air. While it was a nightmare for us humans, for the supers, it was a game.
And in that moment, I understood the truth.
The barrier wasn’t just failing.
It was breaking.
And when it broke, there would be no sanctum. No safety. No escape.
Only the hunt.