Page 243 of Scarlet Wars
“Understand something before we show you. We extended you courtesy. We extended generosity. You have now declined both and have left us with no other option.”
The air around him distorted, his frame flickering with a surge of raw power that crawled like static down my arms.
“Consequences,” he continued, “are not a threat. They are an inevitability.”
I held my ground as the Nexus flared with a violent static pulse, the High Chief’s polished image warping and dissolving into a dim, flickering live feed.
A bare room. Featureless walls. One chair.
And strapped into it: Saoirse.
Beaten. Bloodied. And barely conscious.
My blood fuckingfroze.
She looked destroyed. A deep gash splitting her temple open, skin peeled back enough to show the white glint of bone beneath. Both eyelids were swollen so brutally they bulged, purple and black, barely slitting open over bloodshot whites. Thick, dark blood had dried in jagged streaks down the side of her neck, mixed with fresh, wet drips that kept sliding along her collarbone and soaking into her shirt.
Her lip was split wide, one tooth knocked loose and hanging at an angle, and her breaths came fast and thin, hitching around a wheeze that sounded wrong, like something inside her chest was cracked.
“Don’t,” I breathed. “Don’t you fucking dare?—”
“Regretfully,” the Chief cut in, emotionlessly, “your refusal to cooperate forces our hand. You will now call in mister Colt and mister Walker. You will end your relationship with one, andbond with the other. You will do as we asked. If you refuse, you will end your friend’s life.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered. “You wouldn’t risk it. You wouldn’t risk an international rift between yourselves and Crown, Cyclos and Slava just for this. Not now.”
“Believe me when I say, Ms. Thompson,” he replied coldly, “we have studied the outcomes of our decisions in meticulous detail. And we believe this is the only course of action that prevents you from destroying the future we are trying to preserve.”
The frame shifted again—this time widening—and a man stepped into view, dressed head-to-toe in black, with a hollow stare.
A Corona humming in his hand, its circular edge glowing an unnerving, surgical red as he pressed it to Saoirse’s blood-slick throat.
“Call them in,” he said. “Now.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My mind detonated in a dozen directions at once.
How the hell had they even gotten to Saoirse?
Caden had reinforced Crown’s Layers the second we’d contacted Rachel about our plan, sealing every possible breach. We’d triple-checked its protections.
So how was this possible?
A cold spike shot through my spine.
And if they’d bypassed Crown’s Layers… If they’d slipped past protection Caden himself had secured…
Fuck.
Did that mean they’d bypassed Kanata C’s Layers as well?
Could they portal in at any moment, into my fucking room?
If that was the case, and I called in James and Caden, I’d be delivering them straight into the Chiefs’ hands.
My chest squeezed so violently it felt like my ribs were folding inward. My lungs couldn’t expand. Oxygen clawed at my throat but wouldn’t go down.
Saoirse whimpered, soft, and strangled.
