“Sometimes if you hold back on someone, they mistake your kindness for weakness. Sometimes you’ve got to go all out, to show people that you mean business.” ― Neil Walker (Drug Gang Vengeance)

  * * * *

  There was a particular kind of cold that crept into the marrow of your bones, the sort of chill that wrapped around your ribs like skeletal fingers and refused to let go. The kind that numbed your skin but left your mind painfully awake.

  Derrick Vance rubbed his gloved hands together and exhaled into them, watching his breath cloud in the air like ghost-smoke. He shifted on his feet, the thick lining of his uniform doing little to block out the morning's biting wind.

  Above him, the old concrete guard tower creaked faintly in the breeze, its rust-bitten railings groaning with every subtle gust that rolled in across the plains. Somewhere in the distance, the muted chirps of birds still brave enough to exist in this part of Eldario called out into the wind.

  Another beautiful day in Blackpool.

  If you ignored the fear tightening everyone’s throats, the quiet mutterings in the barracks, and the way every man and woman on duty flinched every time their radios crackled to life, then sure, it was beautiful.

  The skies were clear for now, stretching wide and pale above the fractured skyline, but Vance could feel the shift in the air. The scent of snowfall lingered faintly. The kind of cold that came before a storm. A different sort of storm than the one they all expected.

  He shifted his weight again and stared out past the heavy steel gates barring the southern road, down the long stretch of cracked asphalt that curved gently into a frost-rimmed forest beyond the outskirts of town. The trees stood tall, brittle things, their leafless branches gnarled like skeletal hands clawing skyward.

  It is quiet. Too quiet.

  “You know,” His partner muttered beside him, “I used to like the quiet.”

  Vance glanced sideways at the younger man—Caleb something, fresh out of southern command, maybe twenty, maybe younger. Baby-faced. Always checking his rifle as if it would stop him from being shot in the head.

  Caleb had barely spoken the past few days, not since the Kald reports came in.

  “You don’t anymore?” Vance asked, his voice low.

  Caleb gave a weak laugh, glancing down the road again. “It’s not quiet. Just…waiting. Feels like the trees are holding their breath.”

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  Vance didn’t answer. He understood.

  Blackpool had been on edge since Kald.

  The official statement was that a rogue cell of terrorists—Aegis and the Gifted, had launched a coordinated assault on the training base at Kald. That they’d caused “extensive damage” and “significant loss of life.” That those loyal to Eldario’s safety and sovereignty had died heroes.

  But the whisper networks among the rank and file, especially the newer recruits, told a different story. The whispers said all of Kald was gone. Vaporised. That the training base hadn’t just been blown up. It had self-destructed.

  The Gifted hadn’t just raided it. They’d found something. Something even the top brass didn’t want out.

  Vance had heard other whispers too.

  About the ESA headquarters. The Council.

  That the attacks on them weren’t by the Gifted as was believed for months. But it was done by the hunters themselves.

  Vance wanted to believe it wasn’t true. Had to believe it wasn’t true. Because if it was, then what the hell was he doing here?

  “We’re the only thing standing between this country and chaos,” Nicolosi had told them months ago, when Vance was reassigned to Blackpool following the South Aldren uprisings. “The only line between order and madness. Between real citizens…and parasites.”

  Back then, it had made sense. The Gifted were dangerous. Some of them blew buildings apart with their minds. Some flooded streets with a thought. He’d seen the aftermath. He’d helped pull the bodies out of rubble in Alder’s Ridge.

  But then the orders changed. They weren’t just arresting known threats anymore.

  They were rounding up children. They were hauling people out of bed in the middle of the night, entire families loaded into trucks for “testing.”

  He remembered one boy. No older than thirteen. Curled up in the corner of a containment truck. Pale and terrified. His hands blistered with burns—he didn’t even know what he was.

  Vance had handed him water through the bars when no one was looking. And the boy had said, “Am I a monster now?”

  Vance hadn’t known what to say. He still didn’t.

  The static crackle of the walkie-talkie on his vest yanked him out of his reverie. “This is Unit Five at the lower southern barricades,” A tinny voice said, unsure and slightly panicked. “Uh… We have some incoming.”

  Vance’s brows pulled together. He pressed the button on his device. “What do you mean by ‘incoming’? Friendly or hostile?”

  The voice on the other end stammered. “I… I don’t know…? They’re just… Wait… Oh Goddess… They’re not stopping!”

  Caleb’s head snapped toward him at the same time his own stomach flipped.

  “Shit,” Vance whispered.

  His partner’s walkie burst to life as well, and he fumbled for his earpiece.

  “Command to all gates and teams! There is activity! Hostiles approaching! I repeat! Hostiles approaching! Prepare for engagement. Lock down all exits. Full defensive formation!”

  Vance’s heart slammed once against his ribs. And again. And again.

  He stepped up to the edge of the concrete platform, gripping the cold metal railing so tight his knuckles turned white, his eyes narrowing toward the treeline.

  Then he saw it. A flicker of movement. Then a shadow.

  Dozens of them. No… Hundreds.

  Vehicles. Rolling like thunder at top speed. Armoured vans with a symbol of a phoenix rising scrawled across the hood. Black jeeps with scorch marks on the side. ESA tactical units, repainted and reforged. Zalfari units. Abyss banners. Emblems of the street gangs.

  And at the front, leading the charge like a blade aimed for the heart, was a dark armoured vehicle with scorch-blackened wheels and steel reinforcements.

  The wind shifted.

  Vance swore he could hear them screaming already. He stumbled back from the railing. “Caleb, sound the alarm.”

  Caleb didn’t move. His face was drained of blood, and his lips parted in horror.

  “Caleb!” Vance snapped.

  The younger man finally jolted into motion, slamming the palm of his hand against the red switch on the tower wall.

  Sirens wailed.

  Across Blackpool, alarms screamed into the cold morning air, drowning out the birdsong and slicing through the stillness like a war cry.

  The gates of Blackpool—old, heavy, and reeking of rust and blood, shuddered as they locked into position. The barricades beyond them roared to life, with squads of hunters scrambling, their weapons lifted, and panicked voices echoing through headsets.

  From the rooftops of the town, dozens of rifle scopes turned toward the south.

  Vance drew his sidearm with trembling hands, his heart hammering so loud it drowned out everything else.

  Somewhere deep in his gut, a voice whispered…

  This is it.

  The reckoning had come.

  And no one in Blackpool, not even the ones who still believed in Nicolosi’s words, could pretend that salvation was coming.

  Not anymore.