Chapter 118: You can’t go back, Adrian

“Adira, this is Hale. Come in.”

Terri sat inside the car and watched through the windshield as Hale paced a few meters away with the walkie talkie pressed to his mouth.

She had not left the car.

Not once.

The trees around them stood tall and still, forming a thick wall of dark green at the edge of the road. Beyond that was nothing but miles of empty land. No houses. No towns. No signs of life.

Just quiet.

They had stopped there because Hale wanted to try the radio again.

“Status and location,” he said. “What’s your status and location?”

The only thing that answered him was static.

Terri shifted in the passenger seat and pulled her knees closer to her chest. Her eyes stayed locked on Hale while he waited for a response that never came.

This had become routine.

For two weeks, it did not matter if they were driving, eating, or setting up camp. At some point Hale would step away, pull out the radio, and try again.

Every single time.

“If you read me,” he continued, “tell me where you are and who else is with you. We’ll come running.”

Sometimes he changed the words. Sometimes he called for someone else.

Adira. Carl. Cherie. Anyone who might still be alive.

It never made a difference.

The radio always answered the same way.

Static.

Terri could not hear what he was saying now, but she could read it on his face. His jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed. The longer the silence dragged on, the heavier his expression became.

No one had answered.

He lowered the walkie talkie and muttered something under his breath.

Then he turned and walked back toward the car.

The door opened and he dropped into the driver’s seat before slamming it shut beside him.

Terri watched as he leaned forward and rubbed both hands over his face, slow and rough, as if he were trying to wipe away the frustration building inside him.

“Any luck?” she asked quietly.

She already knew the answer.

Hale shook his head.

He reached into his pocket for the keys.

They were not there.

He checked the other pocket.

Still nothing.

Terri blinked, then quickly dug into her own jacket pocket and pulled out the keys. She held them up so he could see.

Hale took them without a word and slid them into the ignition.

The engine started with a tired rumble.

Terri glanced down at the dashboard.

The gas gauge sat close to empty.

Hale frowned.

He remembered the station they had stopped at the day before. The pumps had still worked, and he had made sure the tank was full before they left.

Now the needle hovered just above the red.

His hand tightened slightly on the steering wheel.

Terri chuckled nervously.

“Huh—… Strange.”

A moment passed as the man breathed.

Hale’s gaze finally settled on her, cold and unflinching, as if he’d been able to see through her entire act.

—

In the end, I was right about a couple of things.

That compound really did make me soft.

For months I had settled into a routine there. Training in the morning. Guard shifts. Dumb jokes in the evenings. Sitting around fires like we were soldiers in some normal world. I played the role without thinking about it too hard.

The carefree soldier.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot what things were really like outside those walls.

My body stayed sharp, but my mind didn’t. It grew slow. Comfortable.

Stagnant.

Vivian told me something back when she had me strapped to that chair, back when she spent hours trying to tear my mind apart. She said my brain had a strange way of protecting itself. Every time I was pushed into extreme stress, it adapted. It changed. It rebuilt itself to survive whatever was happening to me.

At the time I thought she was just trying to break me.

Now I understood what she meant.

I never gave myself the chance to grow stronger at the compound. I stayed inside the safety of that routine and let the world pass by.

That was my fault.

Then everything burned.

The compound went up in flames, and the smell of smoke and bodies filled the air. I watched people I knew get torn apart. I saw the guts of men and women I had fought beside spill across the ground.

Every scream. Every body. Every taunt from Annie’s people forced something in my head to crack open.

My mind kept splitting and rebuilding itself, over and over again, until things started to make sense in a way they never had before.

Now I could feel it.

The lattice.

I could feel how much of it was inside me. How much of it I could actually push.

“Adrian…”

The sound of my name slowly pulled me out of my thoughts.

My vision sharpened again.

I looked down at the warehouse floor below me.

The carnage I had created spread out in every direction. Bodies lay across the concrete in broken shapes.Blood ran across the floor and mixed with the amber leaking from the shattered tanks.

And something else.

The glowing liquid reflected the light above like a sick mirror.

“Adrian.”

Lila’s voice came from behind me.

“Honey… I don’t think this is worth it,” she said quietly. “Come on. We already gave them payback for what they did. Right?”

I did not answer.

She didn’t understand.

I didn’t blame her for that.

But she would never see this the way I did.

This was not payback.

Not even close.

I slowly raised my hand behind me without looking.

There was a short pause. I heard her shift her weight.

Then something cold was placed in my palm.

Metal.

I wrapped my fingers around what she had given me.

I stared down at the bodies below.

“This hurts,” she said quietly.

I tightened my grip.

“A lot.”

“..—”

“Hey, asshat. Still there???”

The walkie talkie crackled in my hand before I could say anything to Lila.

I looked down at the device for a moment, then lifted it to my mouth.

“Is this Annie?”

For a few seconds, there was nothing but static.

My breathing stayed slow and even while I waited.

Beside me, Lila frowned as she watched my face, trying to read what was going on.

Then the radio chimed again.

“No. No it’s not,” the voice said, followed by a short laugh.

“Put her on,” I said.

Another laugh came through the speaker.

“You think Annie has time to deal with a loser like you?”

I didn’t answer.

The man on the other side kept talking.

“The walkie has a tracker, dipshit. Now you’re gonna wish Annie killed you along with those stupid little friends of yours.”

I remained silent.

“Scared now, huh?” he went on. “Where’s all that talk from before?”

I lowered the walkie talkie.

The warehouse doors creaked open below.

Several figures stepped inside with rifles raised, moving carefully over the blood-soaked concrete. Their eyes scanned the wreckage while they spread out across the floor.

They were looking for me.

I leaned slightly over the railing and caught a clear look at the man leading them. Amber glowed faintly in his eyes as he stepped around the bodies.

At first I thought he was studying the carnage.

Then I realized what he was really looking at.

The amber.

The glowing liquid spilled across the floor.

Even after everything, even after seeing their own people torn apart, that was still the thing they wanted most.

Temporary pleasure. Mindless violence. The same hunger that infected all of them.

Amber or not, they were still just a bunch of sick freaks.

Slowly, I pulled a lighter from my jacket.

The small flame flickered to life in my hand, lighting up my face for a brief second.

Then I dropped it.

—

The man below kept his rifle raised as he moved forward with the others.

His boot stepped into something wet.

He frowned slightly as the smell hit him.

Then the fire erupted.

Flames raced across the floor in an instant as the amber caught. The ground around them ignited like gasoline.

The man screamed as fire wrapped around his legs and climbed up his body. He flailed wildly, stumbling into the others as they tried to back away.

Some of them fired their guns in panic. Others ran straight into the spreading flames.

The burning amber stuck to their clothes and skin.

Their screams filled the warehouse.

One of them laughed while he burned, a broken, choking sound that made it impossible to tell if he had lost his mind or if the drug inside him was still fighting to keep control.

Maybe it was both.

—

I watched the fire spread across the floor below.

The bodies burned one after another as the flames grew higher. The light flickered against the metal walls and reflected in the pools of amber.

The red glow filled my vision.

Beside me, Lila stood silently.

The fire reflected in her pupils too.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then I turned away from the railing.

“We’re done here,” I said.

I started walking.

Lila hurried after me as we left the burning warehouse behind.

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