Chapter 82: Just inconvenience

“Is that you…?”

The voice wavered. Disbelieving.

A brief, fragile silence.

“…Cherie?”

Pop.

The bubblegum burst against Cherie’s cheek, pink splatter streaking across skin already smeared with blood. She didn’t bother wiping it away.

Her eyes stayed locked on the men and women lining the corridor—faces she knew. People she tortured others with. Fought beside. Smoked joints with.

Now they stared back at her like she was already dead.

Blood soaked her letterman jacket. Old stains layered beneath new ones. More of it glazed the spikes of the bat hanging lazily across her shoulders, heavy and familiar.

Recognition spread fast.

“That’s her—”

“She’s with the intruders!”

“TRAITOR!” someone screamed. “SHE’S WITH THEM—SHOOT HER!”

They didn’t get the chance.

Cherie moved first.

The bat came down in a brutal arc, cracking bone with a wet, hollow sound as the first body collapsed. Gunfire erupted instantly—compound fighters opening up from both ends of the hall, muzzle flashes strobing the smoke-filled space.

Bullets tore into walls, sparked off steel, shredded old banners bearing the Crucible’s insignia.

Cherie charged straight into it.

She ducked, twisted, swung—bat whistling through the air as another former comrade dropped, blood spraying across concrete. Someone lunged at her with a knife. She broke their arm without slowing, drove the bat into their chest, and kept moving.

The compound was alive now.

Alarms screamed. Reinforcements poured in from side corridors. Boots pounded. Orders were shouted over gunfire as Crucible fighters scrambled to contain the breach.

To her right, Hale and Carl slid in behind a stack of shipping crates, rifles barking in tight, disciplined bursts. Other members of their group moved with them—covering angles, dragging the wounded back, returning fire with lethal precision.

The building burned with chaos.

Explosions thundered deeper inside the compound. Fire licked up walls. Smoke rolled low across the floor, thick and choking. But through it all, bullets from Adrian’s people cut clean and true, dropping compound fighters as fast as they appeared.

Between reloads, Carl leaned closer to Hale, voice sharp but steady. “I’m going to look for Adrian—see if Adira and Aubrey got to him.”

Hale nodded once, eyes never leaving the corridor.

“Find Vivian,” Carl continued. “Take her alive. Or Lila. Either one works—Josephine said she just needs one of them breathing.”

He shifted to move—

Hale’s hand clamped around his arm.

“Be careful,” Hale said, low and firm. “These people already took a lot from us.”

A pause. Another explosion rocked the building.

“I don’t want them taking you too.”

Carl met his eyes.

Something warm and grounding settled in his chest—unexpected, steadying.

He nodded once.

Then he broke from cover, disappearing into smoke and sirens as Cherie’s bat came down again, ringing out through the corridor like a death sentence.

—

Aubrey and Adira had an arm hooked under each of mine, hauling me down the corridor as fast as my legs would allow.

The floor felt wrong beneath my feet—too distant, like my body was lagging half a second behind my thoughts.

“…I was starting to think you guys wouldn’t come back,” I muttered, breath uneven.

“Don’t be foolish, Adrian,” Adira snapped, not even looking at me.

“You’re more valuable than you think.”

I smiled at that.

A small thing. Instinctive.

Then the air screamed.

Bullets tore through the corridor, ripping sparks from steel beams, chewing into the walls with deafening cracks. The sound slammed into my skull, sharp and violent, rattling my teeth. Aubrey yanked me sideways as Adira shoved us both down—

We hit the wall hard, breath knocked out of me as we pressed into cover. Rounds ricocheted past, close enough that I felt heat skim my cheek.

My eyes snapped to Aubrey, before trailing down.

Her leg was caught.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING—?!”

A voice echoed down the hall, furious, panicked.

“You almost shot the kid!! Vivian’ll fucking kill you!”

Another voice muttered something low and defensive, words lost under gunfire.

My heart stuttered.

They weren’t supposed to kill me.

Even now.

Even after everything.

Something clicked into place inside my head—cold, sharp clarity slicing through the fog. I looked at Aubrey, then at the rifle clenched in her hands.

I held out my palm.

She hesitated for half a second.

Then she handed it over.

The weight settled into my grip like it had always belonged there. My fingers adjusted without thought, muscles responding faster than I could track.

I leaned out.

Two shots, clean and precise.

The bullets lodged deep into their brains.

The gun barely kicked.

The bodies dropped almost simultaneously, crumpling out of sight at the end of the corridor.

Silence rushed in where the gunfire had been.

I blinked, chest heaving.

Adrenaline surged through me like a current snapping alive. The numbness in my limbs—constant, suffocating—was peeling back, sensation flooding in its wake. My hands shook from too much awareness.

That scared me more than the gunfire.

I stepped back behind the wall and handed the rifle to Aubrey.

“Come on,” I said, voice steadier than I felt. “Let’s go.”

They stared at me for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

Aubrey nodded once.

Then we moved.

“I’m sorry, Hailey…”

Naomi’s voice shook. Tears glassed her eyes as she stared down at her former leader writhing on the floor, breath hitching with every broken movement. Her hands trembled as she lifted the rifle again, knuckles white, jaw clenched like she was holding herself together by force alone.

“I won’t let you live like this,” she whispered. “No one deserves it. I’ll put you out of your misery. For good—..”

Lila yawned.

Still bound to the chair, wrists chained tight, she watched the scene unfold with lazy disinterest, head tilted, almost as if she was waiting for something to happen.

Then—

The door exploded inward.

Adira led the charge, boots skidding across concrete as we spilled into the room in a rush of motion and noise. Weapons up as our eyes scanned for threats.

Naomi spun, startled.

Lila’s gaze snapped to me, her face lighting up almost immediately.

Ecstatic. Giddy. Like she’d just been handed everything she ever wanted.

It hit me like a blade to the ribs.

I turned away before I could stop myself.

The hurt came fast, sharp, unwelcome—burning through the adrenaline.

When I glanced back, her smile was gone.

“Drop your weapon,” Aubrey barked, rifle trained dead-center. “We’re taking that woman on the ground.”

Naomi frowned.

So did I.

I thought this was about Lila.

“…Why?” Naomi asked.

“You ask a lot of questions,” Adira snapped, already moving.

Aubrey approached Lila with a slight limp, her expression tight, distant, like every step cost her something. Cold fingers snapped the restraints free. Lila rose slowly, flexing her wrists—

She didn’t get to enjoy it.

Aubrey shoved a gun to her head and steered her back toward us, grip iron-hard.

Lila didn’t resist, watching as Aubrey walked, catching her limp.

She smiled anyway.

Naomi watched it all, eyes narrowing.

“…Taking her solves nothing. You know that. I know that.”

No one answered.

Her expression hardened.

“I won’t allow it,” Naomi said. “She’s still human. Just like you. I won’t let anyone hurt her again.”

Adira grimaced.

So did Aubrey.

I stayed silent.

“Not your people, not Vivian…nobody.”

Before I could interject, hands grabbed me from behind.

Instinct took over.

I drove my elbow back, hard.

Bone met bone. A sharp crack. A gasp of pain.

“SAMUEL—NOT NOW—!!” Naomi shouted.

He hit the floor.

My gun was already trained on him.

Adira’s grimace loosened, something dark and approving flickering behind her eyes.

“Give us the woman,” Aubrey said, voice cold as steel, “or we put a bullet in your boyfriend.”

Naomi’s breath shuddered.

Her eyes flicked to Hailey on the floor. Then to Samuel, groaning, clutching his jaw. Then back again.

Seconds stretched.

Finally—

Her weapon clattered to the ground.

Adira surged forward, hauling Hailey up with ruthless efficiency.

As Hailey was dragged past me, she looked up.

There was something in her expression—recognition, fury, something almost reverent.

I met her gaze.

It felt like seeing the devil for the second time.

And realizing this time—

I wasn’t afraid.

—

Vivian stood in the doorway of the lab, fists tightening at her sides.

Her eyes swept the room.

Blood soaked into the concrete in dark, uneven pools. Scientists lay where they’d fallen—throats torn open with bullets, bodies twisted at wrong angles, eyes still wide with surprise. One of them lay half-draped over a console, fingers frozen mid-reach.

The table at the center of the room sat empty.

The mouth guard Adrian had worn lay discarded on the floor, slick with saliva, smeared with blood where someone had stepped on it. The headphones had been ripped free and tossed aside—still playing, volume cranked high. Loud. Mocking. Some humiliating pop track echoing off steel walls like a joke at her expense.

The restraints hung loose.

Cut clean.

Vivian’s breath caught.

Her gaze snapped to the monitors.

Static.

Cracked screens.

A red warning light blinked uselessly in the corner—then died.

Adrian Carter was gone.

For the first time since the compound had been built, since the Crucible had risen around her like a fortress—

Something slipped.

Her jaw tightened, teeth grinding together hard enough to ache.

Behind her, deeper in the facility, alarms wailed—cut short one by one. Gunfire echoed through corridors that were never supposed to hear it. Screams. Shouting. Familiar voices barking orders that suddenly went silent.

“Drop your weapon,” a voice cut through the silence. “Turn around slowly. Hands where I can see them.”

Vivian froze.

Her eyes widened just slightly.

That voice.

She obeyed, slowly raising her hands. A tear slipped free, cutting a clean line down her blood-specked cheek.

And then—

She laughed.

Soft at first. Breathless. Disbelieving.

Her shoulders shook as the sound grew, fractured and hollow, like she was trying to laugh herself out of the truth standing behind her. Like the idea of losing was so absurd her mind rejected it outright.

“All this,” she murmured, staring at the wall. “All of it—for him?”

Carl frowned, rifle steady but heart hammering.

“Or are you just here for revenge?

“You’re done, Vivian,” he said. “Your people are down. Your labs are compromised. Adrian’s gone.”

Her laughter faltered.

Just a little.

But when she spoke again, her voice was calm—too calm.

“You think this is losing?” she asked softly.

“This…this is just… inconvenience.”

She turned her head just enough for him to see her smile.

And Carl realized then—

The compound might be overrun.

But Vivian hadn’t broken yet.

Not even close.

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