The question landed and stayed there.
Rene blinked once, caught off guard by the simplicity of it. Then anger rushed in to fill the space where thought should have been.
"Because this is bigger than you," Rene snapped. "Because we’re trying to save what’s left. Because we’re trying to—"
"To keep your hands on it," Sera interrupted.
No heat in her tone. No anger. Just a statent.
Rene’s face flushed. "You don’t know anything about what we’ve done here."
Zubair almost smiled.
Sera might not know exactly what they were doing down there, but that doesn’t an she didn’t understand what she had done. After all, she was one of the subject that Adam was experinting on.
Bishop shifted his weight. "Rene. Don’t waste ti."
Rene didn’t look at him. His eyes stayed on Sera. "You think you’re above this? You think you can destroy our work and walk away like it doesn’t matter?"
Sera’s expression didn’t change.
Zubair felt his creature push again, hard. She needs shoes. She needs food. She needs out. This isn’t your priority.
He kept his voice controlled. "Your work was torture."
Rene’s head snapped toward him. "It was necessity."
Zubair’s heat flared low, not visible, but present. The air around him ward in a tight radius.
"You don’t get to call it necessity when you’re the one holding the knife," Zubair replied through gritted teeth.
Bishop’s gaze narrowed further, flicking to Zubair’s hands. He noticed the shimr. He noticed the distortion.
Rene took another step, closer than he should have. "You destroyed the future that we have been working so hard on building," he said, voice rising. "Do you understand that? We don’t have governnts. We don’t have systems. We don’t have resources. We had what we could build with blood and discipline and people who understood sacrifice. That lab was the only chance we had to make sothing that could outlast this infection. The lab was the future of the world."
Aerenyx’s mouth curved, faint and sharp, like he enjoyed the word infection being said by soone who didn’t understand what it actually ant.
Sera looked at Rene with a slow, almost bored tilt of her head.
"You’re talking," she said, "like you think anyone asked you to build a future."
Rene stared.
Bishop’s jaw tightened.
Hattie’s smile widened.
Rene’s voice dropped, dangerous now. "We did what we had to do. We contained what needed containing. We used what needed using."
Sera’s gaze drifted to Bishop, then back to Rene.
"You an you used people," she said.
Rene’s nostrils flared. "If you want to call it that—"
Zubair moved.
He didn’t attack. He didn’t reach. He simply stepped forward far enough that Rene’s line to Sera changed. The shift was subtle. But it was enough. Military bodies read space the way predators read distance, and Rene’s stance faltered when he realized he’d just lost control of the corridor.
Bishop reacted instantly, shoulders tightening, hand hovering near his weapon.
Lachlan’s lightning snapped once. A tiny arc, contained, but loud enough to make the nearest guard flinch.
Psycho smiled like he hoped Bishop would try sothing stupid.
Hattie stayed still. She didn’t need to move. Her presence was already a threat.
Rene held up a hand, palm out, trying to calm his people without admitting he needed to. "No," he said sharply. "Not yet."
Not yet.
Zubair heard the words and understood what Rene ant.
Not yet ant: not until he figured out which of them could be controlled.
Not yet ant: not until he found leverage.
Zubair’s creature pushed again, impatient. He’s looking for leverage. He will use her. He will put her back in a cage. Stop wasting ti.
Zubair forced himself to look at Sera again. Bare feet. Blood. No shoes. No jacket. Skin exposed to the chill that ran through the facility now that systems were failing.
He didn’t like it.
He didn’t like that she didn’t care.
He didn’t like that he cared enough for both of them.
Sera spoke again, calm. "Move."
Rene blinked. "Excuse ?"
Sera’s eyes stayed on him. "Move. You’re in the way."
Rene’s face tightened, anger flashing. "You don’t get to talk to like—"
Sera stepped forward.
Not fast. Not dramatic. Just one single step.
The air in the corridor changed.
It wasn’t power rolling off her. Not like Zubair’s heat, not like Lachlan’s lightning, not like Psycho’s frost, or Aerenyx’s disease.
It was sothing else.
Presence.
Weight.
Rene stopped talking mid-sentence, not because she silenced him, but because his body finally caught up to what his mouth refused to understand. His breath hitched. His pupils widened a fraction.
He felt it.
Even if he would never admit it.
Hattie let out a soft, pleased hum.
Bishop’s gaze sharpened, going from calculation to sothing closer to caution. He didn’t know what Sera was, but he understood one thing clearly.
This wasn’t a negotiation.
Rene’s lips parted as if to speak again. He didn’t.
Sera looked past him and toward the broken hallway that led out.
Then she turned away.
Just like that.
No threat. No declaration. No speech about morals or futures.
She was done.
Luci moved with her imdiately, shoulder brushing her leg as if claiming position. Lachlan fell into step without hesitation. Psycho pushed off the wall, frost cracking beneath his boots as he followed. Aerenyx lingered half a beat, eyes lingering on Rene like he was morizing him for later, then moved too.
Hattie stayed behind for one extra second.
She looked at Rene and Bishop, expression bright and almost friendly.
"You should stop pretending this is yours," she said pleasantly. "It makes you look stupid."
Rene’s jaw clenched. "This isn’t over."
Hattie’s smile sharpened. "For you? It already is."
She turned and followed.
Zubair was last.
He didn’t want to be. His creature wanted him at Sera’s side, already stripping a jacket off soone dead if that’s what it took to cover her shoulders.
Shoes. Food. Warmth. Now.
He looked back anyway.
Rene and Bishop stood amid the failing corridor lights, surrounded by bodies and ruin, watching them leave as if leaving wasn’t allowed. As if walking away without permission was the one sin they couldn’t forgive.
Bishop spoke first, voice low. "They can’t just walk away."
Rene didn’t answer imdiately.
When he did, his voice was tight. "They will co back."
Zubair almost laughed again.
He leaned slightly toward them, just enough that they would hear him, and kept his voice calm.
"No," he said. "We won’t. There won’t be anything for us to co back to."
Then he turned and followed Sera into the dying sanctuary, heat tucked tight in his chest, his creature already counting the steps to the exit and listing what she needed like it was a mission briefing.
Behind them, Hope Sanctuary kept collapsing as the bodies continue to mount. There was no one left alive by the ti Aerenyx was done with them. Even if they were still breathing... they were dead where it mattered.
And Rene Lapierre kept standing there, trying to hold onto a future that had already been taken out of his hands.
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