Ashes of Our Flame
by RapwizzyDebaron
Episode 27: "Shadows in the Light"
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The city had awakened.
Billboards that once praised Marcus Vale now flashed headlines about his fall. News anchors stumbled over words as they described a man once untouchable now shackled and dragged before the law. The empire had cracked. But in the ashes of victory, the whispers had begun.
Adrian stood in front of a mirror, adjusting the collar of his black shirt. The bruises from the warehouse fight were still visible on his jaw and ribs, but his eyes—his eyes had changed.
There was no more fire in them.
Only smoke.
Kara walked in behind him, her boots echoing softly across the wooden floor of the safehouse. "You're not eating again."
Adrian met her gaze in the mirror. "I'm fine."
"No, you're not," she replied, crossing her arms. "You think now that Marcus is gone, the storm's over."
He turned. "Isn't it?"
She tossed a small file onto the table. "We have a bigger problem. These are internal communications intercepted from one of Marcus's servers. Someone's been watching us. Even before the gala."
Adrian's brow furrowed as he picked up the file. Inside were grainy photos—of him, of Kara, of the safehouse. One, taken weeks ago, showed them entering an underground parking garage. They weren't just being hunted by Marcus.
They were being monitored by something else.
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Tessa sat in the corner, typing furiously on her laptop.
"Whoever this is, they've covered their tracks well. Military-grade encryption. Untraceable nodes. I can't even tell which continent this signal originated from."
Ronan leaned over her shoulder, chewing on a toothpick. "Could be a rogue cell. Or worse—Marcus's replacement."
Kara scanned the screen. "His empire's shattered. But the foundation's still standing."
Adrian stared at the photos again. "Then we don't wait. We dig."
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The next morning brought more confusion.
Tessa managed to decode part of a message buried in the server logs: "Project Seraphim: Rebirth in fire. Control through fear."
"What the hell is Project Seraphim?" Ronan asked, leaning on the table.
Kara shook her head. "It sounds like something bigger than Vale's network."
Adrian spoke slowly. "We thought he was the storm. But maybe… he was just the thunder."
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They began hunting ghosts.
Each clue led them to another dead end—or worse, to more bodies. People tied to Vale had begun disappearing. Not arrested. Not hiding.
Erased.
An old informant, a lawyer, even a city councilman who once took bribes from Marcus—they were all found within days, either dead or vanished.
Someone was cleaning house.
And that someone wasn't working alone.
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That night, Kara and Adrian stood at the rooftop of an old government building overlooking downtown.
"You're different," she said.
He didn't reply.
She stepped closer. "You're carrying guilt for things that weren't your fault."
"I lit the match," he muttered.
"No. You survived the fire. There's a difference."
He glanced at her. "If this Project Seraphim is real, we'll need more than courage."
"We have each other," she said simply. "And that's more than most."
He didn't say anything. But he took her hand.
For the first time in days, he didn't feel completely lost.
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Elsewhere, far away from the flickering lights of the city, a man stood before a wall of monitors.
His face was hidden in shadows, but his voice carried the weight of cold authority.
"Vale was reckless," he said, watching a news clip of Adrian's team bringing him down. "But his downfall serves our cause."
A second figure stepped into the light—a woman, elegant, lethal, with eyes like ice.
"The boy's becoming a symbol," she said. "We should extinguish him."
"No," the man replied. "We shape him. We let him believe he's winning… until it's too late."
He pressed a button, and the screen switched to a live feed of the safehouse.
Adrian, Kara, Ronan, Tessa—all on display.
"Let the flames rise," he whispered. "Then we'll bury them in the smoke."
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To be continued…
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