After the second unsettling knock on the door, came a voice.
Uncanny. Wrong in more ways than one.
"That is no way to welcome a guest," it said. Smooth. Measured. Amused.
Then softer, almost brushing the inside of every skull: "Rude."
No one breathed.
The voice hadn't come from outside the barricade, muffled by layers of wood and metal. It hadn't pushed through cracks or seeped in with the ash. It was in the room, close enough to feel against the shell of an ear, too near for anyone to locate.
Mara stiffened where she crouched, her arms crushing Hana against her chest. The young girl whimpered, sensing her fear more than the words themselves. Kaelen instinctively shifted, one hand braced against Nora's shoulder, ready to pull the her back if the walls themselves split open.
Rafe muttered a prayer. Not words, really—just sound, a broken string of syllables, like he was trying to remind himself of something holy in a place that had none.
Darius steadied his feet, blade already up, fury snapping across his expression. The sound of that voice—it set every nerve in him aflame. His instincts screamed to strike at something, anything. But there was nothing to face.
Only Elias seemed still. He hadn't moved from where he stood, talons pressed into the wooden frame. His unnatural eyes glowed faintly in the dim, throwing sharp glimmers across his gaunt face. But his stillness wasn't ignorance. It was recognition.
The voice hadn't surprised him. It had confirmed something.
Mara's gaze flicked toward him, catching the faint tightening at his jaw, the way his claws dug just a little deeper into the wood, leaving fresh grooves.
The barricade did not break.
It didn't shatter with the violence of a ram or splinter beneath a monster's weight. No—it decayed.
Before their eyes, the wood began to sag, the grain blackening, curling in on itself as if centuries of rot were racing forward in moments. Nails shrieked loose, dropping one by one, tinkling faintly against the ash-littered floor. The metal braces twisted and sagged, eaten through by rust that hadn't been there a heartbeat ago.
Ash sifted down in streams, fine as sand through fingers.
The opening that formed wasn't sudden. It was slow, deliberate. A hollow gap, stretching wider with every breath. As if the house itself were surrendering.
And through it—
a figure stepped inside.
Jonah.
His skin was pale, stretched thin over bone, yet there was no frailty in him. Each movement carried a fluid, unnatural grace.
His eyes glowed faintly, like coals smoldering at the bottom of a long-dead fire; dull, yet alive with hunger. And his mouth… his mouth wore a smile too steady, too fixed, as though it had been carved there.
Familiar. Alien. Reborn in a way that made the stomach twist.
Mara felt Hana clutch tighter to her, burying her face against her chest. Kaelen's hand tightened on Nora's shoulder, steadying her even as Nora whimpered faintly, her weak body trembling.
Rafe staggered back until he hit the wall, breath hitching, prayers dissolving into stuttered gasps.
Darius stepped forward instead, blade lifted, placing himself instinctively between the intruder and the others. His muscles were rigid, his chest rising in sharp, controlled breaths. This is someone he recognized, someone they recognized.
Jonah, the one who had been exiled from their group is alive, but in the worst way possible.
Elias' gaze locked on Jonah's form with the precision of a predator who has found another. No surprise. No question. Only certainty.
Jonah didn't need to speak. His presence alone pressed against the walls, bending the air like heat rising off stone.
Instead, his gaze began to move.
Slow. Deliberate. Like a lantern sweeping across a field of corpses.
Jonah's eyes lingered on Mara for only a heartbeat, yet something flickered across his face. Disgust. The same look a man might give to a crawling maggot. His lips twitched, barely restrained contempt before smoothing back into that unnatural smile.
The smile trembled when he gazed at Hana. His nostrils flared, and for the briefest second his mask shattered. Hatred, raw and naked, carved across his face. His lip curled, teeth showing, eyes narrowing into a predator's gleam. A young girl, and yet his loathing burned for her as if she were an old enemy.
It was worse than the hatred.
Next, his gaze moved to Darius.
Here Jonah lingered. His smoldering eyes fixed on the swordsman's broad frame, studying, dissecting. The weight of his stare was so sharp that even Darius' iron grip faltered, his blade twitching. Sweat slid down his temple.
Jonah's expression was different this time, no flicker, no break. Just stillness. But the loathing was unmistakable. He didn't hide it. He savored it.
And then, as though he remembered himself, Jonah's face smoothed again. The hatred vanished. The mask returned.
The shift was too quick. Clean. Perfect.
But everyone had seen it.
They had seen Jonah's hatred; real, sharp, searing. They had also seen how easily he buried it beneath that smile.
And somehow, the smile was worse.
"You're dead... you should be dead."
Elias said, his voice piercing through the uneasy silence.
Every head snapped toward him. His glowing eyes burned hotter. He didn't look at anyone else. His world had narrowed to Jonah.
Jonah tilted his head, almost playfully. That smile never faltered, but his words seeped through the room.
"No, brother. Not dead. Reborn. And I have you to thank."
The words landed. Kaelen's brow furrowed, confusion etching lines between her eyes.
None of them understood. None of them dared ask.
But the way Jonah said brother was too heavy to dismiss. Too familiar to be anything else.
Jonah stepped forward, and Elias mirrored his action, daring Jonah to come any closer. The two predators locked, neither yielding.
Jonah's voice softened, a mockery of intimacy:
"You've been running from what you are. But we both know it's inside you still."
"Imagine my surprise when I finally understood what you've been repressing. So much power at your fingertip, yet so bent on holding it in."
Elias' eyes flared bright enough to paint his cheekbones with firelight. He said nothing, but his silence roared.
A sound stirred from the rear of the ruin.
Every head whipped around.
One member of the second stumbled back inside. His frame shuddered as though every joint moved on strings. Relief rippled through the group at first… then confusion.
"When… did he leave?… How?," Kaelen whispered, voice thin.
The man's movements were wrong. Too stiff. Too deliberate. His feet dragged but never faltered. His arms swung in jerks, puppet-like. And worst, his eyes. Glossy, glassy, reflecting nothing.
The man stopped in the middle of the room, sway-legged and trembling. His head lolled sideways, mouth opening like he wanted to speak. But no sound came out.
Jonah didn't even glance at him.
The puppet's chest hitched once. His arms twitched. Then, like strings cut, his body collapsed forward, boneless, sprawling across the ash-littered floor.
Not a single twitch after.
Jonah had been inside their walls the whole time. While they hid behind the barricades, he walked freely.
The truth hit harder.
There had never been safety here.
Elias already knew this, yet even he had to admit the bitter truth; Jonah was a step ahead of what he had anticipated.
"Why run from it?" Jonah's voice crawled along the walls "…The shard. The gift that binds us."
"You should embraced it... Just as I did."
Darius adjusted his footing, blade steady though sweat crawled down his temple. His muscles were steel, but his eyes betrayed the strain.
Jonah paused when his eyes slid over Darius. Then he looked away, dismissing him.
"I am usually one to hold a grudge," Jonah said smoothly, as though he were discussing weather. "But this…" His smile twitched. "This is not personal."
Every soul in the room felt the lie.
This was indeed personal. His grudge against Mara, Darius, and Hana was as clear as day.
A ragged figure stirred from the shadows, one of the members of the second group. His eyes were vacant, movements stiff. Drawn forward, as if strings pulled him.
"Wait—" Mara reached, but the man stumbled past her grip, into Jonah's orbit.
Jonah welcomed him with an almost tender gesture. A hand rested on his shoulder, thumb brushing lightly, like comfort. His smile was soft, his voice a whisper: "See? Mercy."
Snap.
The man's neck cracked like dry twigs. His head spun backward, face staring wide-eyed at the group while his body still faced Jonah.
Gasps tore the silence. Hana whimpered into Mara's chest. Kaelen's breath hitched.
Jonah released the husk, letting it collapse in a boneless heap at his feet. His smile widened, gleaming with a predator's satisfaction.
"Replaceable," he murmured.
The message was clear.
Mercy, in Jonah's hands, was just another cruelty.
He tilted his head, that corpse-stretched smile baring sharp teeth that were too long, catching the dim ashlight.
Slowly, deliberately, his burning eyes left Elias. Slid across Mara's defiance. Skimmed over Darius' steel. Passed Hana's wide, fearful stare.
And landed on Nora.