Ah, this chapter.
You're about to walk straight into one of the rawest aftermaths I've written. It's bloody. It's personal. It's the kind of chapter where the line between victory and survival isn't just blurred, it's bleeding.
Max is fighting her own power.
Seth is running on sacred fumes, but still won't let go of her.
And Samuel? He's praying to stay upright.
But rest? Not for this team. Not yet.
They're heading to Willow Lane. Max's old home. The place that still breathes memories she never wanted to revisit.
This chapter is gritty, a little chaotic, and far more important than anyone realizes.
What begins here will echo far beyond it.
Step in carefully.
The veil is thin.
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The rift split open with a sound like silk tearing through thunder. Light fractured the air, jagged, sharp, and unstable.
Seth stepped through first. Always first. Not because I needed him to. Not because I couldn't. But because it was who he was. My shield. The storm before the decree. The sacred breath before the written word. He would take the blow before it ever touched me. Without thought. Without condition.
His silver breath surged ahead of him, curling from around his arms and frame like storm clouds given will. Each coil shimmered, folding and unfolding like living silk spun from moonlight. Every step echoed with the kind of presence that made shadows recoil.
I should be focused on the chaos. On the fact that Samuel and Campbell are barely hanging on and time is slipping. But then Seth steps forward, silent and steady, and the storm inside me doesn't vanish, it just redirects.
He's not just handsome. There's something about the way he holds the room like it belongs to him. His presence is calm and commanding, like a sword that doesn't need to be unsheathed to remind you it's there.
Even now, with lives at stake and fury still clinging to my spine, I catch myself watching the way those green-turned-silver eyes narrow. The way his jaw tenses, like he's already decided what must be done.
It isn't about attraction. Not entirely. It's about gravity.
And right now, I need that anchor.
Enough. Get Seth out of your head.
I followed. Glyphs stirred beneath my skin, pulsing in rhythmic tremors. As if my body itself responded to the gravity Seth dragged behind him. Gold bled across my arms, throat, and legs. Lines of scripture, hungry to be written, uncoiled, itching for flesh to judge and reality to rewrite.
If Seth was the breath before the decree, then I was the decree.
Silence died the moment our feet struck concrete.
The air hit us like a scream swallowed by gunfire. Dust choked the rafters. Walls fractured beneath the rain of bullets. Light flickered, thin, weak, trembling. But it wasn't the gunfire that made the world tremble.
It was us.
The warehouse felt it. This pit of violence. This altar of betrayal. It flinched. The shadows recoiled.
Then we heard it.
A choking gasp. Wet. Gurgling. A body trying to breathe through a throat torn open.
Campbell's golden light flickered on the far side of the chaos, sputtering between shadows and gunfire like a candle drowning in its own wax.
Samuel knelt beside him, shield flared. Blue light fractured, splintered, barely holding. His hands trembled. His mouth poured desperate decrees between sobs and defiance. Blood streaked his face, and still he roared.
"CAMPBELL, STAY WITH ME!"
Bullets flew. Shadows lunged.
But the moment Seth's boots hit the floor, everything shifted.
The air shattered like glass. The veil cracked around us. A golden pulse rippled from my skin. Seth's silver breath collided with it, threading through the light, wrapping the floor, the walls, the air itself in something heavier than power.
Judgment.
The men felt it now.
Fifteen armed. Fifteen doomed. Fingers twitched on triggers. Eyes widened, like their souls realized something their minds hadn't caught yet.
The decree had entered the room. Breath had followed. And war... war had just arrived.
Still, the men stared. Triggers half-squeezed. Words caught in throats.
Then panic struck.
Gunfire exploded. Loud. Wild and desperate. Bullets tore through the air like hornets screaming toward a storm.
Seth moved.
No shout. No warning. No hesitation. His body slipped into the gap between the first muzzle flash and the scream of recoil. I was already feeling sorry for the first fool in his line of fire.
He reached the guy before his boots had fully kissed solid ground. The man barely had time to lift his weapon before Seth's hand clamped around his wrist, twisted until tendons screamed and bones gave way. The gun hit the floor. Seth's leg shot up, fluid, precise, and merciless, before crashing down across the man's shoulder. Something broke. The man crumpled with a sound that belonged in an ER report, not a battlefield.
Seth didn't even blink. His gaze never left the others.
I shifted. My stance locked. Ready. Waiting for the signal to engage. But no. Not yet. Instead, I crossed my arms, tilted one hip, and watched. I watched this absolute marvel of a man commit acts of holy violence like it was a love language.
Seth stepped forward. Silver threads whipped ahead of him, sharp and alive. A cluster struck a rifle stock. Wood splintered like cheap kindling. Another flick. Breath twisted, spiraling around a gunman's wrist. It yanked tight, sharp, and surgical. Bone snapped with a clean pop. The weapon hit the ground before the scream ever left his throat.
I sighed, almost lazily, and lifted my hand. Palm open. Fingers spread.
"No."
A golden barrier snapped into place. Glyphs tore free from my skin, racing across its surface in circuits that shimmered like molten glass. Bullets struck, dissolved, burst into harmless flashes of light before they could even dream of touching flesh.
The shooters fired anyway. Loud. Frenzied and desperate.
Seth's breath moved faster.
He stepped straight through my barrier like it was mist, headed for the man on our left. So fast it didn't look like walking. It looked like gliding. Floating. A storm given human shape.
He didn't flinch as bullets screamed toward him. His silver breath surged ahead, colliding with each round, disintegrating them into harmless dust midair. His arm lifted, and like a predator casting a net, his breath lashed forward. It reeled the man in, dragged him straight off his feet without so much as a finger laid.
The man slammed against the concrete, headfirst. His body convulsed, twitching hard, but... he'd live. Probably.
Seth surged forward again. No wasted movement. No mercy. A sidestep, clean and sharp, let a bullet whisper past his ribs. His breath curved like a second limb, whipping beneath an attacker's knees. Bone crunched. The body folded, pitched backward, and cracked against the ground.
Seth's gaze flicked to Campbell. Just once. One glance was enough. His voice dropped. Cold. Edged. Lethal.
"Max..."
A pause. Calculating. Intent sharpened to a blade.
"Do we break them... or bury them?"
My fingers flexed. The Scripture surged beneath my skin, white-hot and violent. A slow, sharp smile tugged at my lips.
A little late for that question... after you've already redecorated the pavement with their dignity.
I breathed, voice dropping into something feral. "Oh, it's forbidden..." My head tilted. My smile widened. "But I never said they'd leave whole."
Ink ruptured from my skin, alive and seething. Golden lines tore into the air, twisting into blades, whips, and arcs of judgment. Glyphs snapped into form, spinning midair like orbiting scythes.
The first man screamed as scripture lashed across his rifle, slicing it in half. Another line wrapped his ankle, yanking him off his feet before whipping across his thigh. He hit the ground hard, clutching his leg, weaponless and howling.
Seth continued moving. His silver breath danced. Needle clusters snapped into shoulder joints, hip flexors, and kneecaps. His footwork was brutal poetry. Smooth. Grounded. Precise. A step-slide, a pivot, a sharp twist of his wrist. Breath followed every motion.
Men collapsed mid-scream. Some clutched broken limbs. Others crawled, desperate to get away, only for golden chains to rip from the ground and bind their wrists flat against the concrete.
I swept my arm left. Glyphs flared in a golden wave. The blast struck through three attackers. Their weapons shattered midair. One flipped backward from the force, hit the floor hard, breath wheezing out, but chest still rising.
Seth's breath lashed upward, hooking a man by the vest. For a heartbeat, the man hung midair. Weightless. Then Seth snapped his wrist. The body flew sideways, crashing into a stack of steel crates. The crates rattled. The man slid down, twitching once before going still. Unconscious but very much alive.
I stepped forward, glyphs spinning like orbiting blades. They sliced rifle straps, severed trigger fingers, and left glowing fractures across steel, flesh, and bone.
No mercy. No escape.
And then... silence.
Every strike disarmed. Every slice shattered weapons, ruptured ligaments, tore through armor and bone just enough to drop them but not end them. This was calculated ruin. Divine judgment is designed to humble, not to slaughter.
One by one, groans replaced screams. Movement slowed to crawling. No one stood. No one fought. Weapons lay in pieces. Bodies littered the warehouse floor, battered, broken, bleeding... but breathing.
The Scripture calmed. Glyphs faded, sinking back into my skin. Seth's breath folded inward, silver mist retreating like a tide pulled back to shore.
I exhaled. My fingers flexed, gold still humming beneath the surface. Seth stepped back to my side, shoulders squared, breath steady but coiled.
Every enemy lay sprawled, moaning, eyes glazed with terror or shut against the pain.
Alive.
But never the same again.
The last groan faded into silence.
Campbell's breathing rattled. His body trembled beneath Samuel's desperate grip.
Seth knelt beside them, hands steady but jaw tight. His breath flowed like silver ribbons, spiraling over shredded skin and broken bone. It tried. It fought. Threading into fractures, weaving torn sinew, but it wasn't enough. Not this time.
The damage ran too deep. Beneath the flesh. Beneath the bone. It frayed the very tether that anchored soul to body.
Seth's breath was never meant to force what could not hold. His gift unmade to rebuild. But if the vessel was too close to collapse, unmaking it risked unraveling the soul entirely. One wrong pull, one slip, and Campbell wouldn't survive the dismantling required to set him right.
His silver threads hovered, flickering at the edge of release. Seth gritted his teeth, hands flexed, but he pulled back. Withdrew. Contained it.
Campbell was stable. Barely. But only for now.
Seth's gaze snapped to me. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His eyes said it. It has to be you.
I cursed softly, under my breath. Glyphs still spun around me, ink sharp with judgment, not restoration. My energy thrummed wild and violent, hungry to slice, not mend.
But the Scripture didn't care. It obeyed one law. Command.
It was never about what I could do. It was about what I was willing to declare.
I dropped to my knees, hand already pressed to Campbell's chest. Blood soaked through my fingers, thick and hot, pulsing in desperate rhythm. His breathing, if you could call it that, was wet, ragged, barely a whisper fighting through ruin.
The bullet hadn't gone clean. It tore through the side of his neck, shredded soft tissue, grazed the windpipe, grazed his spinal column, and chipped part of the vertebrae away. Not a kill shot. Not instantly. But close. Too close.
His throat was caved in where it shouldn't be. Skin shredded. Veins pulsed weakly around the wound, leaking life faster than his spirit could hold it. His mouth opened and closed, gasping, trying to pull air through a passage no longer intact.
Seth knelt opposite me, hands braced over the wound, silver threads weaving into Campbell's flesh, struggling, twitching, fraying, barely holding. His voice was strained, low. "I've reinforced the structure just enough. But I can't restore the decree. Not the voice. Not the breath. And I can reverse the damage to his spine... but he might not function normally again." His jaw clenched, eyes flickering with frustration. "Max... this part is you. It's always been you."
Pain wasn't just written into Campbell's body. It was etched into his spirit. I could feel it as my palm pressed against his chest. His terror. His fight. His refusal to let go. He wasn't ready. Not yet.
But neither was the Living Scripture.
Glyphs pulsed beneath my skin, flaring, wild, and violent. They didn't shift to healing. Not automatically. No. They read threat. They read attack.
Judgment wanted blood. It wanted to lash out at the one who fired the shot. To punish. To strike. Not to save.
No... not this time.
I swallowed hard. Forced my hands to be steady. "Stand down. Not judgment. Not now."
The glyphs fought me, lines twisting into blades, into weapons, into decrees of wrath.
No.
My breath trembled, but I pressed harder. "You obey me. You serve the Living Word. This is not for vengeance. This is for restoration."
The glyphs writhed, fire folding into itself, blades curving into letters, lines of wrath trembling, realigning into symbols of mending. Judgment bent. Slowly. Begrudgingly. But it bent.
Come on. Come on. Obey me.
My voice rasped out, thick and strained. "By the decree of the Living Word... be rewritten. According to what was before."
Golden ink surged down my arms, pouring into Campbell's skin. It didn't burn like fire. It burned like truth, forcing back ruin.
Flesh remembered shape. Torn muscle knits together. Veins sealed. His windpipe trembled, half-collapsed, then stretched, rebuilt from threads of light and word. The splintered vertebra groaned beneath my palm, edges smoothing, fragment by fragment aligning back into place, but scarred. Not perfect. Not what it once was.
Campbell's back arched with a choking gasp. For one breathless, agonizing second, every muscle locked. Then release. A jagged inhale cracked through his throat, as if the air itself forgot how to fit inside him. His fingers twitched. His pulse fluttered weakly. But there. Still there.
His breathing steadied. Color crawled back beneath his skin. Not perfect. Not full. But stable. Strong enough to survive.
The cost hit me like a hammer. My spine curved forward. Palms slammed to the floor. Breath gone. Limbs trembling. The Scripture still burned beneath my skin, bleeding gold across my arms, but it was flickering. Weak. Strained. Not because the wound was too great. No. Because it had fought me. Fought me every step. It hadn't wanted to heal. It wasn't made for mercy like this. Not easily. Not without being forced.
Seth's hand caught the back of my shoulder. Steady. Silent. Present. The warmth of his breath wrapped around me like silk, as if to say, I've got you now.
"Max... are you okay?" His voice was quieter than usual. Softer. Weighted.
Silence swelled. Not the kind born of peace, but of aftermath. Of reality cracking beneath the weight of something it was never meant to witness. My head tipped forward, breath shallow. Hands trembling. And all I could rasp was, "Give me... a moment... and I will be."
Dust drifted through fractured beams of light, soft and trembling, almost afraid to settle. The air itself felt thinner, as though the warehouse was holding its breath.
Seth knelt at my side, silver breath folding around him like ribbons of living mist. It curled over his shoulders, flowed down his arms, and coiled at his feet. The edges frayed now. Thinner. Flickering at the seams. But still, it held.
His posture radiated that same quiet power. Shoulders squared. Head tilted slightly down. Eyes sharp. Calm. Detached. Dangerous. The same weight he carried from the first step he took through the rift still anchored him here.
Except now... something shifted. His breath tilted toward me first, like it was thinking about me before he did. As if his very spirit leaned in, closing the distance, scanning for what was left of me. Then slowly... it curled around me. Protective and gentle. It does not smother me. Nor is it invasive. It's just there. A barrier between me and the world, the aftermath, and the cost I had not yet admitted out loud.
His gaze never left the room, but his hand hovered, close enough that if I faltered, he would catch me before gravity remembered what it was owed. Even worn. Even frayed at the edges. He remained. A wall between me and everything else. Because tired or not... I was still his to protect. I knelt beside him, glyphs still pulsing beneath my skin, lines of gold flickering along my arms, throat, and collarbones like the last glow of a dying star. Scripture no longer roared, but it lingered. Watching. Waiting. Marking.
Together, we were still. Statues cut from breath and decree. Untouched and untouchable.
The floor was littered with bodies. Weapons shattered. Limbs tangled in chains of gold. Fingers broken, wrists pinned flat against concrete. Some trembled. Others dared not move at all, faces buried against the floor as if hiding from the memory of what had just stood over them.
Not a word passed between us. There was no need. The message had already been written into bone, breath, and fear.
Alive. Every last one of them. But never the same again.
And as the dust slowly settled, the only sound left was the wheezing of fractured lungs and the ragged breathing of those who would remember this day for the rest of their lives.
Samuel slumped against him, face bloodied, hands shaking. His shield was gone. His strength hung by a thread. His lips moved in silent prayers, not decrees. Just prayers to stay upright. To not fall. To not fail.
Seth shifted, one arm steady at my back, the other tilting toward Samuel without looking. His silver breath flared, thinned, then stretched toward Samuel like ghostly threads, weaving over his chest, his shoulders, his spine. Not a full restoration. No. Just enough reinforcement to keep him together. To stitch strength back into failing joints. To hold him upright when his own body no longer could.
Samuel's breath caught. His trembling slowed, shoulders squaring just slightly beneath the weight of that silver net. His prayers faltered, then steadied.
I paced back, gripping the bridge of my nose, forcing my breath to steady. My hands still pulsed gold beneath my skin.
"We cannot call an ambulance. We can't risk this leaking into the world. Not here. Not like this."
Seth nodded, already scanning the warehouse, calculating. "Agreed. We move them ourselves."
I spun, yanked my phone from my pocket, thumbed through contacts fast, and landed on one name. Someone who specializes in situations just like this.
Gabriel Wynn.
Not Judicar Gabriel. The other Gabriel. The one the world thought was just a logistics fixer for the Obsidian Forum.
I hit dial. Two rings. No greeting.
"Max," came the voice. Calm. Sharp. Calculating. "Judging by the fact you're calling me at this hour, in this tone, I'm guessing something broke."
"I've got two downed teammates. Bleeding, but breathing. No hospitals. And three enemies still twitching. Everyone else is keeping very, very still. I need cleanup and containment. Now. No dilly-dallying."
A pause. Then keys began clicking in the background. "Location pinged. Are you secure?"
"Secure enough." My eyes swept over the wreckage. "But not for long. How do I make this vanish without alarms or sirens?"
"You move the injured to the old house. Your old house. The one you had with Eric." Gabriel's tone shifted from reactive to commanding. "Still in your name. Still off-grid. No surveillance unless someone knows what they're looking for."
"Yeah." My throat tightened. "I remember. How exactly do you remember it's mine?"
I heard the soft sigh. "I make it my business to know where my favorites bury their ghosts."
I scoffed, which turned into a dry cough. "Sentimental much. I'll get my team out. You clean up the stragglers."
"Good. I'll meet you there. I'm bringing a medic. Private. Quiet. No hospitals. No records. But Max..." His voice sharpened to a knife's edge. "Make sure this doesn't bleed into the street. No patrols. No witnesses. This is shadow work."
"Understood."
"Stragglers first. I'll scrub the scene, torch the cams, and meet you at the house."
The line went dead.
I turned to Seth, shoving the phone into my pocket.
"House on Willow Lane. My old house. Gabriel's on his way with a medic after the clean up."
Seth's eyes flicked toward the bodies, then back to me. "Leaving them here... you think it'll stay quiet?"
"It won't." My voice was flat, breath just starting to steady. "But Gabriel's cleaning up. Burning cams, wiping the scene. No one's finding this mess unless they're looking for it, and stupid enough to stay."
I rose, steadier than I should have been, then glanced toward Samuel. "We move fast, we stay ahead. That's all that matters right now."
His silver breath pulsed, tightening around Samuel and Campbell, lifting them mid-air like they weighed nothing. Threads of mist coiled around their limbs and torsos, holding them stable. Firm. Gentle.
Then Seth's gaze drifted to the half-conscious man crumpled by the doorway. The one whose broken shoulder kept twitching like he was trying to crawl... but forgot how.
Seth walked over, crouched, grabbed him by the gun belt at the back of his pants, and hauled him upright like deadweight luggage. The man let out a strained wheeze, arms flopping, legs dragging behind him.
Seth didn't even look at him. "Scream... and I'll make this ride worse."
The guy went dead silent. Whether from fear or because the breath got squeezed out of him didn't matter.
Without another word, we stepped through a portal, back to the place I never wanted to see again.
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After the Chaos:
Well... that happened.
If you're sitting there wondering, "Did Max really drag half her broken team, one half-dead enemy, and a pile of spiritual trauma straight back to her old house like it's casual Tuesday?"
Yes. Yes, she did.
This chapter was chaos to write in the best way. I wanted you to feel the cost. The strain. The exhaustion.
But also the quiet kind of love that shows in how Seth holds Max up without saying a word.
How Samuel refuses to fall, even when his own shield begins to crack.
How Max, for all her fire and fury, bends the will of Heaven to patch her people back together.
Next chapter... Willow Lane.
The house she never wanted to see again.
Let's just say some doors should never be opened.