The hallway outside the gym looked like a warzone made of confusion.
Students crying.
Teachers shouting.
Guards barking orders.
Doors slamming.
Somebody puking in a trash can.
Everything was noise.
Everything except the inside of Cyrus's skull.
Inside his head, there was only one sentence—
over and over, like a blade being sharpened on stone.
I'll kill that bastard.
He wasn't even aware he was whispering it under his breath.
Kaito sat on the bench beside him, face buried in his palms, shoulders trembling.
"Ethan… Ethan… Ethan…" he kept muttering.
Cyrus barely heard him.
Because all he could see was Ethan's face while being dragged away.
The shock.
The begging.
The fear.
Another voice—darker—echoed inside him:
I'll kill him. I'll kill him. I'll kill him.
Rael's smirk burned like a tattoo in his memory.
Cyrus rose to his feet.
Kaito grabbed his sleeve.
"Where are you going?"
"To figure out where they took him."
"How!?" Kaito cried, eyes bloodshot.
"They left nothing—Cyrus, they left nothing!"
Cyrus knew that.
He felt it.
Rael wasn't sloppy.
The military wasn't sloppy.
They left no clues.
No badge numbers.
No facility names.
No directions.
Nothing as simple as a visible patch or a careless phrase.
Ethan might as well have been swallowed by the earth.
The rage inside Cyrus hissed:
He's not gone. Find him.
Find him and rip them apart.
But rage without direction was useless.
He forced his breathing steady.
Forced his brain to start working again.
One step at a time.
He scanned the hallway.
Looking for anything—anyone—useful.
Students everywhere.
Some sobbing.
Some arguing.
Some frozen in shock.
Then he saw her.
Dona Wells.
Quiet.
Thin.
Hair tied in a messy bun.
Known for failing P.E. and getting panic attacks during presentations.
And two hours ago, during the gym scans…
Cyrus saw the machine flicker faint green near her.
An officer shrugged and said,
"Weak cognitive-type. Harmless. Continue."
He replayed that exact moment in his mind.
Weak cognitive-type.
Weak ability.
Weak didn't matter.
Weak was enough.
He walked straight toward her.
Dona flinched as he approached.
"I-I didn't do anything," she said immediately, defensive, voice small.
"I know," Cyrus answered.
"I need your help."
She blinked.
"What? Why?"
He didn't soften his voice.
Didn't sugarcoat anything.
"Because you can hear thoughts."
Her face drained of color.
"I… No. I—It's not real. I only hear things when people are really loud in their heads. I can't control it. It's just noise. Please don't tell anyone—"
"I won't," Cyrus said.
"And you're going to help me."
She shook her head violently.
"No. No-no-no. That's dangerous. I can't get involved with whatever's happening. They took people, Cyrus. They took Ethan. I'm not next. I'm not—"
Cyrus leaned in, lowering his voice to a whisper.
"You heard the driver."
Dona froze.
"I… I didn't… I don't…"
"Don't lie," Cyrus said calmly.
"When they dragged Ethan into the van, you were closest to the door. You flinched. Like something hit you. Something you heard."
Her lips trembled.
Kaito stepped on her other side, eyes red and furious.
"Please," he whispered, voice cracking.
"He's our friend. Just tell us if you know anything."
Her eyes softened at Kaito's broken tone.
She sighed.
"…I didn't hear much," she whispered.
"It was… messy. Like static. People who panic are loud in their own heads."
"Just tell me everything," Cyrus said.
Dona shut her eyes and replayed the moment mentally.
"The driver wasn't thinking in sentences," she murmured.
"It was more like… emotions. Images. A few words."
She raised her hand, fingers shaking.
"There was fear.
A lot of fear.
Fear of… messing up.
Fear of someone above him."
"Above him?" Cyrus repeated.
She nodded.
"And he kept thinking one word…"
She swallowed hard.
"'Transfer.'"
Kaito leaned back. "Transfer where?"
Dona swallowed.
Then she spoke the words that shifted the entire story:
"They took him to a facility called CIRCUIT-12… at the edge of New Jersey… an underground lab under an abandoned freight yard. The gate code the driver kept repeating was 3127-B."
Kaito exhaled. "That's a real place. I've heard rumors."
Cyrus didn't blink.
"That's where we're going."
Dona looked horrified. "You can't! The walls are lined with meta-cancelling tech. They have suppression collars. There are patrol drones. People don't come out of that place!"
Cyrus grabbed her shoulders gently — too gentle for the storm raging inside him.
"You did enough," he said. "Thank you."
And then he turned away.
But in his mind?
He was already at the door of CIRCUIT-12, tearing it off its hinges.
**
When they reached the rooftop to catch their breath and plan, Kaito spoke first.
"We can't just storm it. We need people. More powers. More eyes. A crew."
Cyrus stared out over the protesting crowd below.
Angry families. Broken trust. Rising panic.
Everything was escalating.
Everything was fracturing.
Then Cyrus spoke the words that shook kaito
"Who needs a crew when we have a Army"