Dean woke to the sound of breathing that wasn’t his own.

  Metal bit into his wrists. His ankles were bound the same way. The chair was bolted to the floor.

  Whatever alloy held him felt colder than steel.

  A man stood in front of him.

  He wore a dark coat. On his chest, a silver winged crest caught the low light.

  Around the room, soldiers stood at attention, rifles held loose but ready.

  “So glad you could join us, Detective Dean,” the man said. His voice was calm, almost polite. “I was beginning to think you’d sleep through the operation.”

  Dean tested the restraints. Nothing gave.

  “Where am I?” he asked. “What is this place?”

  The man smiled faintly. “Don’t bother.”

  Dean looked up at him. “Get me out of here. Now.”

  “You’re in no position to make demands, Detective.” The smile faded. “In fact, you’re in no position to make anything at all.”

  Dean swallowed. “Who the hell are you people?”

  The man paused, as if realizing something. “Ah. Where are my manners?”

  He placed a hand over the crest.

  “My designation is Four-Five,” he said. “And we are The Order of Valkyrie.”

  Dean let out a short laugh. “Four-Five? That’s your name?”

  “It’s sufficient.”

  Dean’s eyes hardened. “So what am I to you?”

  Forty-Five stepped closer. “A compensation price. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  Dean’s jaw tightened. “If you wanted me dead, I wouldn’t have woken up.”

  “Correct.”

  “So you need me.”

  “I need you alive,” Four-Five said. “Intact is negotiable.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  “What do you want?” Dean asked.

  Four-Five studied him for a moment. “You’re sharper than you look.”

  He turned, pacing once, slow and deliberate.

  “There is a creature,” he said. “Red eyes. Wings. I'm sure you must have heard of it, but it has been killing my people.”

  Dean frowned. “Your people?”

  “Every victim bears our crest,” Four-Five replied. “No one else.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Dean said.

  “You brought something like that into our town, lost control of it, and now you want help cleaning it up.”

  “We would prefer to call it an obstacle.” Four-Five said.

  “And you can’t find it.” Dean said confidently.

  “No,” Four-Five admitted. “It finds us.”

  Dean shook his head. “Then how do you expect us to succeed where you’ve failed?”

  Four-Five stopped pacing. He faced Dean again.

  “Not us,” he said. “Not you.”

  Dean’s breath slowed. “You mean Hayes.”

  A flicker of approval crossed Four-Five’s face.

  “She is the department’s secret,” he said. “Even if they don’t know it. To them, she’s just another detective. To us, she’s the only one capable of tracking it.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Dean laughed softly. “So I’m bait.”

  “Motivation,” Four-Five corrected. “A very effective kind.”

  Dean leaned back as far as the chair allowed. “She’ll come for me. And when she does, she’ll expose you.”

  “For a man taken with such ease,” Four-Five said, “you have remarkable faith in your partner.”

  He raised two fingers.

  One of the soldiers stepped forward.

  “Wait,” Dean said. “What are you—”

  The rifle struck the back of his head.

  Darkness took him instantly.

  As Dean slumped forward, Four-Five sighed.

  “Sleep well, Detective,” he said quietly. “I truly hope your faith is justified.”

  He turned away.

  “Because if it isn’t,” he added, “you won’t survive the disappointment.”

  Meanwhile,

  The manhunt for Dean intensified.

  Every available officer was reassigned, fanned out across the city under Hayes and Lieutenant Cannon’s direction.

  Marked locations were searched.

  Then searched again.

  Nothing surfaced. No sightings. No leads.

  Only the growing sense that Dean hadn’t vanished by chance.

  The cathedral ruins offered nothing.

  Hayes moved through collapsed stone and broken arches, her flashlight tracing old scars in the walls. Dust lay untouched. No footprints. No disturbed rubble. The place felt abandoned in the honest way, the kind that didn’t hide secrets.

  No tunnels. No doors. No lies.

  Just ruin.

  She stood there longer than necessary, listening to the wind pass through empty space.

  Then she turned back.

  The precinct lights hummed when she walked in.

  Cannon was already there.

  She stopped short. “Why are you here?”

  He looked up from the board. “Brighton Route’s Warehouse was clean.”

  “Clean how?”

  “Too clean.” He rubbed his jaw. “No fingerprints. No dust trails. No signs anyone’s been there in months. Or ever.”

  Hayes frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t have to,” Cannon said. “It just has to mean something.”

  She exhaled slowly. “So that’s two locations crossed off.”

  “For now.”

  They stood there, staring at Dean’s name on the board like it might move if they waited long enough.

  “He could be in either of the last two,” Hayes said.

  Cannon nodded.

  “We split up again, we cover more ground.”

  “And risk missing something?” Cannon asked.

  He studied her. “You’re rushing.”

  “I’m trying to find my partner.”

  “And I’m trying to make sure we don’t overlook the simplest clue,” Cannon replied. “That’s how people disappear for good.”

  Silence settled between them.

  Hayes looked back at the board. At the timeline. At the gaps that refused to explain themselves.

  She sighed. “Alright.”

  Cannon straightened. “We go together. We search it properly.”

  She grabbed her jacket. “Third location first.” she said pointing to The Water Treatment Plant labelled on the board.

  They moved towards the door. Neither of them said what they were both thinking. That every place they checked felt less like a mistake and more like intention.

  Elsewhere, in Russia.

  Jackson sat alone in the upper hall of the mansion, eyes fixed on the painted portrait of the young woman.

  Oil and canvas. Frozen beauty. The kind that never aged, never answered back. Firelight flickered across her face.

  An hour.

  That was how long he had been gone that night.

  One hour behind a door of a casino that never appeared on any floor plan.

  One hour that refused to stay buried.

  The memory surfaced without permission.

  The room behind the bar smelled of incense and old wood.

  She sat across from him, wrapped in layers of fabric that looked heavier than time itself. Her eyes never blinked.

  “Well,” she said softly, “this is impressive.”

  Jackson didn’t meet her gaze.

  “It’s been a while,” she continued. “Ten years? Twenty? A hundred? A thousand?” A pause. “Hard to say. Time sleeps when one does nothing but stare into glass.”

  He exhaled. “You look well, Atia.”

  A smile touched her lips. “Why are you here, Jackson?”

  He glanced at the walls, at the symbols etched into the stone.

  “Isn’t that your job? Aren’t you supposed to know?”

  She tilted her head.

  “Being a seer has its limits. I see possibilities, not conclusions. The future shifts. No tide moves the same way twice. No stone alone controls the wave.”

  She leaned back.

  “Perhaps you seek power. Or more of it. Loyalty? Friendship?” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Love?”

  Jackson finally looked at her.

  “I’ll make it easy. There’s only one thing on my mind.”

  Recognition passed through her like a shadow.

  “Ah,” she said. “You wish to know if she is alive.”

  His jaw tightened.

  “The one you seek is dead,” Atia continued. “Long dead. She cannot be reborn. Her spirit refuses to move on.”

  Jackson frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “She was denied peace,” Atia said calmly. “Bound by how she died. Trapped within this reality.”

  He stood. “Then what I saw was real?”

  “What you saw,” she replied, “was nature resisting the damage done to it.”

  Jackson’s voice hardened. “So I’m delusional.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not. Or maybe the world itself is unraveling.”

  He turned toward the door. “Then I’ve wasted my time.”

  “Jackson,” she called after him.

  He stopped.

  “A storm is coming,” she said. “One you cannot face alone.”

  She paused.

  “You can’t hide in the shadows much longer,” Atia added. “What’s coming may end you.”

  She turned away, murmuring words meant for no one.

  “Sir.”

  Jackson blinked.

  Elena stood at the doorway. “Your dinner is ready.”

  He rose slowly. “Alright. Let’s eat.”

  He left the room without looking back at the portrait.

  Outside the mansion walls, a man lowered his binoculars and raised his phone.

  “No suspicious movement,” he said. “He hasn’t left the house.”

  A voice responded on the other end. “Good. Keep watching. Report any change.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The line went dead. The mansion lights stayed on.

  Back in GrayHaven,

  As Hayes and Cannon’s car sped toward the Water Treatment Plant, a pair of red eyes watched from a rusted overpass.

  It didn't track the car.

  It tracked the scent of the winged crest, the one Four-Five wore miles away.

  The storm wasn't just coming; it had already arrived.