75. Jude
Jude
LET HIM TEAR ME LIMB FROM LIMB IF HER HEART KEEPS BEATING.
We exit the office.
Two hallways, one on each side. One is darker, older.
The other curves around. Raphael sends Seth to scope out the route while he unfolds a map he took from Alden’s office under the flickering emergency light, his eyes moving like a hawk over the lines.
“North hallway has more bodies. Five, maybe six armed. Could be more.”
Seth returns shortly, confirming. “Seven guards stationed outside patient doors. Four of us. It would be risky, but—”
“No,” Raphael directs us to the opposite hallway. “We won’t lose the element of surprise. This is longer, but there’s an exit to the main yard.”
“Any idea where she is?” Seth wonders.
Raphael shakes his head.
Vincent glares, brandishing his fist. “For all we know, he could have her in his bedroom, doing god knows what.”
“I doubt it,” Raphael says. “The Prophet wants a show. Whatever he’s doing to her, it would be a public spectacle.”
“Especially with Rory in the equation,” I acknowledge.
Seth swallows hard, his jaw clenching at the thought of his partner. Rory might be a pain in the ass, but he’s our pain in the ass. Kinship brother. And Seth’s bond with him runs deep.
I press a hand against the wall as we take the corner, my fingers coming away stained with soot and dust. It’s an old medical wing, looming ahead—forgotten, gutted, and abandoned—but I can still smell the antiseptic beneath the decay. That sterile stench never really fades.
Raphael doesn’t look at me, but I feel the unspoken judgment brewing behind his silence. That same judgment he wore at the fire watch tower. When he tried to control me. Twist me. Dominate me.
But I didn’t let him.
Not because I’m stronger—because I’m not. I’m not the killer. I’m not the predator.
But Briella needs him to be.
So I have to be what he can’t. The one who still gives a damn about what she feels when this is over—if we get that far. The healer who will do whatever it takes to save her.
Raphael traces a finger across the map. “We take the east hall. Back corridor. Leads through the old trauma wing. Minimal guards. No patrol routes loop that far out.”
Seth scoffs behind me, heavy boots scraping tile. “And that helps us how? You think we’ve got time for a damn tour of horrors while she and Rory are screaming in some basement altar?”
I heave a sigh. Normally, Seth isn’t like this. Always the one finding the silver lining. But even he has his breaking point. Right now? It’s shredded to the thinnest line.
“She’s not in the east wing.” I keep my tone calm to diffuse the tension like I always do. “But they will send the rest of their muscle toward the fire we’re about to start.”
He glares at me. “You’re wasting time.”
“No.” I move toward the nearest supply closet. “I’m buying us a distraction. Every guard chasing smoke is one less standing between the Prophet and us. You want a clean shot? Let me work.”
Seth gets ready to argue, but Raphael cuts in, folding the map tight. “Let him. We’re short on variables. We need any edge we can get.”
His voice is quiet, but steel-tempered. The first sign of affirmation from him. Or a simple acknowledgment.
He’s back to command mode now. Ice where there once was fire.
Good, I think. She needs that part of him. The sharpness. The monster he’s buried too long.
The supply closet is sparse. Not enough for what I need.
So, I lead them through the side corridor, the tiles turning from sterile white to grimy brown.
Half the overhead lights are dead, casting everything in a stuttering red pulse.
We pass rusted gurneys and doors marked with faded words like “Isolation” and “Triage Overflow.” It gets colder—like the walls remember the screams.
I stop at a rusted metal cabinet half-sunken into the wall, kneeling to twist the latch. It’s stuck, but after a hard wrench, it cracks open with a groan of protest.
Inside is liquid gold.
IV alcohol, ethyl ether, formalin. Pressurized oxygen tanks. Enough to torch this wing to hell.
Seth lights up. “You’re a damn pyro in scrubs.”
“No,” I mutter, pulling out bottles. “I’m a surgeon. And this is a controlled burn.” Rory’s the pyro, but I don’t mention it. Seth needs to keep his head in the game until the right moment.
We soak sheets and wrap bottles in torn linens for makeshift Molotovs. Raphael helps quietly, efficiently. It’s methodical, almost reverent—like we’re building something sacred.
Or sacrilegious.
I pause by a bulletin board as the others prepare the ignition trail. There’s an old schedule posted, yellow with age. Names, numbers, procedures. Scrawled across it in red marker—fresher, newer—is one word:
“CIRCLE.”
Below it: “Phase IV trials moved to Sublevel 3. All non-cleared staff are to avoid chamber.”
One framed photograph shows an amphitheater. An old cross. An altar.
That’s it.
“That’s where he took her,” I tell Raphael, gesturing to the photograph.
He narrows his eyes, inspecting before they turn grim. “You just earned yourself sevenfold instead of ten, Jude.”
I’ll take it.
I step closer, brushing dust off the corner of the bulletin. The ink smears under my glove, but the intent is still clear. Whatever this Circle is, they moved it underground. Away from any detection.
Away from help.
Seth lights the first trail. The fire catches slow, licking up the soaked cloth before bursting to life. Orange glow floods the hall.
A distant alarm rings somewhere far down the corridor.
“Time to go.” Raphael slings his pack higher. “We’ve got maybe two minutes before someone reroutes.”
As we backpedal, the flames bloom behind us, devouring old beds, walls, paper files. Smoke curls up like fingers reaching for our throats. The building screams.
I glance at the others—Seth has that unhinged grin he gets before a fight. Raphael’s expression is unreadable, eyes locked forward.
Briella.
It’s all he’s thinking about.
I picture her bound, bleeding, screaming under the Prophet’s knife on that altar. Or the cross. I picture her marking. The circle he’ll carve into her. The weight she’ll carry because we were too late.
My gut clenches.
Whatever mark he puts on her—I’ll fix it. I’ll bear it. I’ll take the punishment Raphael wants to give someone—anyone. Let him break me open if it means she lives.
Let him tear me limb from limb if her heart keeps beating.
We reach the access stairwell. Smoke trails after us like a living thing.
I grip the railing and stare down into the black.
“We find that sublevel,” Raphael says. “And we end this.”
I meet his eyes. “And if we’re wrong?”
He looks back once at the burning hallway. “Then we fight our way through, burn our way through loud enough to shake the walls of hell. We don’t stop—not until we find her.”