32. Wraith
Chapter 32
Wraith
T he door seals behind me with a hiss.
Mechanical. Final.
Like the world just got locked out.
I still smell like smoke.
Even after scrubbing twice.
Even after changing clothes.
New Year’s Eve?—
I was off-grid. Disconnected from everyone.
Neck-deep in Magnolia Hollow.
Setting charges under a cult compound. Precision work.
Flash-bang distraction. Loud enough to draw eyes.
Controlled enough not to level the place.
Beckett’s crew needed an exit.
They didn’t need a hacker.
They needed fireworks.
So I played demolitionist and kept my mouth shut. Their loss .
Since I’m not a complete ass, I took care of things they didn’t think of.
Cut the town’s entire communication network.
Cracked the servers.
Cleaned the digital footprint behind them.
I should’ve gone home.
But S had other plans.
“I need a favor.”
Of course he did.
“Since you’ll already be going to church,” he said, deadpan,
“poke around. Find out what was in that envelope Josiah Wainwright handed off to Hawthorn.”
I didn’t ask why.
Didn’t need to.
That envelope?—
Traded in a penthouse elevator.
Delivered by Josiah.
Hawthorn dead—no more than five minutes later.
A neat little transaction that detonated a hotel, a city, and a mission in one quiet moment.
Security footage caught the handoff.
The girl for the envelope.
Thirty minutes later?—
All hell broke loose.
And the envelope?
It became the only thing anyone gave a shit about.
Josiah wasn’t some scientist or syndicate boss.
He was middle-tier. Quiet. Careful. Always five minutes from being irrelevant.
But that envelope changed everything.
Whatever was in it?—
It pulled every trigger at once.
Biotech contracts. Pharma laundering. Dirty money in clean lab coats.
Josiah?
He danced between them.
Not a scientist. Not a boss. Not even a proper traitor.
Just smart enough to know secrets.
Stupid enough to think that made him untouchable.
I found what was left of him buried in a Covenant file.
Security override required.
Josiah Wainwright – Contract Affiliate.
Off-books. Opportunistic.
The kind of guy who never made waves… until the envelope.
He wasn’t terminated by Proteus.
Only because his past got to him first.
He wasn’t thinking about fallout. Just what he wanted.
Didn’t matter in the end.
Threxis Biotech—the clean face.
The Proteus Syndicate—the real power.
The Italians—New York City's mafia royalty—wanted the research.
Not sure why.
Probably didn’t matter.
I knew a few in the family?—
Not good. Not evil.
Just like me.
The kind of men who sleep light and trust no one.
If they were after it,
it wasn’t for peace .
But it sure as hell wasn’t for power, either.
Josiah wasn’t some whistleblower with a conscience.
Just another delusional monster.
Didn’t matter in the end.
That’s why I stayed behind.
One more day.
The databank was half-melted.
The drives? Warped, corrupted, some barely bootable.
But I pulled what I could.
Fragments.
Shorthand.
Burnt-out strings of code.
Buried logs with redacted timestamps.
Only two projects showed up more than once:
Project Cerberus.
Variant B-4.
No formulas.
No test subjects.
Just clusters of encrypted directories and trial metadata.
But one thing was obvious?—
Project Cerberus didn’t just create the monsters.
It leashed them.
There’s no winning against an army of them.
The encryption’s a bastard hybrid—fragmented, recursive, paranoid as hell.
A puzzle with no edges.
And I’m the only one stupid enough to crawl through the wreckage looking for corners.
Three terminals survived the blast.
One was blank.
Wiped clean before the fire .
The other two still twitched—just enough to bleed information.
CRS Variant B-4.
I almost miss it—buried under half a dozen broken pathways, locked behind obsolete encryption.
But it’s there.
A gate I didn’t see before.
One log survives behind it.
I breach it.
Recovered File: Internal Log – Threxis Biotech
Trial Snapshot: File 792-KL
Project: Thanatos
Compound Designation: NMX-42
Trial Status: TERMINATED
Date: ██/██/████
Location: ████████ Site-4
Subjects: Group A1 through A7 – civilian-derived tissue samples
Deployment Method: Airborne vector release (via modified HVAC system)
Containment Failure Timestamp: 03:41:22
Trial Notes:
– Onset of exposure: approx. 2 minutes, 43 seconds
– Initial symptoms include: acute tachycardia, dermal blistering, and auditory hallucinations
– Full systemic necrosis observed in 100% of the test pool within seven minutes
– Subject A3 began vocalizing despite full vocal cord dissolution
– Research team evacuation unsuccessful (see Incident 041 log)
“Do not attempt countermeasures. NMX-42 is reactive under ██ conditions.
Data is prioritized. Personnel are expendable.”
—Leviathan
Candidate Counterserum: CRS Variant B-4
Efficacy Rating: 43%
Testing deferred pending outcome of Subject 233.
NMX-42.
I’ve seen that before.
My parents worked on it.
Project Thanatos.
And it killed them.
I let it sit for one breath.
Then I move on.
I keep digging.
Until I find the next file.
Trial Oversight: Project Cerberus (CONFIDENTIAL).
No formula.
No compound breakdown.
Just a file.
Just a video.
The footage flickers .
A man strapped to a chair.
Calm. Blinking.
Then—
Something changes.
His veins go dark.
His eyes roll white.
Then the screaming starts.
Bones crack. Reshape.
Restraints snap.
Two guards rush in.
Only one makes it out.
Barely.
The subject turns?—
Smiles at the camera.
Like he knows it’s there.
Like he’s performing for an audience he can’t see.
Then he lunges.
Rips the other guard apart—bare hands, no hesitation.
Blood splashes across the lens.
The video cuts.
Fuck.
This goes deeper than Voss.
Deeper than Leviathan.
Deeper than anyone thought.
My pulse hits sideways.
And that envelope?
No way it was just intel.
Too risky. Too physical.
If Josiah handed off something in person?—
It had weight. Urgency.
A formula. A sample. A piece of the future.
My guess is Project Cerberus .
The Italians would want that.
Fuck.
Who wouldn’t?
I pull what I can.
The drives. The fragments. The truth.
What’s left of it.
On a thumb drive.
Then I’m gone.
Out the way I came?—
Silent. Fast. Unseen.
A ghost bleeding out of the chaos of police and… wedding vendors?
Catering vans parked beside black-and-whites.
Rented seating and tables scattered like shrapnel.
Someone’s shouting about contract fulfillment.
An officer trying to calm everyone down.
Looks like herding fucking cats.
No one sees me.
They never do.
Two towns over.
Motel on the edge of nowhere.
Paid in cash.
No cameras. No digital footprint. No questions.
I step inside.
Lock the door.
Block the peephole.
And grab the phone from where I left it—battery pulled, powered down, SIM card wrapped in foil.
I sit on the bed.
Reassemble.
Breathe once .
Turn it on.
The moment my phone powers on, it lights up like it’s screaming.
Six messages.
Then twelve.
Twenty-four.
They keep coming.
All from her.
She got in late. Doesn’t remember much.
Mentions champagne. Sparkles.
And a man who called her his fucking fiancé.
Over my dead body.
She told them she belonged to me.
Asked if that was okay.
Of course it was.
She wore the dress with the bows.
There was red on it.
Blood? Neri maybe?
She made tea. She said she’s fine.
She’s not fine.
She’s trying to be.
She’s trying so hard to be polite, I can hear the panic behind it.
She thinks if she’s perfect, nothing bad will happen.
But I have a feeling something already did.
I read the messages three times.
Before I grab my shit.
And call her phone on my way out.
Straight to voicemail. No ring.
“Hi, it’s Lily! I’m probably in the garden or making tea—leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
I don’t leave a message.
Now—
Back at the warehouse, I drop everything.
Rush to my rig.
Surveillance system. Stream engaged.
Apartment feed first.
Kitchen: one mug.
Living room: still.
Bedroom: bed untouched.
No Lily.
I check the shop.
Nothing.
The couple’s there. Not her.
I knew deep down she wouldn’t.
But fuck.
My hands shake as I scrub back.
Frame by frame.
Until—there!
Two men in black drag her out of her apartment.
In nothing but her goddamn pink fuzzy slippers and bathrobe.
I go back further?—
Two men in black.
Bust through her door.
They storm inside.
She appears?—
Robe. Slippers.
Making tea—smiling.
Of course she’s fucking smiling.
Confused.
Trying to be polite .
She says something I can’t hear.
Then they grab her.
Hot water splashes on her hand.
And I?—
stop breathing.
She stumbles near the door.
Reaches for her boots.
No time.
She turns. Looks back.
Not fear. Not yet.
Just confusion. Hurt.
Like she’s wondering what she did wrong.
I lean closer.
Eyes still on the paused screen.
Her hand. Frozen mid-reach.
The fucking slippers.
She’d be freezing.
I exhale.
Something switches off.
Then I move.
Fast.
Surveillance trace.
Traffic feed.
System access.
6:12 a.m. – New Year’s Day.
Black sedan. Unmarked. No plates.
The sedan pulls off.
I follow.
Arch Street.
Logan Square .
Kelly Drive.
East Falls.
Then—
Static.
No more coverage past that point.
“Fuck.”
Rewind.
Two men drag her out.
Barefoot. Robe tight.
Still reaching.
That look on her face?—
It kills me.
Like she still believes I’ll show up and fix it.
Somewhere between the fire and the fallout?—
The only thing that ever mattered disappeared.
And now?
I’m going to burn the world to get her back.
Jaw locked.
Voice tight.
“No one touches her.”
Then lower.
Sharper.
Deadly.
“No one fucking touches them.”
Scratch.
I freeze.
Another scrape. A weird little chirp.
“The fuck is that?”
I move cautiously to the door.
Open it slowly.
“Meeoow.”
No fucking way .
I look down?—
And there he is.
Oley.
Scraggly, glaring, ears flat like he’s ready to throw paws.
And he’s at my fucking door.
I don’t ask how he got here.
He’s covered in dirt and attitude, like he clawed his way through hell.
Which… honestly, checks out.
“Lily,” I whisper.
He chirps once—then bolts inside, straight to the screens.
He chirps once—then bolts inside.
Straight to the screens.
Leaps onto the desk. Tail flicking. Pacing in agitated circles.
I swear to god?—
This little bastard watched her get taken.
He left to get help.
And somehow?—
He found me.
“Good boy,” I say, low.
He doesn’t meow again.
Just settles in front of the monitor like he’s waiting for blood.
Then turns to look at me like Well? Let’s go get her.