Chapter 73 #3
They’d also brought his younger brother to help, even if only to handle a small portion of the power.
Breno felt proud watching the child act with such skill.
When Breno had been dragged into this rescue mission, Dominic demanded to stay near the trucks with the support team.
The little one was scared and said he wouldn’t leave until his brother came back.
Breno had agreed—he was so exhausted that if someone told him the sky was pink, he’d just accept it as absolute truth.
“Soldiers!” Kaori shouted from somewhere in the forest. “Time’s up—hurry to the vehicles! Lamias were spotted at the border and they’re heading this way.”
Quickening his pace, Breno followed the stream of soldiers toward the road.
He saw Kaori running past him and, for a moment, his eyes couldn’t help but follow her.
Breno knew there was a gorgon Immediate in the army, and he’d been told she was an even worse executioner than Zion.
But whoever told him all that had forgotten to mention how beautiful she was.
He pushed the thought away, mentally cursing himself for such inappropriate thoughts in an emergency, but kept watching her anyway.
Her phone wouldn’t stop ringing, and he couldn’t understand how she managed so many things at once. Sometimes she’d step away to answer a call, and they’d hear her shouting orders. When she returned, she seemed even more on edge.
“Are you guys feeling this?” Breno asked as they ran back.
“Feeling what?” Aish asked, jumping over a fallen tree.
“I don’t know how to explain it. The air feels heavy—it’s making my skin prickle.”
The two narrowed their eyes at him.
“Maybe it’s scabies,” Hiro said, and Aish held back a smile.
Breno had no idea how they could still joke around after everything that had happened.
“Yeah, I must have caught it from you,” he grumbled, but kept scanning his surroundings, as if he could almost see a layer of energy pulsing through the forest. He blinked, trying to clear his vision—he couldn’t afford to get distracted.
They continued in silence—only Kaori kept talking on her phone.
When they finally reached the last perimeter, where the tests had begun, the gorgon stopped beside him, tapping the screen of a large device clipped to her waist. Her phone rang again and she walked ahead while they trailed behind.
She seemed worried, agitated. Breno was thinking about Kyller when he heard the woman say her name and tried to listen, but the soldiers shouting drowned out the second-in-command's voice.
A few minutes later, Kaori came running back along the path they were following.
“Soldiers!” she shouted, breaking into a trot, her expression urgent. “We need to get out of here immediately! Return to the vehicles and move as fast as you can!”
“What's happening?” Breno asked, alarmed, but Kaori was already on another call.
They ran through the dense forest, slowed by trees and uneven ground.
Halfway there, rain hammered down on them with violent force.
They pushed past the soldiers, and once again Breno found himself exhausted and worried about what was happening.
All he could think about was Dominic in the last vehicle, so he hurried toward it.
Kaori followed, saying nothing, just answering calls and giving orders.
Then the calls changed—from controlled and demanding to terrified.
Kaori switched to speaker while they kept moving, and now Breno could hear the conversations.
“Second-in-command...” It was a woman's voice, trembling and breathless. “There's something in the forests. Something's attacking the soldiers...”
“What is it? Where are you?” Kaori shouted back. Hiro, Breno, and Aish exchanged worried glances.
“I don't know, but there are a lot of them—they look like chimeras, but they're not, I... Oh my God... No!” The call cut out and screams filled the line.
Soon another call came in, and they were all the same. Attacks—every squad was being attacked. As they ran along the muddy path, rain ricocheting off their military uniforms, Kaori stopped answering and called command central.
“Takeshi?” she shouted into the phone, and Breno immediately recognized the name—the man in charge of the Vinturian team. His mother always spoke highly of him when she returned from the forests. “Send an urgent message: tell all squads to return to the walls. We're being attacked.”
“All of them? There are five squads in the forest—should they all return?”
“Yes! Return to the walls and close the gates. It's a Drutes attack. You need to get out too. Have Serguei warn everyone in the forests—there's no time.”
The moment she said it, screams erupted on the other end. Breno went cold, gripped by a terror unlike anything he'd felt before.
“Takeshi?” Kaori shouted.
“Shit!” The man's voice was urgent, a crash reverberating through the line. “They're already here!”
The call crackled with interference, then shrieked and cut out.
Breno didn't see what came next—he was already running faster, overtaking the second-in-command.
Within minutes he burst out of the forest onto the red dirt road, where a line of trucks idled and rolled forward, picking up soldiers emerging from the trees.
Dominic had stayed in the last vehicle, the only one that wasn't military—a black SUV guarded by more soldiers and gorgons keeping a tense watch.
At that moment, no patrol could calm Breno.
Everyone was in danger outside the walls.
He heard Kaori running after him, ordering Hiro and Aish into a vehicle that was already pulling away.
The two protested, but under the second-in-command's firm orders, they had no choice but to climb in.
He saw them hesitate on the path, clearly torn about separating—but it was an order. They couldn't disobey.
Breno kept running, his feet pounding the red mud. He rounded the last curve and saw no more trucks—only the solitary SUV—and finally spotted his brother. Dominic stood in the rain beside the vehicle, blue eyes wide, short hair plastered to his head, hand gripping the door handle.
“Dominic!” Breno shouted as he closed the distance. When the boy spotted him in the darkness, he ran toward him. Breno caught him halfway, hugged him tight, then scooped him up and kept running toward the SUV, knowing Kaori was right behind.
“What's happening?” Dominic asked as his brother set him inside the vehicle. His eyes were full of tears. Breno wiped them away with a surprisingly steady hand while buckling him into the back seat.
“Nothing you need to worry about. We just need to leave—the storm's going to get worse,” he lied, hearing Kaori approach and order him to sit up front and buckle up. Breno did as she said.
Before getting in, Kaori went to the trunk and grabbed a blue synthetic leather jacket, pulling it on over her jumpsuit with its silver Yamamoto company emblem.
The jacket had five buttons, each a different color.
Breno wanted to say how ridiculous it was to waste time on a weird jacket when their lives were in danger, but he kept his mouth shut.
No point making an enemy of the second-in-command.
When the vehicle tore down the road, tires squealing, Breno could only think what a colossal mistake it had been to leave the boy outside the walls.
He should have been more careful with his brother—what the hell had he been thinking when he agreed to let him stay?
They raced along the wet road at full speed.
Since they were in the last vehicle, they fell behind.
Breno had countless questions about the chimeras that had attacked during the test, but he didn't want to frighten Dominic any more than he already was.
The rain got worse, and now they couldn't see even a foot of the road ahead.
Breno glanced at Kaori as she drove and had to admit he'd never seen anyone handle a car so well.
She was transformed: her serpent eyes fixed on the road while the snakes on her head slithered languidly over her shoulders.
For a few minutes, he just watched—he'd never seen a medusa this close before.
Breno thought she was the most beautiful and dangerous thing he'd ever seen in his life, but again, these were inappropriate thoughts for the moment. He knew it.
Then the car braked hard, throwing Breno forward in his seat.
“We agreed on only one,” Kaori shouted into the car, to no one in particular.
“What?” he asked, frowning. She ignored him and kept watching the road.
“That wasn't the deal,” the woman snapped, punching the steering wheel. “We didn't agree to an attack. You said you'd take the boy from the center and all the energy he carried—that's it!”
“What's happening?” Breno asked, looking at the road. There was nothing blocking the way. He turned back to Kaori—she was still staring at the windshield, breathing fast. “What's the problem, Kaori?”
“Do I still accept? Three boys for one?” she asked, closing her eyes and letting her head fall against the steering wheel.
She seemed furious, but there was a note of indecision and sadness.
Breno looked around, searching for a phone or communicator, but there was nothing.
She was definitely talking to herself. He realized it could be a psychic from the army, and that she must be receiving orders through one.
“Tato?” Dominic whispered from the back seat. Breno turned and looked into Dominic's wide, bright eyes. “I'm scared.”
Breno reached through the gap between the front seats and took his brother's cold hand.
“You don't need to be scared. It's just a storm—it'll pass soon.”
Breno took a deep breath and turned back to Kaori. The car was silent, and he could hear their hearts pounding. Kaori's was racing the fastest, which only confirmed that something terrible was happening.