Reapers HQ – Training Room – One Day Later

  The air in the training room was heavy. The metallic ring of Fabrizio and Elijah’s knives clashing was rhythmic, like a deadly metronome. Fabrizio attacked with the restrained fury of someone trying to cut through their own grief over the loss of Diego and Zack, while Elijah moved with an almost insulting fluidity, dodging the blows with short smiles behind his skeleton mask.

  Henry watched from a corner, leaning against the cold wall, maintaining the rigid posture of a Reaper. His eyes, however, mapped Elijah's every movement. He’s too fast, Henry thought. It’s as if he knows where the blade is going to be before Fabrizio even decides to strike.

  Suddenly, the heavy steel door swung open. The sound of Silas’s footsteps interrupted the duel. The leader of the Reapers looked more tired, his aura of invincibility slightly cracked, but his eyes gleamed with a dangerous determination.

  "Enough," Silas’s voice echoed, low and authoritative.

  Fabrizio halted his attack millimeters from Elijah's face, breathless. Elijah simply sheathed his tactical knife with an elegant motion, not a single visible drop of sweat on him.

  "Fabrizio, go see how Sílvia is doing. She hasn't left her room yet," Silas ordered, without looking at the Colonel's son.

  Fabrizio nodded in silence and left, casting a sidelong glance at Henry before disappearing down the hallway. Silas then turned to the Argentine.

  "Elijah. You’re going to the Heretics' base. Alone."

  Henry felt a knot in his throat. Sending Elijah alone seemed like a suicide mission—or a sign of absolute confidence in the massacre he could cause if something went wrong.

  "Alone, Silas?" Elijah asked, his voice maintaining that friendly, calm tone that sent shivers down one's spine. "Do you want me to bring old Solomon's head as an appetizer for dinner?"

  "No. You’re going to negotiate," Silas said, stepping closer and handing a long-range radio to Elijah. "They killed two of ours. They proved they are more than just rooftop rats. But they have something that belongs to me..."

  Silas paused, staring into the void.

  "I want to speak with my sister. I want to speak with Freya. If Solomon allows me to talk to her over the radio, maybe I won't turn that building of theirs into a funeral pyre with the tank."

  Elijah took the radio, spinning it between his fingers. The skeleton mask with its fixed grin seemed to gleam under the fluorescent lights.

  "And if they try to surround me like they did with Diego?" Elijah asked, almost as if he were hopeful for that possibility.

  "If they try anything..." Silas glanced at Henry, then back to Elijah, "...you have my permission to show them why you are the deadliest Reaper in this group. But the priority is Freya's voice. Go."

  Elijah nodded, walked past Henry, and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder as he left.

  "Keep an eye on the radio, rookie," Elijah whispered to Henry. "The frequency might get... loud."

  Silas and Henry were left alone in the room. The silence was absolute.

  "Do you think they’ll accept, Henry?" Silas asked suddenly, without turning around. "Or do you think your old friends are too proud to save their own skins?"

  Henry’s heart raced. Was Silas testing him?

  Henry: (Turning slowly, keeping a cold expression and his shoulders relaxed) "Honestly, I don't know, Silas. I know Solomon. He’s a man of old, almost archaic principles. I know they want me back, but they wouldn’t risk returning Freya to you. She’s their trump card against the Enforcers, and now against us. Honestly... I think a deal involving my brothers is out of the question. They don’t trust anyone who wears a metal mask."

  Silas watched Henry for long seconds, processing the answer. A half-smile appeared on the Reaper leader's lips—not a smile of joy, but that of a predator appreciating an analysis.

  Silas: "That’s why you’re valuable, Henry. You see the board through their eyes."

  Silas walked over to a metal workbench and picked up an object Henry would recognize anywhere: his original radio, with its scuff marks and the Heretics' symbol carved into the side. He held it out to Henry.

  Silas: "I’m giving you back your original radio. Call one of your brothers and tell them Elijah is on his way to negotiate. Tell them to provide a meeting point, and I’ll notify Elijah on his way."

  Henry took the radio. His hands didn't shake, but his heart hammered against his ribs. He tuned the frequency, and Kane’s voice cut through the static.

  Kane: "This is the scout. Who’s on this line?"

  Henry: "It’s me, Kane. Henry."

  There was absolute silence on the other end, followed by an audible sigh.

  Kane: "Henry! You bastard... are you alive? Where are you? We’re putting a plan together to—"

  Henry: (Interrupting abruptly to protect his friends) "Listen, Kane. There’s no time. Silas is sending Elijah to negotiate. He’s going alone. He wants to speak with Freya over the radio. Give me a meeting point right now. And Kane... tell Solomon. Don’t try anything. It’s Elijah."

  Kane: "Understood. The Old Bar, near the base!"

  Henry cut the transmission. Silas nodded and sent the coordinates to Elijah via radio.

  Reapers HQ – Sílvia’s Quarters

  While Elijah set off on his black motorcycle for the meeting, Fabrizio entered his sister’s room. The space was plunged into shadows. Sílvia sat on the edge of the bed, staring into nothingness, her black-tear mask discarded on the floor.

  Fabrizio: "Sílvia... I brought you something to eat. You haven't left this room since the news about Diego and Zack arrived."

  Sílvia: (Without looking at him, her voice hoarse) "What does it matter, Fabrizio? Eating, training, killing... the cycle never changes. Diego is gone. Zack is gone. We are 'immortal' until we meet someone angry enough to prove otherwise."

  Fabrizio: (Approaching and reaching for her shoulder) "We were made for this. We are superior. What happened was a tactical error, a cowardly trap. I’m going to hunt down that Mickey Trigger, Sílvia. I’ll bring you his head."

  Sílvia: (Lifting her red eyes to her brother) "I don’t want his head, Fabrizio! I want my brothers back! I want the smell of blood off my hands!" She stood up, her voice rising. "Don't you see? Silas is sending Elijah to 'talk'... we are becoming war politicians, not gods. We are losing our essence."

  Fabrizio: "We are surviving!" he snapped back, his frustration boiling over. "If we don’t fight, we’ll be the next ones hanging from stakes!"

  Sílvia: "Maybe it would be better that way. At least the silence of death is honest. Get out, Fabrizio. Please. Your presence only reminds me of everything we have left to lose."

  Fabrizio clenched his fists, his jaw tight. He wanted to protect her, but her grief was an abyss he couldn't fill. He put on his skeleton mask and left without a word, slamming the metal door behind him.

  The Old Bar – Central Oregon

  An abandoned bar that smelled of decades of neglect. The only illumination came from the moonlight streaming through broken windows, casting long shadows across the counter.

  Kane and Kol sat on the stools, their weapons concealed but ready. The silence was broken only by the sound of the wind outside.

  "What do you think they did to him, Kol?" Kane whispered, his hand resting on the barrel of his powered-down saw-gauntlet. "Henry sounded... different on the radio. Cold."

  "They break people, Kane," Kol replied, his voice raspy, the tone of someone who had seen the worst of humanity back in Europe. "They either turn you into one of them, or they turn you into nothing. Henry is strong, but even steel bends if the fire is hot enou—"

  The sound of something sliding across the polished wood of the bar interrupted Kol. A small glass, filled with a clear amber liquid, slid with surgical precision, stopping exactly between the two Heretics.

  They turned instantly, but the man was already sitting on the stool next to them.

  It was Elijah.

  He wore his black tactical jacket, the hood partially covering his skeleton mask with its wide, fixed grin. He didn't look at them; his eyes were fixed on his own glass, which he swirled slowly with gloved fingers. His voice modulator activated, emitting a distorted, metallic sound that still carried that terrifying calmness.

  Elijah: "It’s a lonely night to be thinking about the past, don’t you think? Alcohol helps you forget the smell of burning... or the sound of bones snapping."

  Kane clenched his jaw, his hand trembling slightly from the adrenaline. Kol placed a hand on Kane’s arm, preventing any hasty movement.

  Kol: "You have a lot of nerve coming here alone, Reaper. Or a lot of stupidity. Where is our brother?"

  Elijah: (Giving a light laugh, a sound the modulator transformed into something harsh) "Henry is fine. He’s... interesting. Silas likes him. It’s almost as if he’s finding a new home. But I didn’t come here to talk about Henry. I came for something the wind brought to you that doesn't belong to you."

  Elijah finally turned his head, the mask’s grin staring them down.

  Elijah: "Freya. Silas wants her voice. Now. If the radio signal is good, maybe I won’t have to show you how fragile human anatomy is when touched by my hands."

  Kane grabbed the radio from his belt and placed it on the counter between him and the Reaper.

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  Kane pressed the transmission button, patching the bar's frequency directly to the room where Freya and Solomon waited at the Heretics' HQ. Beside Solomon, on a table, sat the masks of Diego and Zack; the latter had been specifically repaired by Beck.

  Kane: "Solomon, we’re here. Silas is on the line. You can begin."

  A hiss of static filled the empty bar. Then, Silas’s voice, coming from the Reaper HQ where Henry watched it all, echoed through the radio’s speaker.

  Silas (via radio): — Freya? Can you hear me, sister?

  The old bar seemed to grow even colder. Silas’s voice, transmitted through the radio on the counter, vibrated with an authority that crumbled into nostalgia as he spoke his sister’s name.

  Freya (via radio): — Silas?... My brother? — Her voice came out broken, a whisper weighted by years of accumulated grief. — I never thought I’d speak to you again. I thought I’d lost you back in our childhood... when those soldiers took you away, tearing you from me and our parents. I prayed for years that you were dead, just so I wouldn't have to imagine you suffering at their hands.

  Back at Reaper HQ, Henry watched Silas. The Reaper leader closed his eyes for a brief second, his hand gripping the radio so hard the plastic groaned.

  Silas: — I’ve changed, Freya. I’m not the same person who used to play with you in the wheat fields. That’s why I didn't come for you all these years... while you were sleeping beside that animal, Gun. I felt unworthy of you. I became something you wouldn't recognize.

  Freya: — But why, Silas? Why did you and your "brothers" kill Mika and Tara? What were you trying to prove? — Her tone rose, now laced with horror. — I saw... I saw how Elijah snapped Mika’s neck. It was terrifying. He didn't seem human. He seemed... empty.

  In the bar, upon hearing his own name, Elijah let out a low, melodic laugh—a sound the voice modulator turned into a sinister mechanical click. He swirled his glass of alcohol, visibly satisfied with the description of his "work."

  Silas: — It was necessary. So the world would understand who we are. But everything has changed now, Freya. Now that you’re pregnant... I want to protect you. You are the only link I have left to who I used to be.

  Silas paused for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice held a clinical coldness.

  Silas: — During the experiments... they remade us from the inside out. They removed useless organs, Freya. Spleen, tonsils, gallbladder... everything that caused weakness or disease. In the boys' case... they even removed our testicles. We were made to kill, not to procreate. Only I and ten others out of 777 children survived the final process. We killed every scientist who ever touched us. But don’t think it was just surgery, Freya. They forged us through hell. We were trained to the extreme, day after day, year after year. We were injected with every known poison until our bodies became immune. We were shot with live ammunition, systematically cut and burned so our brains would learn to ignore the pain, until we became tolerant to a level bordering on immortality. We are the pinnacle of military science.

  He paused.

  Silas: — And now, we hold control over what’s left. We have in our hands the last functional firearms on this planet—an arsenal that could wipe out any trace of civilization left in Oregon. I don’t want to use this power against the Heretics, Freya. I don’t want to turn the place where you sleep into ash... but that depends entirely on your answer.

  Kane and Kol exchanged looks of pure shock. The silence that followed Silas's revelation over the radio was deafening. Freya seemed to have lost her breath.

  In the bar, Elijah leaned back, the movement making the old wood creak. He looked at Kane and Kol with the mask’s fixed grin, as if savoring Silas's implied threat.

  Silas: — But now... knowing that you carry a life... — Silas's voice softened in an almost sickening way. — My lineage, indirectly, is not extinct. There is a future for our blood through this child. Freya, I no longer want war with your group. I want reconciliation. I want you to come to my side, where no one will ever be able to touch you or the child.

  Freya (via radio): — Silas... I’m so sorry, my brother... I’m so sorry for everything they took from you. — The sound of her weeping cut through the static, breaking the hearts of those listening. — But I am safe here. I feel protected with the Heretics. Why can’t our groups live in peace? We’ve already lost so much... you lost Diego and Zack, we lost Mika and Tara. There has been enough blood. Please, Silas... let’s unite, brother. For the child. For us.

  At Reaper HQ, Henry saw the exact moment the last spark of humanity in Silas’s eyes flickered out, replaced by a frigid, absolute void. The response came like a bucket of ice water, without a trace of emotion.

  Silas: "You are my blood, Freya. And if my blood cannot be by my side... then it shall belong to no one else. Elijah. It's up to you now. Out."

  With a sudden, violent motion, Silas hurled the radio against the wall. The device shattered into a thousand pieces. A guttural scream, coming from the depths of his mutilated throat, echoed through the room—a roar of fury and rejection. Henry kept his head held high. He knew what that command meant. Silas turned to Henry, and for the first time in years, the leader of the Reapers had tears in his eyes. At the Heretics' headquarters, Freya wept after hearing her brother's rejection, clutching her stomach while Solomon held her, offering comfort.

  In the bar, Elijah let out a short laugh, almost a bark of satisfaction. He rose from the stool with predatory agility, the movement of his black jacket revealing the bident gauntlet hidden beneath his sleeve.

  He looked at Kol and Kane, who were already on their feet, hands on their weapons, feeling the shiver of imminent death.

  Elijah (Modulator): "Oh, man... two Heretics." He tilted his head, the grin on his skeleton mask seeming to widen under the moonlight. "My day just keeps getting better. You know, Silas is very sentimental, but me? I just see two necks waiting to be snapped."

  Elijah kicked the wooden stool aside, clearing his path.

  Elijah: "Which of you wants to be the first to find out that faith doesn't stop a hemorrhage?"

  Zack’s deck of fortune cards might have failed, but Elijah didn't believe in luck; he believed in ballistics and technical superiority.

  The sound of the metal FN Five-seveN leaving its holster was like a whip-crack in the bar’s tense silence. Elijah held the weapon with one hand, the barrel pointed negligently toward the floor, but his index finger rested straight along the trigger guard, ready to act in fractions of a second.

  Elijah: "Two weapons focused on cutting is unfair..." he said, his friendly, distorted voice sending macabre vibrations through the room. "So, I’m going to level the playing field for you."

  He raised the pistol slightly, the moonlight reflecting off its matte black finish.

  Elijah: "Ever seen this beauty? One of the last Five-seveN models in the world. This little toy pierces through Level III ballistic vests... and I see you're wearing nothing but those utility jackets."

  Kane felt cold sweat trickle down his neck. He knew that no matter how fast his parkour was, no one was faster than a 5.7×28mm projectile traveling at over 650m/s. Kol gripped the handle of his saw-axe. They were cornered between the counter and certain death.

  Elijah took a step to the side, circling them like a master of ceremonies in a circus of horrors.

  Elijah: "Either you drop your weapons on the floor and fight me like men..." He flicked the safety off, the click echoing like a verdict. "...or I set this to hard mode and end it right now."

  There was a second of pure hesitation.

  "He’s going to kill us anyway if we drop them," Kane whispered, the motor of his saws gauntlet still silent.

  "If we don't, we won't even get close to him," Kol shot back, keeping his eyes fixed on the holes of Elijah's mask. "He wants fun. Let's give it to him."

  Kol was the first. With a heavy sigh, he dropped his modified fire axe. The sound of the metal hitting the wooden floor was dull and final. Kane, seeing he had no choice, deactivated the pressure system on his saws and let them fall right after.

  Elijah holstered his pistol with a movement so swift that human eyes could barely follow. He opened his arms, hands empty, but the bident gauntlet hidden under his black sleeve was only a flick of the wrist away.

  Elijah: "Excellent choice. You just earned yourselves five more minutes of life."

  He settled into a fluid combat stance, a seamless blend of Krav Maga and Karate.

  Elijah: "Come on. Show the 'monster' what Heretics learn when they aren’t busy scurrying across rooftops."

  The bar became a blur of violent motion. Kol and Kane, trained by Solomon to operate as an extension of one another, advanced in impressive synchronicity. Kol delivered heavy blows aimed at the torso, while Kane used his agility to attack the flanks.

  Elijah, however, seemed to be in a calculating trance. He kept his arms up, blocking impacts with forearms as rigid as iron, dodging with a gravity-defying agility. He didn't counter-attack; he studied. Every breath, every hesitation from the Heretics was being processed by his modified mind.

  Sensing an opening, Kol slid across the floor in a powerful leg sweep, catching Elijah's base and knocking him down. Before the Reaper's back could hit the ground, Kane delivered a brutal kick that snapped against the skeleton mask.

  Elijah’s head whipped to the side, but what followed wasn't a groan, but a dry snap of his neck. He sprang back up instantly.

  "I’ve got your rhythm now," Elijah murmured, his voice distorted by the mask, now faster.

  The tide turned. Elijah lunged like a lightning bolt. Using linear, explosive Karate strikes, he broke through Kol’s guard with a punch to the sternum and, in the same motion, pivoted to strike Kane’s ribs. In seconds, Kol was sent flying against a table, landing heavily.

  Kane, gasping for air, tried a desperate right hook. Elijah tilted his head a fraction of a millimeter to the side, the mask’s fixed grin inches from the Heretic’s face.

  Elijah: (Softly, the modulator turning his voice into a funeral vibration) "Krav Maga."

  Kane: "What?"

  Before the question was even finished, Elijah grabbed Kane’s arm, using his body weight to deliver a palm strike to the throat and a kick to the knee. Kane collapsed beside Kol.

  Elijah: "You Heretics are good... for ordinary humans. But to the Reapers who have existed since the beginning of the Fall, you are nothing compared to us! We are immortal! We are the originals! You are nothing but fifth-rate copies! You’re an embarrassment to assassins worldwide!"

  He mounted Kane and, with mechanical coldness, grabbed the scout's hair and began slamming his head repeatedly against the wooden floor. BAM. BAM. BAM. Kane lost focus, his arms went limp, and his consciousness began to fade, though he was still breathing.

  Elijah stood up, walking over to a fallen chair. With a sharp kick, he snapped off one of the wooden legs, creating a sharp, jagged stake. He walked over to Kol, who was trying to crawl away, and stood over the Heretic’s chest.

  "Silas wants reconciliation," Elijah said, raising the stake with his left hand above Kol’s heart, "but I prefer the silence."

  The moment the stake descended, the sound of thunder echoed through the bar.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Six Magnum shots tore through the air. The impact of the heavy-caliber bullets on Elijah’s chest was devastating, hurling the Reaper’s body backward as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer. He flew over the counter, crashing down right behind it.

  Gun appeared in the doorway, smoke still curling from the barrel of his revolver, his leather mask and cowboy hat giving him the silhouette of an Old West avenger.

  "You guys okay, you idiots?" Gun growled, reloading the Magnum’s cylinder with professional agility.

  "Gun..." Kol coughed, clutching his ribs. "Watch out... he’s not human."

  Gun walked with heavy steps toward the counter, his sights trained on where the body should have been. He vaulted over the wood to finish the job, but stopped abruptly.

  The floor behind the counter was covered in bottle shards, but it was empty. The back window was wide open, the torn curtain swaying gently in the cold night wind. Elijah had vanished without leaving a single sound.

  Gun looked at the two fallen Heretics, his expression hidden by his leather mask.

  "He’s gone," Gun said, his voice heavy with concern.

  The scene cuts to the dense, dark forest surrounding the back road. Between the tree trunks, Elijah’s silhouette emerges. He walks with firm steps; though his tactical jacket is shredded, his vest protected him where the Magnum rounds struck.

  He brings his right hand to his radio.

  Elijah: "Silas... I’m sorry. I took down two of them on my own, but there wasn't enough time to eliminate them. The 'cowboy' showed up. Gun... surprisingly, he still has a high-caliber firearm. He emptied the cylinder into my chest, but I’m already out of range. I’m fine."

  At Reaper HQ, Silas listens to the transmission while staring at the horizon through the base window. Henry is in the background, his trembling hands hidden in the folds of his uniform, processing the information that his friends survived by a hair.

  Silas: (With a frigid, final calmness) "It’s alright, Elijah. You did your part. Let them taste the bitter flavor of this small victory. Fear will ferment in those ruins now."

  Silas turns toward the room, his eyes meeting Henry’s for a brief second before losing themselves in the darkness.

  Silas: "In a few days, the negotiation ends. We go in together... and we’ll have ourselves a Heretic barbecue."

  Reapers HQ – Sílvia’s Quarters

  After overhearing the entire conversation, Henry walked toward Sílvia’s room to see if she was alright—though "alright" was hardly the right word for the moment. Henry stopped before Sílvia’s metal door. He carried no weapons, only the weight of what he knew. He knocked—three slow beats.

  The door slid open. Sílvia was sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed, surrounded by a gloom that obscured her face. She wasn't wearing her mask. The heart necklace, Henry’s gift, gleamed faintly against her pale skin under the moonlight filtering through the small ventilation slit.

  "Silas ordered everyone to train," she said, her voice hoarse and low, without looking at him. "Why aren't you there, 'Blue'?"

  "I’ve trained enough for a lifetime, Sílvia," Henry replied, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. The sound of the electronic lock echoed like a verdict.

  He walked slowly and sat on the floor, keeping a respectful distance from her. For long minutes, neither spoke. The only sound was Sílvia’s heavy breathing as she fought to maintain her composure.

  "I can smell them in the air of this base," she whispered suddenly, hugging her knees. "The scent of Zack’s cards... the smell of Diego’s gunpowder. Silas says we are gods, Henry. But gods don't leave empty rooms. Gods don't feel this cold that not even a CIA heater can take away."

  "They weren't gods, Sílvia," Henry said softly, moving just close enough for their shoulders to almost touch. "They were your brothers. And the pain you feel is the only real thing left in here."

  Sílvia finally turned her face toward him. Her eyes were red, her black makeup slightly smeared, giving her the appearance of a broken porcelain doll.

  "I feel lost," she confessed, and for the first time, "Beautiful Death" looked small. "Fabrizio wants blood. Silas wants war. And I... I just wish time had stopped before that pursuit."

  Henry reached out hesitantly and touched her face, brushing away a strand of white hair. Her skin was icy, but she leaned into his touch, closing her eyes and letting out a shaky sigh.

  "You’re different from them," she murmured, opening her eyes. "I see it when you look at me. You truly see me."

  The atmosphere in the room shifted. Sorrow began to be consumed by a mutual need for comfort, for proof that they were still alive. Henry brought his face close to hers, feeling the warmth of her breath. Her green eyes searched his, looking for an anchor in the middle of the chaos.

  The first kiss was heavy with desperation—a taste of salt from tears and urgency. There was no military technique or strategy there; it was simply the meeting of two castaways. Henry pulled her close, and Sílvia held him with a strength that betrayed her fear of letting go.

  Slowly, they moved from the floor to the bed, their movements becoming more fluid and deep as pieces of the black uniform were left behind. On that military twin bed, under the silent gaze of the deactivated security cameras, the two surrendered to an intimacy that was the greatest possible rebellion against Silas's world.

  It was a silent surrender, where every touch from Henry seemed to heal one of Sílvia’s scars, and every response from her seemed to give Henry the strength needed to face what would come next.

  Inside the room, time seemed to follow a different rhythm. Henry pulled Sílvia’s hands away as she tried to cover the surgical marks on her stomach, arms, thighs, and neck—scars left by the burns, cuts, and extractions performed by Colonel Turner.

  "Don't look..." she whispered, her voice failing, feeling the weight of those laboratory marks under his gaze.

  Henry did not pull back. He held her wrists gently and kissed the base of a scar on her shoulder. "Don't hide," he said, staring fixedly into her eyes. "These marks only make you more unique... and beautiful."

  Sílvia felt a knot in her throat. No one had ever validated her that way; to Silas and Fabrizio, the marks were war medals; to her father, they were merely records of success. To Henry, they were history. She pulled him into a deeper kiss, and the sound of the small bed creaking against the wall became the only rhythm in that armored room.

  However, between the cracks of Sílvia’s metal locker, a tiny glass lens swiveled silently. Jester’s micro-drone, the size of a beetle, captured every movement, every elevated heartbeat, every exchange of heat.

  Monitoring Room

  Jester was leaning forward, his face almost pressed against the screen. He wasn't using his heavy command voice now; his blue-and-red gloved hands were pressed against his cloth mask, muffling an exclamation of pure surprise.

  "It’s happening..." he murmured in his high-pitched, thin clown voice, which sounded almost childlike in that moment. "Our species isn't extinct! The instinct... it defeated the programming!"

  To Jester, the strategist, this wasn't just an act of love or betrayal; it was a fascinating scientific data point. The Reapers were created to kill, not to procreate—execution machines who knew only fraternal loyalty. But Henry, the outside element, had just "activated" something in Sílvia that not even Colonel Turner had foreseen.

  He continued to watch, his bells jingling softly as he shook his head in ecstasy.

  The climax of the act brought an absolute silence to the room, a violent contrast to the chaos reigning outside the metal walls. Sweat and heavy breathing were the only evidence that, for a few minutes, the Reaper protocol had been destroyed. For both of them, the touch was not merely physical; it was a sensory discovery that no training or laboratory experiment could have ever simulated.

  Sílvia lay there, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her eyes fixed on the dark ceiling, processing the avalanche of sensations she had never felt in her 29 years of life—not even in the distant memories from before the Fall.

  "What... what have we done?" she asked in a breathless whisper, her voice heavy with a confusion that mixed fear and a strange sense of wholeness.

  Henry leaned over her, ignoring the exhaustion. He ran his fingers with extreme lightness through her wolfcut hair, brushing away the white strands sticking to her forehead. He stared at her with an intensity that forced her to drop every remaining defense.

  "Since I arrived here, I’ve seen one angel among ten demons," Henry said, his voice steady and sweet. "Remember I told you that after Lil tortured me? I wasn't delusional, Sílvia. I was being honest."

  He gave a half-smile—a smile she had never seen anyone use in that HQ.

  "I like you, 'Little Wolf'."

  Sílvia felt the nickname vibrate in her chest. 'Little Wolf' — a reference to her haircut and her predatory nature—but coming from Henry’s mouth, it sounded like a sacred name. She reached for his hand and pressed it against her own heart, which was still beating frantically.

  "Sílvia is the Death that can generate Life."

  END OF SEASON 3