Reapers' HQ – Silvia's Quarters

  The Weight of the Promise

  Silvia's room was plunged into a freezing gloom, where the only warmth came from the embrace in which they both still slept, spooning. The morning light, filtered through the steel openings, reflected softly on the heart necklace Henry had given her, shining against Silvia's pale skin. When they woke up and their eyes met, the world outside seemed to have stopped for a brief moment. Henry brought his hand to her face gently and said:

  "Come with me, Silvia!"

  Silvia frowned, still lost in the wake of sleep and the intimacy of the previous night.

  "What?" she asked, not understanding the gravity of those words.

  It was then that Henry revealed what he had been planning in the silence of his mind: today was the day he was going to escape the Reapers' base. Upon hearing that, Silvia felt a jolt in her chest and abruptly pulled away, her body trembling as she questioned him with her look, shock overflowing in her expression. Henry did not look away and continued, trying to calm her:

  "I'm going to save my family at all costs, but I promise that none of them will touch you. You have my word."

  Tears began to run down Silvia's face, heavy and laden with a pain she couldn't process. Henry approached again, his voice dropping to a pleading tone:

  "No, no, no... look at me. Let's go together, Silvia."

  "The Reapers are my family, Henry..." she replied amidst tears, her voice choked by the loyalty of blood and trauma that bound her to that place.

  Henry was silent for a few moments, absorbing the weight of that refusal. He took a deep breath and stared directly into her eyes, putting everything on the line:

  "The choice is yours, Silvia. You can let me go now, knowing that I will protect you... or you can tell the others now what I told you, and I die right here, right now."

  Silvia was panting, her chest rising and falling rapidly, not knowing what to do or how to react to that deadly ultimatum. Henry remained there, motionless, running his hand through her wolf-cut hair for a good few seconds, a final gesture of pure affection before the chaos.

  After that time, he stood up and began to put on his black tactical suit. He put on the mask, hiding his human features. Before leaving, he stopped by the door, looked at Silvia—who remained curled up, crying quietly and without the courage to face him—and said:

  "I'll come back, I promise."

  Henry left the room, closing the door gently behind him, leaving Silvia alone with the sound of her own weeping and the weight of a secret that could destroy everyone.

  The Escape of the Shadows

  Henry walked through the HQ corridors with the posture of a predator, but his eyes, behind the blue mask painted black, mapped every exit. Passing by the operations room, he saw Silas; the leader was hunched over a tactical table, moving chess pieces as if moving lives, his face covered by white bandages focused on a final invasion plan. Near him, Jester ignored the seriousness of the moment, juggling combat knives, the clinking of blades the only sound filling the vacuum of the room. Henry moved on, passing by the door to the training room. Inside, the sound was different: the snap of punches and metal colliding indicated that Elijah, Ian, Fabrizio, Aiden, Lil, and Andrew were all gathered, refining their lethality for the "barbecue" promised by Silas.

  Without being noticed, Henry reached the underground garage. In his hand, he clutched the device to open the main gate—a copy he had managed to craft after the last field missions—and the key to one of the Reapers' black high-displacement motorcycles. He mounted the machine, feeling the cold leather of the seat. The engine roared with a muffled but powerful sound. The heavy steel gate slowly rose, revealing the exit. Henry accelerated. After more than a week in that technological and psychological hell, he felt the fresh air hit against his black suit. He gunned the throttle, vanishing among the dense trees of the Cascades, as the sun of a beautiful and ironic morning began to illuminate the treetops of the pines.

  The scene cuts abruptly to the interior of the HQ. The sound of the motorcycle leaving echoed through the ventilation ducts, making some Reapers stop what they were doing. In the training room, the rhythm of the fights ceased. "Did someone leave?" questioned Aiden, wiping sweat from his face. Silas, in the operations room, lifted his head, feeling the void in the group's frequency. Jester, stopping his juggling and letting a knife stab into the wooden table, let out a short, playful laugh. He looked directly at Fabrizio, who had just entered the room. Jester used his high-pitched, shrill voice, making his bells jingle:

  "I heard some very... interesting noises in the beautiful Silvia's room last night," the clown said, tilting his head in a macabre way. "And Henry? Well, he didn't spend the night in his room. Funny thing, isn't it?"

  The silence that followed was freezing. Fabrizio tightened his jaw, his expression of silent protector turning into something much darker and more dangerous under the fluorescent light.

  The Shield of Tears

  The sound of the metal door sliding open abruptly made Silvia jump in bed. Fabrizio entered with fast steps, the skeleton mask already in his hands, revealing his tense face and blonde, almost white hair disheveled by urgency. Upon seeing his sister in that state, huddled and with red eyes, the Reapers' aggressiveness gave way to the instinctive concern of a twin brother. He approached and touched her shoulders, feeling them tremble under his hands.

  "Silvia... what happened?" Fabrizio's voice was low but laden with protective mistrust. He looked around the room, searching for traces of any intruder. "Have you seen Henry? He's gone, and someone took one of the motorcycles."

  Silvia felt her heart race against her ribs, the weight of the lie choking her throat. She looked at her brother, forcing every fiber of her being to keep Henry's secret. With pain throbbing in her chest for betraying the only blood she had left, she sobbed and lied:

  "I... I don't know where he went, Fabrizio. I didn't see anyone."

  Fabrizio narrowed his eyes, his hand still firm on her shoulder. He felt something was wrong; the air in the room still seemed heavy with a recent presence.

  "Then why are you crying like this?" he asked, searching for the truth in his sister's eyes.

  Silvia took a deep breath, letting a new wave of tears fall, this time using her own sadness as armor.

  "I just had a happy dream... about mom," she replied, her voice failing in a broken whisper. "And waking up and remembering she's gone... the longing hurts too much today."

  The ice in Fabrizio's expression melted instantly. The mention of their mother was the only weakness they both shared. Without saying another word about Henry or the motorcycles, Fabrizio pulled her into a tight hug. Silvia buried her face in her brother's chest, crying for the loss of a past that would never return and the fear of a future that Henry had just set on fire.

  Heretics' HQ – Central Building

  The main hall was plunged into an amber light, where the smell of motor oil and oxidized metal mingled with the tense silence. Solomon Vane stood before the concrete wall, observing the masks of Zack and Diego that now served as trophies. Behind him, the group was scattered: Kane was cleaning his saws, Kol was sharpening his axe, and Gun remained near Freya, his gaze always watchful of the shadows.

  "They felt the blow," Kane commented, breaking the silence. "Zack and Diego... two down. The world seems a little less crowded with monsters today."

  "Don't kid yourself, Kane," Kol countered. "Silas won't let this slide. We killed two of them, but Henry is still in there. Sometimes I wonder if he still remembers what it's like to wear a wooden mask."

  Solomon turned slowly, leaning on his cane.

  "Henry knows who he is. He is doing what none of us would have the courage to do. He is living in the belly of the beast to give us a chance."

  The dialogue was interrupted by the metallic sound of the elevator at the end of the hall. The electric hum rising made the atmosphere change immediately. In a synchronized motion, Gun drew his Magnum, Solomon braced his cane, and the Heretics surrounded the door with weapons drawn.

  The steel doors opened with a hiss. Before them stood a tall figure, wearing the black tactical uniform of the Reapers. On his face, the blue wooden mask everyone knew was painted matte black, with the silver branch cross glowing sinisterly. The group froze. The barrel of Gun's Magnum pointed directly at the figure's chest.

  "Stop!" roared Solomon, his voice echoing off the walls. "Take one more step, and I'll make sure myself you don't leave here."

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  The figure did not move. It raised its hands slowly, palms open. Through the Reapers' voice modulator, which made the tone metallic and inhuman, he spoke:

  "Wait."

  "That voice..." whispered Freya, stepping forward.

  The figure brought its hands to the side latches. With a dry click, he removed the mask. Beneath the black paint, Henry's face appeared, pale and hardened, but with the same eyes Solomon knew.

  "Henry?" Solomon let out a breath, the pressure on his cane decreasing.

  "It's me, Solomon," Henry said, his natural voice now filling the hall. "I'm back."

  Kane lowered his saw gauntlet, jaw dropped.

  "By God, Henry... you look like one of them. What did they do to you?"

  Henry looked at his own suit, then at his friends, with a look that carried the weight of everything he had experienced at the CIA base.

  Henry walked toward the group, and the first to reach him was Kol. He pulled him into a bear hug, slapping his back hard. "By the ashes of Kiev, I thought I'd see your head on a stake, Henry! Good to see you're still flesh and blood."

  Right after, Steve approached, looking at Henry with almost childlike curiosity. "Man, you came back from hell and brought the devil's uniform! But the important thing is you didn't become barbecue in there."

  Leo, the youngest, jumped on Henry with a fast, energetic hug. "I knew it! I told them you were too fast for those metal skeletons to catch you!"

  Beck kept her pragmatic posture but shook Henry's hand with a firmness that showed her respect. "The base hasn't been the same without you to test the equipment, Henry. Good to have a functional right hand again."

  Vane Zadeko smiled, a rare moment of lightness on the Bosnian's face. "The scales of our luck were tipping the wrong way. Your arrival balances things, my brother."

  Finally, Elena approached, her scout eyes analyzing Henry from top to bottom before giving him a quick but sincere hug. "The shadows in central Oregon missed you, Henry. Welcome back to the right side of the night."

  As she moved away, Henry noticed Gun. The cowboy was leaning against a support beam, his wide-brimmed hat hiding part of his face and his hand resting casually on the handle of his Magnum. He did not move, only slightly inclined his head in a silent nod of recognition. Henry answered in the same way, a short nod, sealing the mutual respect between the two field leaders.

  However, the mood shifted when Kane grabbed Henry's arm to examine the new suit. Kane's eyes went down to Henry's hands, and he stopped cold. "Henry... your hands."

  The group went silent. Kane was pointing to the empty spaces where Henry's pinky fingers should have been, torn off by Lil's brutality. Henry slowly clenched his fists. "A welcome gift from Lil," Henry said, his voice cold.

  Finally, Freya approached. She walked carefully, her hand protecting her four-month-old belly. She looked at Henry with deep gratitude. She hugged him gently, and Henry reciprocated with brotherly care.

  "Thank you for coming back, Henry," Freya whispered. "And thank you for everything you did for us in there."

  Solomon, who was watching everything with watery eyes, tapped his cane on the floor one last time to get everyone's attention. "Reunion is a blessing, but his uniform tells us that peace is short-lived. Henry, speak. What is Silas planning?"

  Henry was about to answer Solomon, but his posture changed instantly. He tensed his shoulders and turned his body, his eyes fixed on a shadow moving near the generators at the back of the room. A high-pitched, mocking whistle echoed through the hall, a sound Henry would recognize anywhere.

  "What is that asshole doing here?" Henry asked, his voice rising while his hand instinctively reached for the combat knife at his waist, forgetting for a second that he was in the Heretics' HQ.

  Mickey Trigger stepped out of the shadows, with his disheveled look and a cynical smile on his face. Before Henry could move forward, Gun stepped forward, placing himself as a barrier of leather and authority between the two.

  "Calm down, scout," Gun said, keeping his voice deep. "The kid is part of the team now."

  "Part of the team?" Henry growled, looking at Gun with incredulity. "He's a rabid dog, Gun! He's unstable."

  "He saved my life and Piro's in those forests," Gun retorted, defending the enforcer. "During the chaos at the mansion, he appeared out of nowhere. If it weren't for him and his ability to improvise a slaughter in seconds, both of us would be dead and buried under the pines. He's the reason we're here."

  Henry took a deep breath, trying to process the new alliance. He walked slowly toward Mickey, stopping a few inches from the street fighter's face. The memory of the brutal fight they had months ago, when Henry still served the Enforcers out of obligation, still burned in both of their minds.

  "Say it, Mickey," Henry said, staring into the boy's wild eyes. "Why are you here? What do you really want?"

  Mickey did not back down. He tilted his head, keeping the smile that rarely showed sanity, and shrugged casually.

  "I just want to fry some eggs and watch the circus catch fire, scout," Mickey answered with a short, dry laugh. He then stepped aside, pointing with his thumb to Zack's mask hanging on the wall. "And, by the way... you should thank me. I was the one who killed Zack. That tin god wasn't as tough as he looked when I stuck what I had in my hands into his head."

  Henry looked from Mickey to Zack's mask, feeling the weight of the irony. The man he despised the most in Gun's army was now the man who had taken down a Reaper. He relaxed his fists, but his gaze remained vigilant.

  "The circus is already on fire, Mickey," Henry murmured. "And we're going to need every psychopath available if we want to put out the flames."

  The Anatomy of Fear

  Henry moved away from Mickey and walked to the center of the hall, where the light fell on the map table. He looked at each of the Heretics, then at Gun and Freya. Silence fell as he began to speak, his voice laden with the exhaustion of someone who had lived in another reality.

  "I lived with them," Henry began, his gaze lost on the scars of his own hands. "I saw what the world has become in there. The HQ is a ghost of the old world: everything is white, clean, and immaculate. They have new furniture, quality food, and running hot water. It's a paradise built on piles of corpses. But what's behind that aesthetic is what should worry us. They are absurdly tolerant of pain. Their suits... those metal vests and masks... it's almost impenetrable. And the arsenal? They have weapons the old world hid. They are not fighting for survival; they are playing a game of extermination."

  Henry took a deep breath and began to list the names, as if reciting a death sentence:

  Silas: "The center of it all. He is no longer the brother Freya knew. He is cold, calculating, and moves the group as if it were an extension of his own body. His will is law."

  Elijah: "You've already seen what that bastard does... I don't need to elaborate."

  Ian: "The silent scout. If you see the reflection of his lens, you're already dead. He never misses the target."

  Lil: "Pure sadism. He is the reason I no longer have two fingers. He doesn't want to kill you fast; he wants to see how much of you he can rip off before your heart stops."

  Aiden: "Military efficiency in person, he just executes with terrifying mechanical precision, but is easily distracted by his own appearance."

  Andrew: "The youngest. Too confident in his little machine gun, he is a lunatic like Lil."

  Fabrizio: "The protector. He is the technical balance of the group, he fights with scythes."

  Jester: "The chaos. He doesn't follow logic. He plays with drones and explosives as if they were toys. He is the all-seeing eye in the HQ."

  Henry took a long pause. Her name seemed heavy on his tongue. He looked at Solomon with a pleading gaze that no one had ever seen from the blue scout.

  Silvia: "And there's Silvia..." Henry sighed, and for a moment, the hardness of his expression wavered. "She is the only good soul in that hell. She helped me. She let me leave even knowing the risk she was running. I ask each of you here... I demand: no one touches a finger on her. If we find the Reapers on the battlefield, Silvia is my responsibility. She is not like the others."

  The silence that followed was cut only by the sound of the wind howling outside. Solomon nodded slowly, understanding the weight of what Henry asked, Elena remembering the woman who broke her arm, horrified by the request, but accepting, while the other Heretics exchanged apprehensive looks, realizing that the approaching war would be much more personal than they imagined.

  Reapers' HQ – CIA Base

  Almost all the Reapers were gathered. Silas stood before the operations table, observing the chess pieces that represented his soldiers. He still wondered mentally where Henry had gone, but decided he would wait a bit longer before calling him on the radio.

  Elijah, adjusting the protections on his suit, looked to the side and questioned Fabrizio: "Why didn't your sister show up?"

  Fabrizio, who maintained a closed expression after having left Silvia's room, answered without hesitation, protecting his sister's pain: "She's down. The reason doesn't matter, it's our business..." He paused briefly. "She said she doesn't want to come along on the mission. For the first time in ten years, she asked to stay."

  Silas raised an eyebrow, surprised by the rarity of the request, but showed no irritation. He accepted the decision, trusting the strength of the rest of the group. "That's fine. We'll manage without her."

  The leader then turned to Ian, who was leaning against a rack of sniper rifles. "How about it? Ready?"

  For the first time in a week, Ian gave a slight smirk and nodded positively. Silas nodded, feeling the group's confidence rise. "Great. Let the Heretics play parkour on the roofs... we're going with firepower and our trump card!"

  At that moment, Jester interrupted the conversation flamboyantly, handing each of them electrical bracelets. The device was the technological key to the Reapers' missions: it emitted a frequency that prevented attack drones from detecting them as hostile targets. With the bracelets, they could walk amidst the mechanical chaos without being hit by their own technology.

  Silas locked his onto his wrist, hearing the metallic click of the device.

  Heretics' HQ – Central Building

  Henry leaned over the map table, his expression somber under the industrial lights. He looked at each of those present, letting the silence weigh in before dropping the first strategic bomb.

  "Silas isn't coming for a regular shootout," Henry said, his voice steady. "He intends to attack this building with a tank."

  The shock was immediate. Leo took a step back, hands on his head. "A tank? What the fuck, man? That's disproportional! How do you fight an armored vehicle in the middle of the city?"

  Henry raised his hand, asking for calm. "Let me finish. We will not fight here. This building is a concrete trap if we stay put." He paused and looked directly at Gun, who was listening with a furrowed brow. "The confrontation will be at the old Enforcers' base."

  Kol crossed his arms, confused. "What do you mean? The Sawmill was destroyed; nothing was left there."

  "The Sawmill was only the heart of oil and vehicles," Henry explained, turning to the group. "Piro remembers well. The main base was the mini-city of Chemult, on Highway 97. That's where we will take them. I will notify the Reapers by radio soon, if they don't call me first. I'm going to lure them to our terrain."

  Henry then turned to the couple. "Gun and Freya, you will stay here, safe in the building's bunker. With the electronic defenses on, you will be protected. Me, the Heretics, and..." he sighed, casting a sidelong glance at the enforcer "...Mickey, we are going to war."

  "I'm going too!" Solomon's voice echoed with an authority that allowed no contest.

  General surprise followed. Solomon, the mentor who hadn't entered a direct battlefield in years, braced his steel cane on the floor. "I still know how to fight, and this will be my last battle. It will be ten of us against seven or eight of them. They have the firepower, but we are the majority, and we know every inch of that highway."

  Kane, still processing the scale of the danger, interrupted: "Wait, Henry. You talked about a tank. How the hell are we going to stop a machine like that with saws and knives?"

  Henry gave a slight smirk, a strategic glint returning to his eyes. "It's not just the tank, Kane. Besides the firearms everyone will bring, there's Jester. He will possibly be at the HQ operating remotely; he controls thousands of drones on a mission. That's where Chemult comes in."

  Henry pointed to the strategic spots on the Chemult map, his voice taking on a commanding tone that left no room for doubt.

  "There are gas stations next to workshops and warehouses, large motels, houses, restaurants, and even an abandoned train. Each of us will watch their arrival from the rooftops. In pairs, each will stay in a location I will decide shortly. That way, the drones won't catch us; we will be covered by the concrete and the structure of the city."

  Piro frowned, still skeptical about the heavy threat. "What do you mean? And the tank, Henry? After he breaks down the gate, he just has to fire at the buildings and houses with us inside! He'll demolish the city block by block."

  Henry remained calm, his eyes fixed on the table. "I don't know who will be responsible for controlling the tank, but that's where our trap begins. We only have one chance to execute it."

  With a sharp movement, he placed two objects on the metallic table. The sound of metal hitting caught everyone's attention: a standard fragmentation grenade and the Reapers' electrical bracelet, the one he had received from Jester at the base.

  "This is all I managed to bring without being detected. It seems like little, but if executed correctly, it's worth a million!" Henry explained, pointing to the device. "This bracelet prevents the drones from seeing the user as hostile; they simply ignore them."

  He lifted his gaze and fixed it on Mickey, who was following everything with a crooked smile. "You like fun, Mickey... listen closely. When they break down the gate, I'll call Silas on the radio telling him he's a coward if he fires the tank at the houses. I'll say that would diminish the Reapers as the greatest killers in the world, turning them into just cowards with machines. I know his ego; he will listen."

  Henry gestured, simulating the advance of the troops. "The tendency is that, after the challenge, each Reaper will enter a building to hunt us down. Then I don't know who faces whom. But, while the tank walks down the main road between the buildings... that's the exact moment you come in. You will come out from somewhere with the bracelet on your wrist. The cover drones will not attack you. You will run and throw the grenade into the mouth of the tank's cannon! Whoever is inside will have to get out fast if they want to survive the internal explosion."

  Mickey let out a short, sick laugh, cracking his knuckles. "This is going to be fun as hell, scout. I loved the plan."

  Henry removes from his waist the iconic long-barreled revolver—the weapon that once belonged to Gun. He extends it to the scout.

  "Take it," Henry said, handing over the heavy revolver. "There are only six bullets. Six chances to kill at least one Reaper."

  Mickey looks at the "object" and makes a face, a mix of mockery and disgust, as if he were holding something dirty. "Ugh... for me, who lives by improvising with any object as a weapon, having to reduce myself to using firepower? But alright, scout. For old times' sake."

  Henry ignores the sarcasm, maintaining focus. "The other revolver stayed with Gun for his and Freya's safety in the bunker. I left the spare ammunition that was left from the bandolier he carried on his chest with him. What you have in the cylinder is all you will have in Chemult. Make it count."

  Mickey spins the gun's cylinder, the sound of the metallic click echoing in the hall. "Six bullets... for seven monsters. I guess I'll have to be creative with the last one."

  Finally, Henry moved away from the table and looked into the eyes of each of his brothers-in-arms, including Solomon and Gun. The weight of the final reality settled into the room.

  "It is unlikely we will all survive this," Henry admitted, with a brutal honesty that made the silence echo. "But I trust we will win this war."

  End of Chapter