They met in a room that used to be a courthouse.

  The irony wasn’t lost on William.

  The judge’s bench had been repurposed as a command table, scarred by maps, tablets, and half empty cups of bitter coffee. The seal on the wall behind it had cracked during the first bombardment. The words Justice Is Blind were now split down the middle.

  William stood at the edge of the room while the others argued.

  “Containment must escalate,” a general said. “We’ve lost three facilities in twelve hours.”

  “Because you’re provoking them,” another snapped. “You’re turning frightened civilians into prisoners.”

  “They’re not civilians anymore,” the general replied. “They’re variables.”

  William closed his eyes.

  There it was again.

  The word that made murder sound like math.

  “You’re creating enemies,” William said quietly.

  Every head turned toward him.

  “We’re preventing chaos,” the general shot back. “You’ve seen what happens when awakened individuals act without restraint.”

  William had.

  He’d seen looters torn apart by gravity warped wrong. He’d seen a man burn his own neighborhood to ash because he couldn’t stop the fire once it started.

  He’d also seen soldiers shoot first because fear was easier than patience.

  “You’re not preventing chaos,” William said. “You’re organizing it.”

  The general leaned forward. “Then what do you suggest?”

  William hesitated.

  That hesitation cost him.

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  “You don’t have an answer,” the general said. “We do.”

  William looked at the maps. Red zones expanding. Blue zones shrinking.

  “I have one,” he said finally. “But you won’t like it.”

  Silence.

  “We stop forcing people,” William continued. “We stop treating power like a resource to be harvested. We let them choose.”

  Laughter rippled through the room.

  “Choice?” someone scoffed. “You want to let unstable weapons decide?”

  William met his gaze. “If you don’t, they’ll decide anyway. Just later. And angrier.”

  The room went quiet.

  Not because they agreed.

  Because they understood the implication.

  Choice meant loss of control.

  And control was the last illusion they had left.

  They moved her again.

  This facility was underground, reinforced, humming with generators and fear. She felt the eyes on her as she walked the corridor. Scientists. Soldiers. Officials pretending not to stare.

  They all wanted something from her.

  Control. Answers. Proof.

  She gave them none.

  A man in a dark coat waited in the observation room. Not military. Not medical.

  Political.

  “We believe cooperation is possible,” he said.

  Elira tilted her head. “You believe compliance is inevitable.”

  He smiled thinly. “Semantics.”

  “You’re afraid,” she said. “Not of monsters. Of losing relevance.”

  His smile faded.

  “We’re afraid of people like you deciding the world doesn’t need us,” he said.

  Elira looked at the glass separating her from the room where another subject sat restrained.

  A woman this time. Older. Bruised.

  “They don’t need you,” Elira said softly. “They need you to stop pretending you own them.”

  The man leaned closer. “And if you refuse to help us?”

  Elira met his eyes.

  “Then you’ll try to break me,” she said. “And fail.”

  Confidence flickered across his face.

  Then calculation replaced it.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  Elira watched him leave.

  For the first time since the sky split, she felt something like certainty.

  This wasn’t about survival anymore.

  It was about who got to decide what survival cost.

  Tancred Wilmot watched the city burn and felt nothing.

  Not numbness.

  Clarity.

  He stood atop a collapsed overpass, coat torn, hands stained dark with blood that wasn’t all his. Below him, a containment squad moved cautiously through rubble, weapons raised, shouting orders to shadows that didn’t answer.

  They were late.

  Again.

  Tancred didn’t hate them.

  Hate wasted energy.

  He remembered the first time he’d waited.

  He’d believed backup was coming.

  He’d believed orders mattered.

  He’d believed restraint saved lives.

  It hadn’t.

  He stepped forward.

  Concrete cracked under his boots.

  The squad turned just in time to see him drop into their midst like a verdict.

  The report arrived an hour later.

  CONTAINMENT ZONE DELTA

  TOTAL LOSS

  CASUALTIES: ALL

  William stared at the screen.

  No monsters listed.

  No anomalies.

  Just one line at the bottom.

  CAUSE: UNKNOWN AWAKENED INTERVENTION

  He felt a chill crawl up his spine.

  Unknown meant uncontrolled.

  Uncontrolled meant escalation.

  And escalation meant someone like Tancred would not stop.

  William closed the report.

  “God help us,” he whispered.

  He didn’t realize yet that God had already chosen not to.