ANMELDENLucien leaned down until his shadow completely swallowed the man, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl. "And if we do decide to go to this industrial plant, and we find out Wesley moved her, or that this was an ambush... your core won't even get the chance to crush you. I'll rip your throat out myself.""She's there," Silas gasped, backing up as far as his cuffs allowed. "I swear it! They keep their high-value hostages in the lower basement near the generator room!"I stepped out of the cell into the hallway, signaling for Lucien and Daniel to join me. I leaned my back against the cold concrete wall, folding my arms over my chest as a cold, calculating spark ignited in my mind.Wesley had sent a secret weapon inside our walls to tear us apart from the shadows. His goal was to make us drown in paranoia and nightmare-fueled rage, blindly watching to see if the person we loved the most would stab a knife through our backs. He had no idea that his sleeper agent was now chained
"N-No!" the man stammered frantically, shaking his head until his bangs whipped across his blood-stained forehead. "I can't control the specific scenarios! My power... it only implants the core emotion—the precept of ultimate betrayal and deepest despair! Your own minds fill in the rest based on what would break you the most!"I let go of his shirt, letting him slump back onto the cot, my mind spinning as I turned back to Lucien.If the precept of the nightmare was betrayal, how was me shooting myself a betrayal to Lucien? Betrayal was supposed to be a blade in the back, a push off a cliff, a loaded gun pointed at a lover."Lucien..." I began carefully, looking up into his dark eyes. "How is that betrayal? It's supposed to be an attack from the person you trust most...""You don't get it, Amber," Lucien rumbled, his voice cracking with a raw, agonizing intensity that vibrated right through the concrete floor. He didn't look at Daniel, nor at the traitor—his burning, dark gaze was lock
I looked at him for a while and laughed."Hah, as if I'd let a mind-weaver—a parasite that sneaks into people's minds—stay in my fortress," I scoffed coldly, drawing my sidearm in one fluid motion and leveling the barrel directly between his eyes.The traitor’s eyes widened, sweat breaking out across his forehead as he pressed himself flatter against the damp concrete wall. But even with a barrel pointed at his face, a desperate, twitchy grin tugged at his bleeding lips."Go ahead! Pull the trigger!" he choked out, leaning forward just enough to press his forehead right against the cold steel of my gun. "But know that you’ll regret killing me. I've already implanted the mental frequencies into all three of your brains while you slept! It's an anchored psychic resonance loop!"I kept my grip steady, my eyes completely unreadable, but I didn't pull the trigger just yet."If you blow my brains out right now," the traitor hissed, his voice rising into a manic, breathless pitch, "the shock
Lucien flinched as if I had struck him. His storm-cloud eyes widened, dark static flickering in his pupils as he stared at me in genuine, stunned shock."How did you know...?" he rasped, his hand coming up to wipe a sheen of cold sweat from his forehead. "Did you see something in your foresight?""No," I replied, my voice chillingly calm as I glanced back at Daniel, who was now standing upright, his lazy demeanor completely vanished. "Daniel and I had something similar."Daniel looked at me, his brow furrowing as a sudden, sharp realization crossed his features. "Wait... that was what your dream was about too?"I shook my head, keeping my eyes locked onto Lucien's trembling frame."No," I said softly, the words echoing off the cold granite walls of the kitchen. "I didn't dream about choosing between you and Lucien. I dreamt about..."I paused, watching the colour completely drain from Lucien's face."...I dreamt about Lucien pushing me off the edge of the northern rampart."Lucien’s b
The dark, suffocating weight of the dream pulled me under before I could even try to claw my way up to consciousness.It had been a long time since I had any dream at all, not to talk of nightmares. And this time, it felt so damn vivid that it was suffocating.In the dream, the northern ramparts were crumbling into dust under a blood-red sky. I was standing near the broken ledge, bleeding, holding out my hand toward Lucien. He was towering over me, his massive frame framed by black smoke. But his eyes weren't filled with the possessive, ferocious intent I knew so well. They were hollow. Cold. Heavy with an agonizing, silent guilt that cut deeper than any blade."Lucien...?" I choked out in the dark.He didn't say a word. He reached out, his broad palm settling flat against my chest, and gave me one slow, deliberate push.The wind howled in my ears as I tumbled backward into the endless, snapping jaws of the dark below. The last thing I saw before hitting the abyss was the agonizing t
The refugees gasped, throwing their hands into the air in pure panic."Please! We didn't do anything!" the bearded man shrieked.I clutched Lucien's vest, my breathing ragged, my chest heaving as I forced my dim, unfocused eyes to open. Blood was dripping down my chin, staining his dark uniform, but my mind was racing through the blinding pain.The alarm. The coughing. The fainting.Those weren't random complications happening in the compound three days from now.They were distractions.The blank spot in Person Fourteen’s future meant his actions were directly tied to a major timeline event that my foresight couldn't fully render yet—because his sole purpose for being here was to trigger an orchestrated sabotage from the inside.I leaned my head against Lucien's jaw, my voice raspy, broken, but dripping with absolute, unwavering certainty as I pointed a trembling, blood-stained finger toward the fourteenth man at the end of the table."He doesn't get a room," I rasped, my cold gaze lo







