I didn't answer. I didn't breathe.I took the last few stairs two at a time, boots barely touching concrete, praying the door at the bottom hadn't locked automatically behind me on the way in.It hadn't.I hit the side door at a dead run and burst out into the alley just as I heard the stairwell door bang open above me, Emeric's voice echoing down through the concrete, sharper now, closer to panic than I'd ever heard it."Hey! Stop!"I didn't stop.I sprinted across the street, not toward my car, that would've given him a direct line straight to me, but around the block instead, ducking behind a row of dumpsters outside a closed bakery, heart slamming so hard against my ribs it actually hurt.Footsteps. Fast, uneven, somebody moving without really knowing which direction to move in.I pressed myself flat against the brick, hand over my own mouth like that could somehow make me smaller, quieter, less real."You see anyone?" Marisol's voice, from somewhere near the building's front entr

Last Updated : 2026-09-18

Neither of us said much for the rest of the drive.Cassian pulled into the bunker's access road just as the sky started going gray at the edges, that flat, colorless hour before sunrise where everything feels unfinished. He killed the engine and just sat there for a second, hands still on the wheel, staring straight ahead like the windshield had answers written on it somewhere."We need to talk about priorities," he said finally."I know what you're going to say.""Then say it back to me, so I know we're actually on the same page."I let out a breath. "You want me to stop chasing the woman and focus on the bunker. Supplies. Water. Getting this place actually livable in six days instead of running around downtown at midnight listening at doors.""That's exactly what I want," he said. "And I want it because it's the right call, not because I'm trying to control you.""I know that.""Do you?" He turned to look at me properly for the first time since the alley. "Because from where I'm sit

Last Updated : 2026-09-19

Cassian moved first, flashlight off, crowbar low at his side, walking the fence line quiet the way somebody moves when they've done this before and don't want to get caught doing it wrong. I followed a step behind, every sense straining against the dark, my heart pounding hard enough that I was sure it had to be audible."Anything?" I whispered."Not yet."We circled the north side of the building, past the scaffolding still standing over the repaired corner, past the generator we'd hauled in two nights ago, and that's when I saw it. A shape near the tree line, still, watching, close enough that for one horrible second I thought it might actually be the woman herself.Cassian saw it at the same moment I did and stepped in front of me without seeming to think about it at all."Show yourself," he called out, voice hard and flat. "Now."The shape moved.It wasn't the woman.It was Marisol.She stepped out from behind the tree line with her hands raised slightly, palms out."Don't," she s

Last Updated : 2026-09-22

Thursday came faster than I wanted it to.I spent the morning at the bunker helping Cassian mount shelving in the storage room, both of us not talking about Marisol, not talking about the woman, not talking about anything except which brackets went where, because it turned out there were only so many hours in a day you could spend circling a threat you couldn't touch yet."You don't have to go tonight," Cassian said, around noon, watching me change out of my work clothes in the corner of the main room like a man pretending he wasn't watching at all. "You could tell them you're sick.""I told you. If I skip this one, somebody asks why." I pulled my hair back, checked myself in the small mirror propped against the wall. "Besides. Marisol handed me something last night. Mom picked the restaurant herself, which she never does. That's not nothing.""It's also not much.""It's enough to go looking for more," I said. "I want to watch her. Just watch. I'm not confronting anybody, I'm not brin

Last Updated : 2026-09-26

All Chapters of Doomsday Wedding: He Took My Sister,I returned with A system: Chapter 11 - Chapter 14

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