Chapter 69: Empty the Storage

Three floors above the market, Blaze looked at a phone held out by one of his men.

The photo had been taken from a distance. Grain, bad light, Ethan in profile at a stall, Sasha beside him, a red Core on the cloth between them. Clear enough.

Blaze’s mechanical fingers closed on the paper cup in his other hand.

Crack.

The cup folded. Water hit the concrete and spread.

A cold smile cut across his face.

"Ethan Carter."

The dark in his eyes settled. "Found you."

The subordinate swallowed. Blaze handed the phone back.

"Tell Ray to keep him there."

The man hesitated. "Boss, if Chairman Elon hears we waived the stall fee without—"

"Enough."

Click. The joints in the metal arm shifted, one after another, a small cold sound in the quiet room.

"I’ll carry it." Blaze looked at the dark screen a second longer. "And Ethan is the man the Chairman has been looking for. Ray holds him. I finish it."

"Understood."

Blaze’s mouth moved, almost a smile. "This time he doesn’t walk out."

Ethan followed the old man through two narrow alleys. The market noise thinned behind them, then died. These streets had no power. A few emergency lamps flickered in doorways and made the dark look deeper. Sasha walked at his shoulder, bat resting easy, eyes moving.

She leaned in. "This is wrong."

"I know."

"How calm are you?" She glanced back. The Oil Rats were checking corners every few steps, bad at pretending they weren’t. "They’re sweeping the street like they expect company."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Means they aren’t professionals." His voice stayed level. "Professionals don’t look."

It didn’t settle her.

Another block, and the old man stopped in front of a three-story walk-up. Metal plate over almost every window. Two steel doors on the entrance. Cameras above the lintel, one of them dark, one of them alive. It didn’t look like a home. It looked like a box someone meant to keep.

He turned with a host’s smile. "Uncle Ray’s on the third floor. Come up. Have a drink. We can talk diesel like civilized people."

Ethan studied the building. The black windows. The camera’s small red eye.

Every instinct he had said turn around. He still needed the fuel. And if the tank was real, he needed to see the shape of the lie before he walked out of it.

He went in. Sasha followed, bat low, shoulder almost touching his.

The third floor smelled of cigarettes and old sweat. Five men sat around a wooden table with cards in their hands. The game stopped the second the door opened. Five pairs of eyes came up. The room went quiet in the way rooms do when the talking was never the point.

At the head of the table sat a bald older man. A string of small animal skulls rested on his chest, yellowed, drilled, worn smooth where his thumb had worried them. Smoke curled off the cigarette between his fingers and hung in the lamplight.

The goatee stepped forward. "Boss. This is the one. Says he needs a lot of diesel."

Uncle Ray looked at Ethan. Then at Sasha — the long legs, the bat, the way the tank sat on her — then back at Ethan.

"Don’t know this brother." He drew on the cigarette. "Heard you want fuel. A lot of it."

"As much as you’ve got." Ethan took the chair nearest the door. From it he could see the table, the hall, and the men who hadn’t put their cards down. "All of it, if the price is real."

Ray laughed, short. "Straight to it." He clapped once. "Business can wait. We eat first."

He called down the hall. Two women came in with plates. Stir-fried greens, still bright. A slab of cured meat. A bottle of liquor with no label. The smell changed the room. Fresh vegetables were close to myth. The meat was better than money. A couple of the card players swallowed and didn’t mean to.

Ray poured and pushed the glass across. "Drink, boss. Come by often. Diesel isn’t going anywhere."

Sasha’s elbow found Ethan’s arm. A tiny shake of the head. Don’t.

Ethan looked at the glass. Then at Ray. He smiled.

"Sure."

He picked it up. Ray watched his throat.

Ethan raised it and drank it off in one go. The liquor burned. Under the burn, something else moved — bitter, chemical, wrong. Water Vapor Purification woke in his blood before the glass hit the table. The ability tasted the poison, stripped it, and left the alcohol behind like a bad joke.

His face didn’t change. Inside, he almost laughed.

So that was the game.

He let his brows pull in. His hand went to his stomach. "This liquor..."

The word frayed. He swayed. Sasha’s eyes went wide. "Ethan—"

He dropped.

The thud was ugly on the bare floor. Dust jumped. For a few seconds nobody moved.

Then Uncle Ray smiled, slow. "He’s out."

Two men grabbed Sasha.

"Get off me." She twisted. The bat was already out of reach, kicked under the table.

Ray stubbed the cigarette on a plate and crouched beside Ethan. Two fingers tapped his cheek, light, proprietary. "Carrying a lot, aren’t you? Five cans of beef for a Core, and you didn’t blink." His smile got worse. "Means the rest is still in that little pocket of yours."

He stood. "Tie her."

They dragged her toward the back wall. She dug her heels in. One of them laughed.

"And if he won’t play," Ray said, glancing at her like she was a clause in a contract, "the boys can have their fun. See if that opens him up."

Color left Sasha’s face. Fear hit, one clean second. Then anger ate it.

"Don’t."

Her shoulders locked. The strength that had lifted a wardrobe came up through her arms all at once.

Boom.

Both men left the floor. One hit the wall hard enough to rattle the plate over the window. The other took the table with him. Cards flew. The liquor bottle spun and smashed.

Sasha caught a chair in one hand and swung.

Crack.

Wood burst across a man’s shoulder. He screamed and went sideways into the wall, arm hanging wrong. The room blew open.

"Ability user!" Ray’s voice cracked. "Put her down!"

Four of them came at once.

She swung again. A man ducked under it. Another caught the chair leg and hauled. She let go rather than be pulled in, and drove her fist into his chest.

Boom.

He left his feet. The table broke under him. Splinters. Blood on his mouth. He didn’t get up fast.

Strength wasn’t skill. Sasha had spent years teaching her body to suffer on a course, not to fight five men in a room the size of a kitchen. They learned that in the next breath.

One took her from behind, arms locked under hers. Another grabbed the wrist that had just broken a man. A third hit her in the side with his shoulder and drove her into the wall. She fought like something caged — elbow, knee, the back of her head into a nose. Cartilage crunched. The man howled and didn’t let go.

"Get off!"

She slammed one skull into the plaster. He staggered. Another caught her arm and twisted. A fourth drew his fist back, eyes bright, ugly.

"Stop."

Ray’s voice cut the room in half. They froze, breathing hard, Sasha pinned, hair in her face, a red welt already rising on her wrist.

He looked at Ethan. Picked up a glass of water. Walked over.

Splash.

Cold hit Ethan’s face and ran into his collar.

He opened his eyes slowly. Blinked. Let his mouth hang, confused, weak. "What..."

Ray crouched. "Poison in the liquor. You’re lucky you’re still breathing."

Ethan’s gaze traveled, sluggish, and found Sasha. Two men on her. Hair wrecked. Wrist marked. Her chest heaving under the torn neckline of the tank. She met his eyes.

"Ethan." Tight. Not begging. Warning him.

Ray took his chin. "You want her walking out of here, you empty the storage. Food. Water. Weapons. Cores. All of it." He leaned in until the skulls on his chest clicked. "You refuse, you get to listen to what they do to her."

Sasha went white at the mouth. Her fists shook. She didn’t cry.

The room waited. They wanted the beg. The panic. The hands up.

Ethan looked at her for a long second. Then his eyes moved back to Ray.

A small sound left his throat. Almost a laugh.

Ray’s smile died.

Ethan laughed again, quieter, then louder, until it sat in the smoke and the spilled liquor and didn’t sound hurt at all.

One of the men looked at another. Poison in the brain, maybe.

Ray’s frown cut deep. "What’s funny?"

Ethan pushed himself up. The weakness left his face like a coat shrugged off. No confusion. No fear. Water still dripped off his jaw. He looked at the hands on Sasha. Then at the bald man with the skulls.

The smile he gave them was cold.

"Nothing." He wiped his face. "I was just wondering if you really thought that poison was going to work on me."

Nobody spoke. The cigarette smoke hung. Somewhere under the table, liquor ticked off a broken bottle onto the floor, one drop at a time.