The silence on the court did not ease after Adriana released his hand.

If anything, it tightened.

Jagger stood there, breathing hard, chest still rising and falling from the fight, blood drying at the corner of his mouth while the last of the dark tension bled slowly out of the room. The bruises were already beginning to fade beneath the skin. The deeper ache remained, but even that was receding in small, stubborn increments as his body repaired itself in silence.

Adriana looked at him once, then lifted a hand without turning her head.

One of the soldiers stationed near the wall moved immediately. He crossed the court at a jog, carrying a black case no larger than a tablet. The hard shell caught the training lights in dull reflections as he stopped at her side, dropped to one knee, and set it carefully on the mat.

He released the latches.

The briefcase opened with a soft hiss.

Inside, nested in fitted black foam, sat a single potion vial.

It was not like the mid-grade health potion Jagger had seen earlier. There were no ornate curves to the bottle, no gold flecks swirling through rich crimson liquid, no sense of crafted luxury. This one was simpler, more practical. A narrow glass vial with a flattened base and a short neck, filled with a thinner red fluid that looked functional rather than impressive.

"A low-grade health potion," Chase said lightly, though his eyes never left Jagger. "Look at that. You’re being spoiled already."

Grace shot him a glance sharp enough to draw blood.

Adriana took the vial and held it out.

"Drink."

Jagger looked at the potion. Then at her.

Around them, everyone remained just a little too still.

Chase had that same smile on his face, the one that never fully reached sincerity. Jace stood with her arms folded, though the annoyance sitting in her posture had not gone anywhere. Grace looked openly irritated now, still riding the tail end of the fight. Leo stood a step apart from the others, pale and quiet, his eyes flicking from Jagger to the potion and back again as if trying to decide which part of the moment was supposed to matter most.

He took the vial.

The glass was cool in his hand. For a brief moment, his own reflection wavered faintly on its surface, distorted by the pale red liquid within. When he looked up again, he caught the training lights reflecting in his own eyes, and he saw it happen.

The crimson that had been staining his irises peeled back in thin, unnatural threads, as if the color itself were being pulled inward. It retreated slowly, slipping from the surface of his eyes and draining into the darkness of his pupils until the red was gone, leaving only the familiar brown behind.

Jace noticed.

So did Grace.

Leo’s gaze sharpened for a fraction of a second.

Jagger uncorked the vial and drank.

The potion was warmer than he expected. Not hot, just oddly body-temperature, with a medicinal bitterness underneath the faint metallic taste. It slid down easily enough, and almost immediately, a light warmth spread across his chest and shoulders, subtle compared to the violent, invasive rush of his own regeneration. It was enough to settle surface pain, enough to explain visible improvement, and that was all he needed.

He lowered the empty vial and handed it back.

"There," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Much appreciated. You beat me half to death, call it an evaluation, make it four on one, and then toss me a potion after. Very professional."

Grace’s expression hardened at once.

"It was not four on one," she said.

Jagger looked at her without any softness. "Really? Because from where I was standing, when I got serious, every one of you stepped in. That’s four on one."

Jace’s jaw tightened. "You were out of control."

Jagger scoffed, "Ask your tank if she was still having trouble when I knocked her off her stance."

"You arrogant little-"

"Grace."

Leo was already moving.

He crossed the short distance between them with none of the panic he usually wore in open confrontation. He did not stand in front of her. He did not touch her like he was restraining a threat. He only stepped up at her side and turned his head slightly toward her, shoulders still hunched, hands still in his jacket pockets.

"You’re doing the jaw thing again," he murmured. "And the shoulder thing. That means you’re about to say something loud and regrettable."

Grace looked down slightly and shot him a look. "Leo."

"I know," he said quietly. "He’s being annoying on purpose. That is his whole personality right now. You do not have to help him."

Her jaw flexed once.

Then again.

She said nothing.

It was not obedience. It was familiarity. The practiced, weary tolerance of two people who had seen enough of one another’s worst edges to recognize them before they cut too deep.

Jagger noticed it.

Not softness. Not affection. Something sturdier than that. A kind of worn-in trust built through too many fights and too many bad days.

He let it pass and looked back at Adriana.

Straight into her eyes.

No sarcasm this time. No edge of performance. Just blunt force and purpose.

"Where is my sister?"

Adriana held his stare without blinking.

The training hall around them seemed to recede for a moment. Even Chase’s smile dimmed slightly. Jace’s crossed arms tightened. Grace went still again. Leo lowered his gaze, as if he already knew enough about answers to dislike where this one might lead.

Adriana said nothing for one beat.

Then she turned her head slightly toward the others.

"Enough," she said. "All of you, gear up. Intake and Evaluations have been done."

Chase’s expression sharpened at once. "Which Herald?"

"Yours and Jace’s target has already been updated," Adriana replied. "Bedok reservoir. Grace, Tampines Mall. Leo, you’re with her."

Grace nodded once.

Jace uncrossed her arms.

Chase let out a low whistle. "Busy night."

Adriana did not indulge him. She only looked at them all in that flat, commanding way of hers. "You have your assignments. Move."

There was no argument.

The four of them broke away in different directions, fast and efficient, their attention already shifting from the court to whatever came next. Chase gave Jagger a brief grin over his shoulder as he went. Jace did not look back. Grace simply left. Leo hesitated for half a second, glanced once toward Jagger, then disappeared after the others with his shoulders already folding inward again.

Adriana turned away from the court and said, "Follow me."

Jagger did.

Two personnel fell in behind them at once. Not soldiers in heavy armor this time, but two dark-clad staff members carrying tablets and slim data cases, the kind that moved with the quiet speed of secretaries who knew better than to waste a commander’s time. One was a blonde-haired woman. The other was a younger man with wire-rimmed glasses and the exhausted alertness of someone who had not slept enough in days.

They left the training hall through a side access corridor, the doors sealing shut behind them with a muted hydraulic thump.

The difference was immediate.

Sector Zero’s open noise faded with each step.

They passed through the first checkpoint, where armed guards saluted Adriana and stepped aside before the scanners had even finished cycling. Then a second, deeper door, thicker and slower, opened after a retinal confirmation and a coded verbal clearance from Director Ng. After that, the traffic around them began to thin.

The halls grew cleaner.

Quieter.

More controlled.

The first corridor was still busy with staff. Officers carrying sealed folders, analysts hurrying with tablets, two medics wheeling an empty stretcher back toward the surface sectors. The next had fewer people, mostly command personnel and uniformed aides moving with clipped purpose. The one after that was almost empty.

The farther in they went, the fewer voices there were.

The lighting changed, too. Less industrial white. More deliberate, colder, recessed into dark walls, polished to a matte finish. Every door they passed required higher clearance than the last. At each station, Adriana never slowed. The doors opened for her before anyone else could ask.

Jagger noticed all of it.

He also noticed that no one here laughed.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Inside," Adriana said.

"That is not an answer."

"It is enough of one."

He looked ahead again. "You always like talking in pieces?"

Adriana answered, looking back. "A full answer belongs to a room rather than a hallway."

That shut the conversation down for several more turns.

They went through another checkpoint, this one guarded by four soldiers in black armor with sealed visors and weapons held in disciplined, ready positions. Past them, the corridor narrowed once more before opening into a long, quiet passage lined with frosted glass panels and recessed doors that had no labels at all.

There was barely anyone left here.

A single officer passed them going the opposite direction and stepped so cleanly aside that it felt choreographed. A pair of technicians emerged from one sealed room, saw Adriana, and immediately flattened themselves to the wall to clear the way. Even the air felt different now. Cooler. Stiller. As if the bunker itself were holding its breath this deep down.

Jagger glanced sideways at Adriana. "So, what is this place called?"

She answered without looking at him.

"The inner Bunker."

The name fit.

By the time they reached the end of the corridor, Jagger had counted six separate security clearances and lost track of how many cameras had tracked them from the corners of the ceiling.

At the very end stood a pair of dark glass doors framed in brushed steel. Beside them, already waiting as if she had known the exact second they would arrive, stood Director Ng. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Now she looked up from her tablet and inclined her head once.

"Commander."

Adriana stopped.

Director Ng swiped her access card across the panel beside the door. "The room is ready."

The glass doors slid apart.

Beyond them was a chamber of clear walls and soft white light, built like a suspended cube inside a larger office space. People could be seen beyond it, moving between terminals and workstations, but the room itself stood apart, stark and clean and empty except for a central table, six chairs, and a long band of dark inactive display panels along one wall.

Director Ng stepped aside and gestured toward the interior.

Adriana entered first.

Jagger followed.

The two aides stayed outside as the glass doors sealed shut behind them with a faint, almost inaudible hiss.

At once, the glass walls frosted from edge to center in a smooth rush of white opacity, cutting the room off from everyone outside.

The world beyond vanished.

And for the first time since his sister’s name had left Adriana’s mouth, Jagger found himself in a room where there was nowhere for the answer to go except straight through him.