BT - Chapter 7

My eyes snapped open to the cold, hard floor beneath my fingers—tangled in coarse fur I couldn’t place and the shrill alarm hammering inside my skull. I drew in a ragged breath and forced myself upright, recognizing the sterile white walls of the corridor. The same hallway. My hallway… the one I'd torn thr… or dreamed I'd torn through, or…how long ago was that? Red emergency lights swept the corridor in slow rotations, painting the walls in pulses of crimson. My palm was flat against the linoleum. Blood beneath it, still warm. I pulled my hand back and stared at it. No feathers. His damn feathers were gone now. No trace of anything that could explain what I was remembering.

I wobbled to my feet, pain lancing through my abdomen where a jagged wound lay now neatly wired shut with coarse black sutures. I should have been clothed, draped in a hospital gown at most—but I stood shirtless, crooked stitches glinting in the harsh light. My hand trembled; nausea curled in my gut as if I’d swallowed acid. The alarm kept blaring, yet every other sound was deathly still.

I turned and froze. Clinical staff, I realized with a lurch, bodies strewn along the walls in grotesque disarray. Had I done this? Had something in me slipped loose and gone feral? The guilt landed before I could even finish the thought. I pushed past the corpses, heart hammering, until I nearly stepped on a Sun Jin soldier crumpled at the base of the wall.

Bethian. Feline. Sun Jin Imperial uniform, local issue too, the same ones from my dream, down to the last detail. Not similar. Identical. He was bleeding from a deep laceration across his lightly armored belly. I looked down at my right hand. My claws… these short, small, Amber Krowen claws… throbbing at their base. The soldier's assault rifle lay beside him, muzzle still warm. My fingers closed around it before I'd decided to reach for it.

Each new corner revealed more carnage. Whoever did this… me or them… had left a trail of broken bodies in my own footprints. I forced myself to keep moving. I had spent years as someone's instrument of slaughter, put to use against people who never had a chance, and I had told myself, no… promised myself… that it was over. That I would never again be the thing that walked out of a village left quiet. The bodies on this floor wore the same stillness. If I had done this, if the

Bloodtiger had slipped its leash again while I was somewhere else inside my own head, I didn't know what was left on the other side of that truth. And

Shiinx was somewhere in this building. I kept moving and tried not to finish the thought. I couldn't finish the thought. If she was on this floor, if I had… no. There were options a man could take, if he was the kind of danger that didn't sleep, that couldn't be reasoned with, that hurt people every time the lights went out inside him. I knew what those options were. I moved faster.

My rifle felt impossibly heavy as I crept around the corner, the only illumination coming from the rotating red-and-white emergency lights slashing across the walls. Radio static and distant footsteps thumped through my ears, each beat echoing in my skull. My pulse throbbed as I braced for whatever waited in the flickering shadows.

A sudden gleam, another rifle trained on me. For a heart-stopping moment, their muzzles followed my every twitch, until I heard voices I knew. The few Asuya guards lowered their weapons, relief softening their grip, and Shiinx, with them, did the same. Through the strobing lights, she stepped forward, her face pale but intense, relief melting into something sharper.

“Shiinx, thank Varuna,” I exhaled, tension leaking from my shoulders as she rushed in close.

She pressed a trembling hand to my arm, her fingers digging in. “Forza, are you okay?” Her eyes… they sunk uncomfortably deep into my own.

I tried to force a smile, but the lights cast shadows that made me doubt. “I’m… good enough. What’s going-”

Her voice cut me off, steady and worried. “No, Forza. Are you really okay? Are you here with me?”

Her gaze pinned me under those revolving lights, and I willed my vision to clear. “Yeah… I mean, yeah,” I stammered, adrenaline still coursing through me.

She said nothing, but her grip tightened until I felt the bones in my arm protest. Concern deepened in her eyes… more than she let on. After a breath, she spoke quietly. “We came back for you.”

My brows shot up. “Why would you come back for me? And why the Sun Jin soldiers? They traced us?”

Shiinx nodded toward a guard tapping on a comm unit. “They did. Two dozen slipped into the lab. They wanted you.”

A cold knot formed in my gut. “Wanted me? Is that why I was lying in that hallway?”

She paused, studying me in the shifting red glare. “Forza, are you sure you’re alright?”

I ran a hand through my hair, half in thought, half needing to feel something physical under my fingers to make sure this was real. "I don't know. Why do you keep asking? What happened?" But even as I said it, I saw the hallway again. The bodies. The blood still warm under my palm. The Sun Jin soldier, but the others, the clinical staff strewn against the walls. Not Sun Jin. Not enemies. I looked down at my claws. "Shiinx." My voice came out wrong.

Her jaw clenched, and she met my eyes like she knew secrets I’d rather forget. “You happened, Forza,” she whispered, voice low.

Confusion and a flicker of dread washed over me. “I… what? I don’t remember doing anything.” A half lie, I remember the nightmare.

Shiinx squeezed my arm again, harder this time, and the flashing lights painted her concern in urgent strokes. "Trust me, hon. You're not okay. We'll talk later." No anger in her voice. No frustration, no doubt. Just her, making sure I was still here. Because she loved me… or because she was scared of what happened when I wasn't. I shoved the thought down before it could finish forming.

I watched her silhouette dissolve into the dancing red glow, wondering just how much she already knew, and how much I had forgotten.

“Something you should know,” she said, eyes cutting to me. “They’ve brought in specialists.”

“What kind of specialists?”

“Close-quarters combat experts,” she replied, tension in her voice. Another explosion rocked the ground, this time closer. We dropped to one knee, bracing ourselves, but the blast caused no further damage. We kept moving.

“Damn,” I muttered. “Should we hit the armory? I could use a sword.” I had my rifle, but my muscle memory was wrapped around the hilt of a sword.

She shook her head. “No. We’re evacuating.”

“But what about the team under attack at the armory?” I pressed.

She stopped, her gaze steeling. “They’ve been ordered to pull back and regroup. Most aren’t combat-trained.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off. “And I don’t want you anywhere near that area.”

I sighed in frustration, but before I could protest further, she spun me around. Her voice dropped to a whisper: “It’s Kiara. She’s leading the Sun Jin team.”

What!? “I can stop her,” I declared. Less than a day since my encounter with Kiara, she was leading a Sun Jin assault team? How?

“You can’t go out there in your condition,” Shiinx said, gripping my arm.

“I can take her down and we can fight them off together,” I insisted, but she just shook her head.

“And then what? More Sun Jin will swarm in and overwhelm us. This base wasn’t built to hold against an all-out assault. And with your injury…”

“Shiinx, she’s…” I began.

“No,” she interrupted, voice firm. “You’re mine to worry about, and I’m telling you to stop.”

I saw the worry etched in her eyes. She didn’t want to lose me now, not when we were wounded and outnumbered. This was more than an Asuya Co. matter; it was a Templar issue too. I might not grasp every Templar custom or tribe, but I understood the consequences when the

Sun Jin Empire coerced Templar warriors into submission.

We reached a smaller auxiliary helicopter bay, set in a clearing. Above, a retractable dome stood open to the sky, allowing for vertical takeoff. The surrounding trees formed a natural shield, their trunks a dark wall against the chaos outside. It was a pocket of relative calm.

I followed Shiinx into the cargo helicopter. The wind from the rotors roared, battering us as we climbed aboard. I squinted as the hangar lights flickered and died, leaving only the strobing lights of the helicopter and the dark circle of open sky above.

“We’re all set!” Shiinx called forward to the pilot, her voice cutting through the engine roar. The helicopter shuddered upward, and I watched her pull the headset down over her ears, tucking the band carefully around her feline head.

The floor lurched. Something clamped around my ankle like a vice and the world inverted—seat, ceiling, open air—before I hit the metal floor hard enough to white out. The pain in my abdomen screamed back to life. I rolled, gasping, and looked up.

Kiara.

Sun Jin black and gray, a slash of purple at the collar. Cleaner than the crash site. Composed. A modern Sun Jin combat blade strapped across her back, luckily not yet drawn. The ringing in my skull spiked behind my eyes the moment I saw her face.

By the time Kiara’s boots hit the ground I was on my feet though stumbling backward to carve out breathing room. We faced off, me bruised, unarmed, her smirk cutting through the haze of pain and blood. She looked impossibly composed, like nothing had ever touched her. My stitches throbbed, but nothing compared to the quake in my gut.

“What, Sun Jin forces?” I rasped. “You flipped on them that fast?”

She tossed her head, blonde hair brushing her cheek. “I needed backup. Don’t worry. They’re next when this is done.”

I noticed the combat knife strapped to her vest. She made no move to draw it. Better for me.

“For resources, huh?” I swallowed. “They tracked you from the crash. You led them straight here.”

“Sure did,” she purred. “But you left crumbs, too. Your dead friends’ gear gave you away.”

My chest tightened. “You know I was a Templar under their thumb. They turned me into a weapon, slaughtered innocents. You really think they’ll let you walk when you’re no longer useful?”

Kiara laughed, sharp and fearless, it was almost a mix of a laugh and a scoff. “Trust me, I don’t plan to hand over anything. They couldn’t stop me if they wanted to. I patched up, geared up, told them I’d show them the real you. All freighter crashing investigations aside, they’re much more interested in a spy organization under their nose. But I only did it to find you.”

“What do you want then?” My voice cracked.

She dropped into a relaxed stance and began to pace, shoulders squared, eyes blazing. “Our reunion, Forza. The darkness inside us, it’s alive. A single entity split between us. It aches to be whole again, to flow through Jethro… through you.” Her tone snapped from want to fury, easily audible from the whirl of the helicopter above. “You lock it away, yet it haunts you. Nightmares, voices, hell, even Jethro can’t fathom how you resist.”

A tremor ran down my arm. “How would you know that?”

She stopped, stared a moment, and marched up, stopping just out of arms reach. “He told me. The same creature lives in both our veins. Embrace it. Think of the power, damn it. Just you and me, free to crush whoever dared hurt us. They hurt you? Made you a weapon?” Her eyes bounced back and forth between mine. “

Sun Jin Kaisara, the Systems Alliance - gone.”

Fear tightened my throat. I stood unarmed and exposed beneath her fierce gaze, and for the first time, I wondered if she was right.

At least I was right about one thing: she knew more about what was happening inside us than I did. She knew its goals. Back at the crash site, I wanted to hear as much about it as I could, but then everything went sideways.

I kept my breathing even and out of the corner of my eye watched Shiinx’s helicopter hold position high in the hangar opening. She had one hand on the grip, eyes fixed on me. I needed her to go. I needed her to stay.

“I’ve been a killing machine before, Kiara. I know what senseless killing costs.” The words came out steadier than I thought they would. “At least with the Alliance, as an assassin, there was a reason. A line.”

“Revenge isn’t senseless.” Her eyes didn’t waver. “You want Kaisara dead. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

She wasn’t wrong. That was the worst part. “I’ll find my own way to justice. Without surrendering to…“ I gestured vaguely at the space between us, at whatever it was we shared. “…this.”

Her stance shifted, that sly grin pulling at the corners of her mouth, sharp Quallian teeth catching the light as her hand moved to her sword. “I can be very persuasive.”

“I’d rather die.” I meant it. I think I meant it.

“That’s not what you said when

Skithix had a spear pinning you to the dirt.” Her eyes closed, almost savoring it. “You begged. We are Bloodtigers, Forza. I’m going to enjoy learning every last secret you’re still hiding from yourself and I will remind you why you deserve your vengeance.”

Skithix. The name landed like a heel on an old wound. The

Nightfall Templar shaman who held me down, who broke me open, who handed what was left of me to the research center on

Caisteal to be rebuilt into something useful. I had not let myself think that name in a long time, but it was true. I had begged for my life.

“Besides,” she interrupted my memory, her voice dripping with a dark knowingness. “I knoooow," she drew the word out like a sinister chant, "...what truly keeps you from succumbing to the darkness. I know what shields you from complete and utter collapse." Her eyes bore into mine, piercing and unrelenting. "She is the only thing standing between you and the void, and you cling to her like a helpless child when lost in tears.”

My eyes cut to the hangar opening above. Shiinx, still there, still watching me, holding her hand to her headset staring down at us.

“What will become of your resistance if something were to happen to her? What could possibly stand in the way of your descent into all-consuming rage and despair?”

Part of me heard the logic in it. That was the worst part. The darkness in my chest didn’t recoil from Kiara’s words, it leaned into them, curious, almost hungry. I hated that. I hated how long it took me to find my voice.

“Don’t.”

Kiara’s lip curled, fangs catching the light. She was already turning, already coiling, and I knew what came next. I knew I could not close the distance in time. It was Rafaya all over again. The purple bolt left her hand trailing a shriek that seemed to drag the air apart behind it, and my whole world narrowed to the opening above.

Shiinx had already let go of the grip. No hesitation. No flinch. She had read it before I had, before the bolt had even left Kiara’s fingers, and she had made her choice in the half-second she had to make it. The helicopter detonated in a wall of orange and white, and she was already falling through the fireball’s edge, jacket alight at the shoulder, body tucked, chin down. Not panicking. Thinking. Even now, even falling, she was thinking.

I wasn't thinking. I was just running, screaming her name into the roar, the heat a physical weight against my face. I knew I couldn't catch her. I ran anyway.

I never made it past Kiara.

A low growl sounded right behind me. A piston-like impact to the back of my neck sent my vision white, then black. The cold floor rushed up, and a high-pitched ringing swallowed the world. Through the closing pinprick of light, the last thing I saw was Shiinx, a silhouette still falling against a sky of fire.