The darkness pressed in, fractured images spinning like glass shards — Trigger’s revolver, Brock’s blood, the flames.

  This isn’t real. It can’t be real. Wake up, wake up—

  Then another voice cut through the noise in his mind. Calm. Stern. Steady.

  Wake up, Lior.

  ?

  He froze. The sound rooted him in place. It was a voice he had heard before… and yet had never heard. Familiar in its weight, stranger in its origin — like a memory borrowed from someone else’s life.

  You don’t have time. You’re stronger than this.

  The words coiled through his chest, steadying him in a way no one else’s could.

  The world snapped. What had felt like minutes drowning in a nightmare had only been seconds. Cold night air hit his lungs, sharp and real. Beside him, Ayasha and Cael were still frozen mid-step.

  And ahead, Trigger waited beneath the dim light, cigarette glowing like an embered eye.

  “Well now…” he drawled, spinning his silver revolver loosely at his side, “…y’all look like you’ve had a rough time.”

  CLINK.

  The cold night clung to the alley, shadows stretching like claws. Lior, Ayasha, and Cael stood at its mouth, breaths sharp and uneven. Across the street, Trigger’s black trench stirred faintly in the breeze, the revolver still in motion as if alive on its own.

  Ayasha didn’t hesitate. Her legs drove forward like a sprinter leaving the blocks.

  “AHHH!” Her cry tore into the night, raw with fury.

  For a split second, Lior thought she looked like fire itself — burning forward, uncaring if it consumed her too. She didn’t pause. No fear. Like she’d been waiting for this moment.

  If I just stand here — if I let them carry this fight alone — then what am I?

  Trigger didn’t move. He exhaled a slow ribbon of smoke, eyes half-lidded, calm as stone.

  Hhhhhh…

  At the last instant, he shifted — sidestep smooth as a dance, hand snapping up to catch her wrist. His grip tightened, iron around bone, and with rehearsed cruelty he twisted, using her momentum to slam her shoulder-first into a dented dumpster.

  KRAANG!

  The impact rang like thunder. Ayasha gasped, the sound strangled, pain shooting through her arm.

  The echo rattled in Lior’s bones — louder than gunfire, louder than thought.

  Cael froze mid-step. His fists clenched, but his body locked, eyes hunting for an opening. None revealed itself.

  He’s not like the others… I don’t even see an opening.

  Trigger smirked. The revolver tapped lazily against his thigh — tnk… tnk… — each strike a steady reminder that he didn’t need to rush. The ember glowed faintly, casting his mouth in eerie orange as smoke spiraled upward.

  “If you’re strugglin’ with me,” he murmured, the cigarette bobbing between his knuckles, “I’m only Rank Three.”

  The tone wasn’t rushed or sharp. It was measured — the kind of calm that knots your spine like a rattlesnake coiled in tall grass.

  He tapped the badge pinned against the fold of his coat — right where a sheriff might wear his star. The metal caught the faint light, a gray knot etched clean into its surface.

  “See this? That’s the mark. Rank Three — third in command. Means I’m the one they send first, the one they throw in to test the waters.

  “But don’t get it twisted — everybody in Potestas wears the Knot. Gray, crimson, or gold. The color tells you how long you’ve got left to breathe.”

  He drew in smoke, exhaling a thin veil through his teeth.

  “Crimson? That’s Rank Two. Cross one of them, and you won’t even get the chance to scream. And gold…” He chuckled, dry and humorless. “…gold means you’re already dead. Captains don’t leave survivors.”

  He nudged the badge with one finger, letting it click against his coat.

  “Funny thing — Potestas don’t tell us where to wear it. Some strap it on a belt buckle, some tie it on a headband. Me?” His grin cut through the smoke. “I like mine right here. Sheriff-style. Makes it easier for folk to understand who’s holdin’ the rope.”

  Trigger’s head tilted for half a heartbeat, as if catching a signal no one else could hear, before his grin returned.

  Cael’s eyes narrowed.

  His flow’s unreadable.

  He didn’t wait. Couldn’t. Cael lunged, foot scraping the cracked asphalt.

  SKRRRFF!

  Dust burst under his heel as he surged forward, shoulder low.

  Trigger was already moving — a half-step, brim shadowing his eyes, revolver hanging low and unused. His other arm bent, elbow cocked like a piston. His voice dropped.

  “Too slow.”

  The world folded in —

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  BWHMM!

  Trigger’s elbow slammed into Cael’s ribs with bone-crunching force. Air blasted from Cael’s lungs; he staggered back three steps, clutching his side, breaths ragged and shallow.

  Trigger didn’t even pursue. He exhaled, forming a perfect smoke ring that floated and broke apart. His voice stayed calm, almost bored, as if this fight were a distraction.

  “…There’s two above me I can’t even scratch. Now—” he tilted his head, ember catching light, “—imagine what they can do to you.”

  Rank Three? Lior’s stomach dropped.

  If this is the strength of the third rank… how powerful are the others?

  His chest tightened.

  No fear in Ayasha and Cael — no pause. As if they’d prepared for this all along.

  His heart pounded, not from terror now but from the surge he could no longer contain.

  He swallowed hard, legs coiling beneath him. If he stayed frozen, they’d die.

  He broke forward — boots scraping asphalt — as adrenaline drowned out every doubt.

  Trigger’s brows lifted as he swung the revolver in a silver blur toward Lior’s face.

  In that instant — when the strike was a breath away — the voice returned.

  Let go of the fear… grab hold of the emotions.

  Something inside Lior snapped awake.

  A flicker of yellow sparked in his eyes — just enough for Trigger to narrow his own.

  “Huh…?”

  And then it struck, the name etching itself across Lior’s mind.

  —Niche Activated: Slipstream—

  In danger, perception spikes; time slows, allowing last-second dodges or counters.

  A luminous aura — silver-blue threaded with pale gold and faint teal — unfurled around his body, wrapping him in flowing bands that moved as one. A pulse beat visibly at his temple; tendons tightened; his fingers trembled.

  SHHHHHF.

  A faint pressure shift brushed over his skin as his body surged ahead of thought. Trigger’s arm swept by just behind him, too late to land. Lior slid under the revolver and past, boots scraping hard on the cracked pavement.

  Just like in the alley. How am I… moving like this?

  Trigger pivoted fast, another strike lashing toward his ribs.

  Slipstream flared hotter, pulling the world long and thin.

  Dust hung slower in the air; a scrap of paper twisted lazily; somewhere above, a bird’s wings beat in syrupy arcs.

  It’s not just him… it’s everything.

  His breath burned hot and sharp. His thoughts cut like glass. Emotion surged, raw and uncontrolled.

  An opening — now.

  The danger threshold blazed red. His body coiled; the world buckled; motion warped — Trigger’s movements dragging like stretched film.

  Debris hovered — shards of glass, flecks of concrete, dust twirling like stars in a paused constellation.

  VWOOOOOO—

  The air trembled, more pressure-shift than power surge.

  The three colors streamed together in unison — silver and white with faint lines of teal — ribboning across his limbs and shoulders in seamless waves.

  His heel splintered the ground as he pushed off, spiderweb fractures spreading. The recoil in his back leg shook from the strain of acceleration.

  THWMM!

  His heart was a war drum. His body, the arrow loosed.

  Lior’s fist snapped upward, precise and violent — rising from his hips into Trigger’s jaw.

  BWKHHMM!

  Trigger’s head snapped sideways with a wet crack. Blood burst from his lip as his frame staggered two steps back, coat flaring wide.

  For a heartbeat he nearly lost his footing — caught himself hard on his back heel, one hand bracing against the SUV’s hood.

  The brim of his hat tilted just enough to show something other than boredom — the quick, sharp spark of surprise.

  Ayasha, still half-propped on one elbow, stared wide-eyed.

  Cael’s head lifted, breath ragged, shocked to see Lior driving Trigger back at all.

  Trigger spat a red thread to the pavement, wiped his mouth with his glove, and gave a low, grudging chuckle.

  “…Not bad, golden boy. Another inch of control and you’d have dropped me.”

  Then the grin returned — colder, sharper, predator restored.

  “But you didn’t.”

  Pain speared behind Lior’s eyes — white-hot, sudden.

  His knees almost buckled. Breath shredded into short, ragged pulls as the cost of Slipstream hit all at once.

  What’s happening…? Feels like my whole body’s tearing apart.

  He steadied himself, jaw clenched against the spinning world.

  Trigger shifted with lazy menace, drawing the revolver free with his left hand in one smooth motion. The steel gleamed; the round tips burned an eerie blue, faint steam hissing with each breath of the weapon.

  FWIP!

  “Am I supposed to kill this brat… or keep him breathing?”

  The SUV window slid down halfway. Trigger’s subordinate smirked, thumb flicking a radio switch with a sharp click.

  Trigger didn’t wait for an answer. The revolver snapped up; the laziness vanished into lethal speed.

  “You must be the golden boy,” he drawled. “No one else taps a Niche that easy outside the two organizations.”

  Three brutal impacts landed in quick succession.

  THUMP! A glowing blue round slammed into Lior’s chest, the dull force stealing his breath.

  THUMP! Another cracked into his ribs, rattling bone but not drawing blood.

  THUMP! The last buried itself dead center in his sternum, leaving only a searing shock behind.

  “AGHHH!” The cry ripped from him as he folded, air crushed from his lungs. Every breath burned like glass. The asphalt met his knees before he even realized he’d fallen.

  Smoke drifted over him — slow, unhurried. Trigger stood above, revolver still raised, the faint hiss of its barrel the only sound left in the world.

  “…Don’t collapse yet, boy.” His tone was almost calm, mocking in its mercy. “These are the non-lethal rounds.”

  He tilted the revolver just enough for the ember of his cigarette to glow across his grin.

  “Means I can keep playin’ until they tell me your fate.”

  Lior tried to move, but his body wouldn’t listen. His pulse roared in his ears; his vision dimmed.

  Ayasha lay motionless beside the dumpster.

  Cael didn’t rise.

  One man had brought them all to their knees.

  The weight of it pressed down until even the night felt heavy.

  End of Chapter 5

  Lior tasted what power feels like… and what it takes away.