Chapter 238: The New Field Operations.
The system wouldn’t let up.
[You need to pull yourself together.]
Its voice sliced through my skull like cold steel as I crossed the sun-baked parking lot toward the building. Sherry’s sharp eyes locked onto mine from across the distance, pulling at me even as the argument raged inside.
[You’re running out of time. Get back to the purpose.]
I never left it. I just have a life as well.
[Everything you’re looking for is inside your purpose.]
Sherry smiled, one hand raking through her short brunette hair as I closed the gap. She thought she had all of me. She didn’t. Half my mind was still locked in brutal combat with the system, and I was losing ground.
Fine. You say you have answers. Then tell me who that person was—the one moving through the infected like smoke on the plain before I reached the walls. The one I couldn’t see.
[That was before me. I can’t access it.]
Then stay in your lane and only engage with things actually connected to the purpose.
[Every second of your life is connected to the purpose. And whatever you’re trying to dig up is going to hurt you.]
Hurt me?
I forced a small, convincing smile as I reached Sherry, the golden remnants of sunset still burning across the building’s glass facade.
"Hey you," she said, stepping in close. Her kiss was short, warm, and grounding—exactly what I needed amid the chaos. Soft lips, familiar scent of her skin cutting through the city heat.
"Hey." I kissed her again, lingering a heartbeat longer, letting the contact pull me back into the present. "I missed you."
"Stop it." She smiled, bright and teasing, and laced her fingers through mine. "Where have you been?"
"Government duty," I said as we walked through the doors into the cool, echoing reception area. The sudden shift from blazing sunset to artificial lights felt jarring.
"Really?" Sherry slowed, her eyes scanning my face with new scrutiny. "And who was that girl in the car?"
The question carried a faint, unfamiliar thread of insecurity. It sat uneasily against the storm still raging in my head.
"Venna," I answered evenly. "A friend."
"A friend." She let the word linger like smoke, tasting it, then released it. "Mercury’s been looking for you." She nodded down the corridor where Mercury was already striding toward us with purpose. "By the way, she told me that you told her you fucked me the whole night." Her voice dropped to a husky whisper against my ear. "Last I checked, you just walked me to my apartment door."
"You know Mercury," I said, a tired half-grin forming.
"Mmm." She released my hand with a reluctant squeeze. "Meeting room. New head of field operations wants everyone there." She started ahead, then glanced back over her shoulder, the sunset glow from the windows catching her features. "Love you."
Sinn had warned me the field department would now be run by Monica’s sister. A Veyron was already inside this building, already sinking her teeth into operations. And I was about to walk straight into a room with her.
Mercury slapped Sherry’s backside as she passed in the corridor. Sherry flipped her off without turning around, which only made Mercury grin wider, visibly satisfied. Then Mercury pivoted straight to me, eyes gleaming with mischief.
"Soft," she said, voice low and approving. "Good choice."
"What did you tell her?" I kept my voice low, tension coiling tight in my chest.
"Nothing." Mercury flashed a quick, wicked smile before flipping to dead serious in the same breath. "Where the hell have you been, Bram? I went back to the cemetery to pick you up and you were gone. Sinn was asking for you."
"You have my comms," I said flatly. "A call would’ve solved the whole thing."
"Yeah." She nodded slowly, dragging the word out with practiced sarcasm that had clearly lived in her for years. "Didn’t think of that."
"So what did he actually want?" I asked.
"The team," Mercury said. The word dropped heavy between us, loaded with everything I’d been avoiding. "He wants to start building it. Names, roles, structure—the whole thing."
"We’ll work on it tomorrow," I replied, exhaustion and distraction pulling at my words.
"Sure." She said. "That’s if you’re not busy fucking Sherry all night again." She spun on her heel and sauntered off before I could fire back.
I turned to watch her go. She raised her middle finger high without even turning around—her new signature farewell. It almost pulled a real smile out of me.
I started down the corridor toward the mission room. The building hummed with new energy—government moving fast, footsteps echoing off tiled floors, doors opening and closing with urgent purpose. Everyone was being pointed at objectives I understood far better, and far darker, than any of them.
I drew closer. I had expected a woman’s voice coming from inside, but the one carrying through the open doorway was unmistakably male—low, commanding, laced with that eerie calm that made the air feel heavier. I stopped just outside, back pressed against the cool wall, listening.
I stepped into the doorway and looked.
At the front of the room stood a woman with short, sharp white hair that caught the overhead lights like fresh snow. Her face was striking—elegant, severe, the kind of composed beauty that spoke of decades, maybe centuries, of holding herself together through fire. Monica Veyron’s sister, unmistakably. The family resemblance was carved into the bone structure and the predatory stillness.
And standing right beside her, addressing the assembled agents like he owned the damn place, was Mute.
I stood frozen in the doorway, saying nothing.
Mute. Again.
The pieces slammed together in my mind like a closing trap. Mute at the cemetery among the primordial families. Mute here now, shoulder-to-shoulder with a Veyron, running a briefing for the new government’s field operations like it was the most natural thing in the world.
What the hell is going on?