Chapter 241: Inside the Donmans.
Max Donman pushed open the apartment door and it slammed shut behind him with a violent bang, untouched by human hands.
Ingrid jolted awake on the couch, neck snapping up from the armrest. Her smooth, bald scalp gleamed under the harsh overhead light, eyes squinting against the glare.
"Max." she rasped, trying to shake the sleep from her voice. "What happened?"
His gaze locked onto her, unblinking and flat. "Is there progress?"
She rubbed her face and pushed herself upright. "Where’s Becky?"
He crossed the room in slow, deliberate strides that made the floorboards groan. "I asked you a question, Ingrid."
The fog in Ingrid’s head burned away. She was wide awake now, pulse hammering. "Yes. She’s transforming back."
"Good." He pivoted sharply toward the closed door of the holding room. It flew open on its own—silent, precise, hinges barely whispering like the last breath before a blade falls.
Ingrid watched it happen, her eyes narrowing with unease. She knew what Max could do. But he rarely let it show. When he did, it meant something ugly had been festering beneath the surface, something he could no longer carry in silence.
She reached for her comms, fingers trembling slightly as she pulled up Becky’s number. She didn’t want to be alone with him when he got like this.
The air in the room thickened. A low pressure drop pressed against her eardrums, like the moment before a storm breaks. Max’s shoulders bunched, jaw muscles flexing once, twice—something feral and barely contained rippling beneath his skin.
"INGRID."
She dropped the comms.
***
The specimen sat bound to the metal chair in the center of the holding room, wrists and ankles raw from the restraints. Green veins now pulsed visibly beneath her pale skin, threading like living poison through her arms and crawling up her neck toward her jaw. The infection was spreading exactly as designed. She was still human enough to feel every second of it.
"Please," she kept whispering, voice hoarse and broken. "Please let me go."
"Why did you feed her?" Max asked, staring at the writhing green veins rather than at Ingrid.
"She was hungry," Ingrid answered from the doorway, keeping her distance.
"You expect her to transform while you keep treating her like a person?" He turned slowly. The stare he leveled at Ingrid was bottomless.
"Please." The girl again, voice cracking into a sob.
"SHUT UP."
The room plunged into absolute, suffocating silence. The girl’s mouth slammed shut as though an invisible hand had crushed it closed. Max’s focus returned to Ingrid.
"Why don’t you respect me?"
Ingrid stood frozen in the doorway, throat dry, mind scrambling for the right words. She had followed every protocol Becky gave her. She had watched every twitch and every shift.
"There’s progress, Max," she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. "The green veins mean the infection is taking hold."
Max’s hand twitched upward. The pressure in the room collapsed.
Invisible force slammed into Ingrid like a freight train. It punched the air from her lungs in a single explosive gasp and hurled her backward. Her spine and skull cracked against the drywall with a sickening thud-crack, spiderwebbing the wall outward.
Her feet dangled uselessly several feet off the ground as the telekinetic vise closed around her throat and ribcage, crushing inward with clinical, merciless strength. She felt her ribs bow under the pressure, cartilage grinding.
Her hands flew to her neck, clawing frantically at nothing but her own skin, nails raking red furrows across her throat in desperate, animal panic. Her sneakers scraped and squealed against the wall, leaving black rubber streaks. The only sounds in the tomb-quiet room were the wet, choking gurgles tearing from her chest.
"What haven’t I done?" Max’s voice cracked with raw, trembling fury that had been building far longer than tonight. "I’ve given everything. Everything. And what have I got back?"
Ingrid’s eyes bulged, vision tunneling. Her lungs burned like they were filled with broken glass. She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t even draw enough breath to beg. The accusation wasn’t truly aimed at her—she knew that—but it didn’t stop the invisible hand from squeezing tighter.
The specimen watched from her chair with wide, horrified blue eyes, her whole body trembling as she witnessed her captors tear each other apart in front of her.
Max lowered his hand.
Gravity returned with brutal suddenness. Ingrid dropped like a sack of meat, hitting the cold tiles with a heavy, boneless crack. Pain exploded through her shoulder and hip. She lay crumpled, chest heaving in desperate, wheezing gulps of air, throat raw and bruised, vision swimming.
Max stepped over her without a glance, his boot soles passing inches from her face.
"The infection reaches the walls tomorrow," he said, voice flat and empty again. "Make sure of it." He paused at the doorway, back turned. "And Becky doesn’t hear about this."
He walked into the living room and left her on the floor.
The front door opened a minute later. Becky stepped inside carrying a paper bag, her movement natural, the first time she’d moved without performance in hours.
"Hey." She smiled at Max on the couch. "Thought I’d beat you back."
"Shortcut," Max said. His voice was perfectly level.
Everything about him was level now—the dangerous calm that always settled over him when something had fractured inside and he wasn’t ready to speak about it. He sat with his hands resting on his knees, staring at nothing in particular.
The corridor. Sherry’s words. It all played behind his eyes like a loop he couldn’t stop.
"How did it go with Sherry?" Becky asked, setting the bag on the table and beginning to unpack warm containers.
"Fine."
She glanced at him a beat longer, reading the silence he refused to fill, then let it drop. "Where’s Ingrid?"
Ingrid emerged from the back room a moment later, arms stretching lazily above her head, a carefully constructed smile fixed on her face. The faint red marks on her throat were already fading.
"Hey." Becky looked her over. "You good?"
"Really good," Ingrid said, stepping fully into the living room. Her voice didn’t waver. "You?"
"Good." Becky pulled out steaming containers of food, the savory smell filling the apartment. "Progress?"
"The infection hits the streets tomorrow," Ingrid reported evenly.
Becky stopped mid-motion, a container still in her hands. She looked at Ingrid. Then at Max. Then back to Ingrid. A slow, genuine smile spread across her face, sharp and satisfied.
"What would we do without you," she said softly.
Max said nothing from the couch. He simply sat there—perfectly still, perfectly controlled—while the night pressed heavy against the windows. The city lights glittered outside like distant stars, oblivious.
Whatever they had been building toward for years was finally about to begin. And the walls had no idea what was coming for them.