Silent Gods

The forensic van arrived in front of the shop, the doors opening with the usual metallic sound, the team stepping out in white suits, gloves, instrument cases. Cassandra

watched them from a distance, standing beside Leo on the sidewalk, as she signed the scene handover form to Cross.

— I want everything combed through. — Her voice left no room for interpretation, as she returned the tablet to Cross. — Every drawer, every panel, every inch of wall. If there's

a false bottom, a hidden compartment, a cavity behind the plaster, I want it found before nightfall.

— Understood, Director. — Cross nodded, already issuing orders to the team behind him. — Full search. Move.

She didn't notice, among the six figures who stepped out of the van, that a seventh had joined the group only at the last block — an identical suit, a pass photocopied with

maniacal care, a step that blended in with the others with the ease of someone who had studied every movement for weeks.

— Full team? — Cross asked, scrolling through the list on his tablet.

— Full team — answered a female voice from the group, low, professional, indistinguishable from the others.

Cassandra didn't even look at her. Her mind was elsewhere — on the lock of hair sealed in an evidence bag, on Ksenia, on Rhea, alone in a cell miles away.

The team dispersed methodically throughout the shop, each with an assigned sector. Two agents dismantled the decorative panels along the walls. A third lifted the floorboards

near the counter. A fourth figure knelt in front of the ink shelf, emptying every flask into a sterile container.

The seventh figure moved toward the worktable with a calm step. She bent over her instrument case, gloved fingers moving with surgical precision as she pretended to catalog

the contents of a drawer — but beneath the raised lid of the case, hidden from every glance, her hand slipped inside her suit, into a pocket sewn specifically beneath the white fabric.

From it, she pulled a tattoo machine. The metal body was dull, worn from use, and on the needle tip a dark residue, now dry, had crusted between the micro-grooves of the

mechanism — blood, days old, that no superficial cleaning had been able to fully remove.

With a fluid gesture, almost invisible to the eyes of anyone not watching exactly at that point, the figure placed the machine among the other instruments already collected on

the evidence tray, next to Rhea's authentic machines lined up awaiting cataloging — one more object among many, indistinguishable at first glance, which would be

photographed, labeled, and entered into the report as if it had always belonged to that worktable.

— Find anything here? — Cross asked, passing by the table with his tablet in hand.

— Only standard equipment. — The figure's voice remained flat, professional, eyes downcast on her task. — I'm cataloging and photographing it like the others.

Cross nodded and moved on, suspecting nothing.

— Let's go back to base. — Cassandra turned to Leo, her voice already projecting forward, toward the next step. — I want the DNA results on the lock of hair within an hour,

and I want a full report on everything they find here.

— Understood. — Leo followed her to the car.

She didn't see the seventh forensic figure raise her gaze for an instant from her task, follow Cassandra with her eyes as she got back into the car, and then return, with glacial

calm, to photographing the machine just placed — one final piece of evidence, perfect, ready to be found, which would point straight at Rhea as soon as someone thought to

check the DNA on the needle tip.

---

The FOID operations base buzzed with the usual activity — agents coming and going from offices, the constant hum of servers, the flow of uniforms and badges. It was in this

orderly stream that a white forensic suit, the hood still up, the instrument case clutched in one hand, crossed through the secondary entrance with a pass that seemed perfectly in order.

No one stopped her. No one had reason to.

Cassandra was in her office, bent over the tablet with Leo, her eyes fixed on the lab's preliminary results, when a notification flashed at the top of the screen — an attachment

from the evidence department, marked as a cataloging anomaly.

— Leo, look at this.

Leo leaned over the tablet, his eyes scanning the report quickly. — A tattoo machine, recovered from the worktable in Rhea's shop. Blood traces on the needle tip, still to be

typed. — His voice slowed, his brow furrowing. — But it doesn't appear in the original list of instruments photographed upon the team's entry. It's not among those Cross had listed at the start of the search.

Cassandra felt a cold shiver run down her spine.

— It appeared from nowhere. No one saw it enter the shop, no one photographed it at the start. It only appeared in the final report, among the confiscated items.

It was then that Cole, one of the technical analysts from the lab, knocked on the office's glass door, a printed report clutched in his hand, the expression of someone who

doesn't quite know how to phrase what he's about to say.

— Director, sorry for the intrusion. — Cole entered without waiting for permission, setting the report on the desk. — I checked the digital cataloging logs three times before

coming here, because what I'm about to tell you makes no logical sense.

— Tell me.

— Every confiscated item is photographed and tagged with a timestamp at the exact moment it's found, before it's even moved — it's standard protocol, meant to guarantee the

chain of custody. — Cole pointed to a line on the report. — The machine with blood traces has no entry timestamp consistent with any of the agents present on the scene. It

appears in the final report, but none of the six team members have a log attesting to its discovery.

— Six members? — Cassandra looked up sharply. — Wasn't the team seven?

Cole checked the report, his brow furrowing further. — On the mission assignment sheet, six agents were assigned, Director. Cross confirmed six at the time of the scene's

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closure. But on the external surveillance footage of the van, when it arrived at the shop, seven stepped out.

The silence in the office suddenly grew dense, charged with a weight none of the three dared yet name aloud.

— It's impossible — Cole said, his voice betraying a growing unease. — It makes no sense. Either the initial count was wrong, or someone inserted themselves into the team

without authorization, planted contaminated evidence, and left without anyone noticing. But an infiltration like that, inside a FOID-controlled scene, with badges verified at the

entrance... simply shouldn't be able to happen.

Cassandra shot up from her chair, her breath catching in her throat as the pieces slowly began to fit into a pattern she didn't like at all.

— Leo. The drone footage in front of Rhea's shop. The asymmetrical gait Nyx was reanalyzing.

Leo looked up, the color draining from his face as the same conclusion formed in his mind.

— You think it was her. That Piper infiltrated our forensics team directly.

— I think — Cassandra said, her voice turning cold, definitive — that someone just planted contaminated evidence with Danny Marsh's blood right on Rhea's worktable, and

that person knew exactly how to move among us without being noticed.

Cole stepped back slightly, his gaze moving from Cassandra to Leo, the gravity of the situation finally registering on his face.

— Director, if you're right... then whoever it is has already proven they can enter any FOID-controlled scene simply by wearing the right uniform.

Cassandra was already moving toward the door, the tablet abandoned on the desk, her mind racing far beyond the lab, far beyond that office.

— Alert base security. Now.

---

A figure in white was crossing the main corridor, heading toward the east wing. Toward the cells.

Cassandra froze, her eyes following that step with an attention she couldn't yet explain. There was something wrong — not in the clothing, not in the pass swinging around her neck. In the step.

A minimal asymmetry. The left foot touching the ground at a slightly different angle from the right, a nearly imperceptible crack in the otherwise regular rhythm of the walk.

Her blood ran cold.

— Leo. — Her voice came out choked, her hand gripping Leo's wrist with sudden force. — Piper's file. The left ankle fracture. Look at that woman.

Leo looked up, followed the direction of Cassandra's finger, and the color drained from his face in an instant.

— Director, that's not part of our forensics team. Cross just confirmed the team returned to the lab twenty minutes ago. The whole team.

Cassandra was already on her feet, the chair falling over behind her, her hand instinctively reaching for the holster at her belt.

— The cells. She's heading toward the cells.

---

Rhea sat on the bench in her cell, knees pulled to her chest. Nyx stood guard nearby, leaning against the wall beside the corridor, her eyes scrolling bored through a report on her tablet.

She didn't see the figure in white approach until it was too late.

The blow came sharp, calculated — the butt of a gun striking the back of Nyx's neck with a precision that betrayed years of training. Nyx crumpled to the floor without a sound,

the tablet skidding noisily across the concrete floor.

Rhea shot to her feet, her heart exploding in her chest.

— Nyx!

The figure pulled off her hood with a slow, almost theatrical gesture, revealing a face Rhea recognized instantly — the high cheekbones, the sunken eyes, the thin scar on the

right eyebrow, now framed by an expression that no longer held anything of the girl she remembered.

— Hi, Rhea. — Piper's voice was calm, almost affectionate, the gun rising with a steady hand to aim straight through the bars. — It's been a while.

— Piper... — Rhea stepped back instinctively, her back hitting the cold wall of the cell, her hands raised before her in a useless gesture of defense. — Piper, wait, we can talk—

— I've waited long enough. — Piper's finger tightened on the trigger, her eyes gleaming with something both sharp and broken at once. — I've waited months, Rhea.

— It's not what you think—

— FREEZE!

Cassandra's voice exploded in the corridor, her gun already drawn, aimed with both hands as she advanced quickly toward the cells, Leo a step behind her with his weapon equally ready.

Piper spun around, but didn't lower her gun. Instead, she steadied it further, her attention divided between Cassandra and Rhea with the coldness of someone who had already

calculated every possible outcome.

— Director Hale. — A crooked smile, devoid of warmth, curved her lips. — I knew you'd come. I saw you take her away in handcuffs this morning, you know? I thought: what

attentive protection. I wonder if at night you also fuck her in bed.

— Piper, lower your weapon. — Cassandra's voice was controlled, professional, but Leo, at her side, could feel the tension vibrating beneath the surface like a rope stretched to

its limit. — It doesn't have to end this way.

— Yes, it does. — Piper's fingers tightened further on the trigger, the barrel remaining aimed straight at Rhea, motionless behind the bars. — It should have ended this way a

long time ago. I just kept putting it off, kept hoping you'd understand on your own what you broke. But you keep rebuilding your life, Rhea. You keep finding someone to love

while I rotted alone with what you left inside me. With my sister's death on top of it.

Rhea had curled into the farthest corner of the cell, her body trembling uncontrollably, her eyes fixed on the gun barrel aimed at her through the bars. She couldn't move. She

couldn't do anything but stay there, still, her breath caught in her throat, while the fate of her life was decided a few meters away without her having any power to intervene.

— Look at her. — Cassandra's voice grew lower, slower, a desperate attempt to buy seconds, to find an opening. — She's terrified, Piper. Whatever Rhea did to you years ago,

this won't bring it back. It won't give you peace.

— I don't want peace. — Piper's smile cracked into something rawer, truer. — I want her to feel what I felt. I want her to know what it's like to lose everything because of someone you love.

It was in that fraction of a second — Piper's attention fully focused on Rhea's face, her grip on the gun tightening in preparation for the shot — that Cassandra moved.

She lunged forward without a thought for her own safety, her body colliding with Piper's with all the weight and speed she could muster, the two women crashing to the floor in a

tangle of arms and legs as the gun fired a shot that lost itself in the ceiling in an explosion of plaster and dust.

— NO! — Rhea's scream tore through the cell room air, her hands gripping the bars until her knuckles went white, her body throwing itself against the cold metal in an instinctive and useless attempt to reach Cassandra. — CASS!

On the floor, Cassandra and Piper struggled for control of the weapon, body against body, the force of desperation making Piper surprisingly fierce despite her small frame. An

elbow struck Cassandra's jaw, a knee drove into her ribs, but she didn't release her grip on Piper's wrist, keeping the gun barrel aimed away from both of them with all the strength she had left.

— Leo! — she managed to shout, her voice strained with effort. — The cell, open the cell, get her out of here!

Leo rushed to the control panel, his fingers trembling as he typed the emergency code, but Rhea didn't move from the bars even when the mechanism clicked with a metallic hum — her eyes glued to the struggle on the floor, her heart hammering so hard it hurt.

It was in that moment of distraction, as Leo tried to reach her, that Piper found the strength for one last violent jerk, the gun barrel freeing itself for a fraction of a second from Cassandra's grip and firing.

The shot exploded in the enclosed air of the cell room with a deafening roar.

Cassandra felt the bullet before she saw it — a burning impact in her left thigh, the pain exploding along her leg like liquid fire, her knees giving way for an instant as a scream choked in her throat.

— CASSANDRA!

Rhea's scream was no longer just fear. It was something deeper, more wrenching — the sound of a heart breaking in real time, watching that woman collapse on a cold floor

with blood beginning to darken the fabric of her pants.

But Cassandra, even wounded, even with blood pulsing warm down her leg, didn't let go. With one last, desperate surge of strength, she pulled herself on top of Piper, the

woman's wrist pinned beneath her knee, and with a sharp movement tore the weapon from her hand, immediately aiming it at her.

— It's over. — Cassandra's voice came out hoarse, trembling with pain but steady in substance. — It's over, Piper.

Piper lay still beneath her for a long moment, her chest rising and falling in labored breaths, her eyes staring at the ceiling with an empty, defeated expression. Then, slowly, she

stopped struggling, her arms falling limp at her sides in surrender.

Leo was beside them in an instant, the handcuffs clicking around Piper's wrists with a definitive metallic snap, as other agents, drawn by the gunshot, burst into the cell room with weapons drawn.

But Rhea saw nothing but Cassandra — slumped on the floor, her hand pressed against her bleeding thigh, her face contorted in pain but her eyes immediately seeking hers

through the now-open cell.

— Cass— Rhea rushed out of the cell, her legs almost giving way beneath her, and dropped to her knees beside Cassandra, her hands trembling too much to be truly useful as

they tried to press on the wound. — Cass, stay with me, look at me, stay with me—

— I'm okay. — Cassandra's voice was tight with pain, but a hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she raised a hand to touch Rhea's face, leaving a streak of blood

on her pale cheek. — I told you. No one was going to hurt you.

Rhea pressed Cassandra's hand against her own face as if it were the only real thing left in a world that, for an instant, had threatened to take everything from her.

— It's all my fault — Rhea's voice was broken — Cass, it's all my fault.

— Shut up. — Cassandra closed her eyes for an instant, the pain beginning to grow sharper now that the adrenaline was starting to fade, but the hand holding Rhea's didn't let go for a second.

Around them, the cell room quickly filled with medical personnel, shouted orders, the bustling commotion that always follows violence — but for Rhea, in that moment, only

Cassandra's heartbeat beneath her fingers existed, the undeniable and desperately precious proof that, despite everything, she was still alive.