Mira woke first.
It wasn't clean.
Her breath hitched against the gag, sharp and choked. Every part of her screamed. Shoulder, jaw, leg, the wet socket where her ear had been. The hood over her face stuck to dried blood, every breath pulling copper and cloth down her throat. Her wrists burned. Her ankles throbbed. Bound tight. No leverage. No escape.
She twisted. Not to flee. Just to know she still could. The motion cost her. Pain rolled through her ribs in pulsing waves.
Across the chamber, Warren didn't speak. He just watched.
Not stalking. Not looming.
Waiting.
Wren stood nearby, quiet. Her pipe was across her shoulders. Her eyes met Warren's.
"She's awake."
"I know."
Wren stepped forward, but Warren raised a hand. Not a stop. A boundary.
"You don't want to be here for this."
Wren didn't move. "I can handle it."
"I know you can." He stepped past the line of captives, slow, deliberate. "But you shouldn't have to."
She hesitated. Her fingers twitched. Her weight shifted.
Then Styll moved.
The small creature circled Wren once and tugged gently on her pant leg. Just once. Then stopped.
Wren's jaw set.
She gave one last glance to Mira's hooded form, then turned toward the Vault. "Don't take too long."
"I won't."
Wren moved. She didn't look back.
Warren waited until the sound of her footsteps faded into silence.
Then he crouched beside Mira.
"Here's how this works."
He spoke calmly. Like reading a manual. "You give me answers. Real ones. And you die fast. You lie, or waste my time, and you die slow. There's no mercy coming. Not from me. Not from her."
He removed her hood carefully. Her skin was pale. Her remaining eye wide, shaking.
"You were part of a squad sent to lock this Vault down."
She didn't respond.
Without a word, Warren rose, drew the hand lance from his coat, and turned. One step took him to Dray. He didn't look down. Didn't warn. He aimed and fired into the man's knee.
The shot was a tight, shattering crack. Bone split. Ligament tore. Dray's muffled scream behind the gag was raw and immediate.
Mira flinched. Her breath hitched. Panic bloomed.
Warren stepped back to her.
"Next one is his big toe. Then his thumb. Then an ear. I can do this all day. I've got about two hundred ways to wound him that won't kill before he dies from blood loss, and four more of them right behind him. You're wasting my time."
Mira's breath came faster. She didn't cry. Not yet. But her body recoiled, instinct drawing her inward like a folding blade. The eye that remained darted toward the muffled whimpers from Dray's direction, then back to Warren.
She believed him. Not just the words. The tone. The stillness. The precision.
Whatever he was about to do, it wouldn't be wild. It would be deliberate.
And it would take a very long time.
He pressed a knee against her sternum and leaned close. Not to whisper.
Just to be felt.
"Tell me what your team knew. What your warlord wants. Tell me why he sent people to sabotage every route in."
She tried to look away.
Warren pulled the gag free and waited. No threat. No rush.
Mira coughed. Blood spat through split lips. Her voice rasped low. "He said we weren't supposed to open it. Just keep everyone else from trying."
Warren didn't blink. "Why?"
Mira swallowed hard. "He found... something. Another site. Not this one. It burned. Not from traps or defenses. The System reacted: flags, bounties, overrides. He said it was a warning. This Vault is older, cleaner. He doesn't want it touched until he controls the fallout."
Warren tilted his head.
"What makes you think he'll ever be ready?"
"He's not trying to open it," she whispered. "He's trying to own it."
Warren stood.
He didn't speak.
He reached into his coat.
And for the others, he gave silence. One clean strike. Quick. Final.
She hadn't lied.
Warren ended her without hesitation. Then turned to the next one. The real work was just beginning.
Warren didn't bother wiping the blood from his face.
He moved down the line.
The next captive was Neris.
She was already awake.
He knew because she was holding her breath.
Her body was still, too still. Muscles braced. Waiting. As if she could make herself invisible by will alone.
He crouched beside her and removed the hood.
Neris blinked fast, her face already streaked with dried tears and dust. Blood had caked across her temple where Styll's claws had raked her scalp. Her mouth was gagged. Her hands trembled.
But she didn't beg.
Warren stared at her for a long moment.
"You were their medic," he said. "You stabilized Valk after the choke-point collapse. You held position in the left flank and tried to reach Rusk when the mist came down. I found the reports in their pack while they were fucking."
Her pupils widened.
He was right.
Warren removed the gag, slow.
"You're going to tell me everything. Not because you want to. Because I want you to. And if you're good and tell me everything I ask, you get the same as her." He nodded towards Mira's still cooling corpse.
She spat at his feet. Blood and saliva.
"You're just another killer."
Warren didn't blink. He didn't strike her.
He reached into his coat and pulled out the garrote, hers, looped neatly, handles clean.
He held it up.
"No," he said. "You're just another killer. And I'm happy to see you chose the fun option."
Then he stood slowly.
And began his work.
He didn't speak. He worked.
He removed her boot. Her sock. He took the smallest toe and crushed it with the flat of a rusted multitool. Then the next. She screamed through the gag. He let her breathe.
The thumb came off next. Not all at once. He started at the joint, testing how much tension it could take. It tore slower than he expected. The blood was bright.
He cauterized it with the butt of the lance.
She thrashed. He tied her again. Firmer. More controlled.
He slit her palm open from wrist to base and peeled it until tendons glinted.
Styll circled. Quiet. Not biting. Just watching.
Warren broke her kneecap with a pipe clamp. Just enough to shift it. Not destroy it. Pain taught faster than screams.
He removed the garrote again. Showed her how he would've used it. Where it would go. What pressure it took to cause someone to sit at the edge of unconsciousness without death.
Then he showed her how to use it properly to keep the performance at the right tempo.
He worked on her calf. Muscles could be opened without killing. He traced the edges with one of their blades. He never liked blades, never trusted them. But for this, they were the right instrument to use on his canvas.
She passed out twice. He brought her back with water. Then with pain.
He broke three fingers with a piece of pipe he picked from Mira's blood trail.
He left her face untouched.
Until she stopped struggling. Until her breathing changed.
Then he crouched beside her again. Calm. Composed. A faint smile on his face.
Neris didn't look at him with fear.
She looked at him without hope.
He leaned in close. His voice didn't rise above a whisper.
"This could be over," he said. "If you just give me what I want."
His breath touched her ear. Measured. Even.
"I have all the time in the world."
Neris didn't speak right away. Her mouth moved, dry and trembling. For a moment it seemed she might pass out again.
Then...
"He didn't trust the System," she rasped. "Not fully. Said it couldn't see this place, but if someone chipped stepped through the threshold, it would learn. React."
She coughed, a wet, broken sound. "Valk had a dampener, not a key. It was designed to delay exposure. A few hours maybe. Enough to grab whatever is in there and pull back. But he wasn't going to use it, not until we knew no one else was coming."
Her head lolled. She looked at the stone floor.
"That's all I know. That's why we waited. Why we didn't breach. He said if the System saw it might erase us."
Warren drew the lance without ceremony. Stepped forward. Placed the barrel gently against her temple.
Neris didn't flinch.
She looked up at him with something close to gratitude.
He pulled the trigger.
Quick. Precise.
The silence that followed was not relief. It was punctuation.
He stepped toward the shuddering form next in the line.
Dray was next.
Not because he deserved it more.
Because he was useless.
The scream Warren had ripped from his knee earlier had reduced the man to a sobbing ruin. His jaw hung lopsided. His teeth were a shattered memory. The gag still stretched across his ruined mouth, soaked in blood and saliva.
Warren didn't ask questions. He didn't crouch. He didn't need to.
He stood over the man. Looked down at what was left.
Dray tried to speak.
All that came out was a wet groan, muffled by what was left of his tongue.
Warren waited. Just for a moment.
Then he pulled the gag down.
Dray coughed blood. Tried to form words. They didn't come.
Warren stared. Not angry. Not even disappointed.
"Can't answer," he said flatly. "Not your fault."
He raised the lance.
Dray didn't fight. His body twitched. Reflex. Nothing more.
Warren hesitated.
Just a breath.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
It wasn't a joke. Wasn't mockery. Dray had done his job. Fought until he couldn't. Took what was given and kept the others distracted. Even his silence now was useful.
Warren pulled the trigger.
Dray's eye, the one not swollen shut, flicked once. A pulse of what might've been relief.
The shot ended it. A clean burst. One less breath.
For just a moment, Dray looked thankful. Not for forgiveness. For the end.
Warren didn't watch him fall. He was already looking past him.
Toward Rusk.
Toward what came next.
Rusk trembled before he even touched her.
Warren removed the hood slowly. Her eyes were already open. Red. Raw.
She didn't scream. Not like the others. She shook. Soft, panicked breaths pulsed through her nose under the gag. Tears cut clean lines down her filthy cheeks.
He crouched beside her. Quiet. Still.
And then pulled the gag down.
She didn't speak at first. Her jaw moved like it wanted to break free of her face.
"I have a daughter," she said. Her voice cracked hard. "Please. I have a baby girl. She's going to be the Warlord's if I don't make it back."
Warren's face didn't change.
"Tasina," she said. "Her name is Tasina."
He looked at her. Then looked at Wren, across the chamber. She wasn't watching. But she didn't need to be. He thought of her father. The weight. The silence that followed was heavy.
He turned back.
"You want mercy. But you forgot your mission to fuck Valk in a vault chamber your squad was meant to protect."
She shook her head, frantic. "It was one time, we were...."
"You want to live for her? Then you should've been trying to survive."
"I am."
Warren was quiet.
He didn't believe her.
But for some reason he didn't understand, he said, "If I make it to the Warlord, and if she is still breathing, I'll make sure your daughter knows you loved her."
She choked out a sob. Tried to bow her head. Couldn't.
Warren's voice dropped to steel.
"But if you really did, if that love meant anything, maybe I'd be the one cooling on the floor right now. And Valk would've done his damn job."
She flinched. Couldn't argue.
He tilted his head.
"Valk her father?"
She nodded.
Then added, like it slipped past every defense, "We were trying for another."
Warren didn't react. Not visibly. But something in the air shifted.
She broke.
"We talked about it. After this, if we made it out, we were going to try again. We weren't supposed to love each other, but we did. We thought if we gave the Warlord what he wanted, we could... earn something back. A life. Something more than survival."
Across the room, Valk thrashed violently, gagged screams muffled but unmistakable. It wasn't anger. It was grief.
The sound echoed with the kind of heartbreak Warren had no words for.
He watched Rusk, and, for a flicker, saw her as more than what she'd failed to be.
Almost enough.
Almost.
"Did he send anyone else?"
"No," she said. "They don't know. We didn't leave any marks. No call signs. Without the map, they won't even know where we checked. He sent us because we were clean. Off-book."
Warren didn't move.
He just whispered, "You chose to die clean at least."
He moved in even closer and said, "You will be remembered."
She gasped, voice cracking with urgency. "Wait. Please..."
Warren paused.
"I know I don't deserve it," Rusk said, breath coming shallow. "But my daughter does. Tasina's just a child. Four years old. She's got no one but her uncle. Valk's kid brother. Mel. He's barely more than a kid himself."
Her words tumbled fast, frantic. "He's trying. He's good. He watches her best he can. Keeps her hidden. But if I don't come back, if the Warlord claims her..."
Warren's eyes didn't narrow. His expression didn't shift.
But something moved beneath the stillness. Not guilt. Not empathy. Something colder. Older. Duty.
He remembered fire.
He remembered Mara, standing between him and a soldier three times her size. Swinging a wrench like a blade. Bleeding from the scalp. Hands torn. And still she didn't move. She fought to give him time. To give him a chance.
Not because he deserved saving.
Because she had chosen to save him.
And he'd lived.
Rusk kept talking. Not sobbing. Pleading.
"Please. If I can't protect her... don't let her be alone. Don't let her fall too."
Her eyes locked to his.
"Don't let Mel fall either."
Warren didn't speak.
But the Six Lines echoed in his mind. Not as creed. Not as belief.
As Mara's voice:
"Hold what breaks, even if it cuts you."
"Leave nothing behind you that poisons what comes next."
"Be worth remembering."
She had never asked him to be kind. She had told him to protect what was his and the innocent ones the world had forsaken.
She had asked him to endure. To carry what others dropped. To make the pain worth something.
He looked down at Rusk.
She was already fading. Her body wrecked. Her voice gone hoarse. But her eyes...
Her eyes didn't leave his.
He gave her a nod.
Tiny. Final.
"I'll find them. I will do everything I can to make sure they know you loved them"
A breath left her, shaky. Relieved. Not happy. Just less afraid.
Warren leaned close.
"This doesn't change what has to happen."
"I know," she whispered.
He didn't hesitate.
He stepped away and turned.
He looked at Valk.
And pulled the trigger.
One shot.
Clean.
Thatch was already awake.
He hadn't screamed like the others. He hadn't begged.
He just watched. Silent. Still. Waiting.
When Warren removed the hood, Thatch didn't flinch. His face was pale, blood drying around his mouth, his nose flattened from an earlier strike. But his eyes were alive. Burning with something more than pain.
Rage.
Not at Warren.
At Valk.
Warren knelt. Said nothing.
Thatch's voice was hoarse when it came. "You want to know what we were told?"
Warren didn't nod. Just listened.
"We were supposed to breach. Valk had the dampener. It would've given us hours. Let us move inside without triggering System visibility. It wasn't about safety. It was about staying invisible. So nothing we found got flagged. No bounty markers. No data logs. Just a clean sweep.
But he didn't even test it. Didn't activate it. Said it would be fine. Said no one would notice.
He just wanted alone time."
His lip curled, cracked with dried blood.
"He let it all rot. Let her rot. Rusk. Mira. Neris. Dray. All of them. Because he couldn't keep it in his pants."
Warren waited.
"I was his friend." The words came slower now. "Since we were kids. Since we were nothing. I covered him every time he froze. Made excuses when he forgot call-ins. Swore to the Warlord he was ready. I thought he was just tired. But this?"
His eyes were wet now. But he wasn't crying. Not exactly.
"He got us killed. All of us. For what?"
He coughed, jaw tight. "We weren't even supposed to try and open it. Just log the structure. But I was on the team that opened the first Vault. I know how these things work."
Warren's eyes flicked down. He said nothing.
"There's a password," Thatch said. "Hardcoded. Old world fail-safe. Buried in the entryway. You don't brute force it. You say it."
He wheezed, coughed blood. "The name of the world. That's the key. That's how the first one opened."
Warren still didn't speak.
Thatch turned his head, as much as the ties would allow.
"If you're gonna end it, use his lance."
Warren's brow lifted slightly.
"He might as well have done it himself."
Across the chamber, Valk watched. Bound. Bloodshot. Broken. He thrashed once, but it was weak. Like even the strength to scream had left him.
Warren stood. Walked to the gear pile. Picked up Valk's lance.
Thatch looked up at him, jaw set.
"Thank you," he rasped.
Warren nodded once.
Then did as asked.
He looked at Valk.
He pulled the trigger.
Valk made no sound.
There was nothing left in him to break.
Only one remained.
Valk watched it all.
He didn't thrash anymore.
Didn't scream. Couldn't. His throat had gone raw hours ago. The gag was soaked. His wrists were bleeding from where the zip-ties had bit into his skin. His eyes, once sharp, once smug, were empty now.
They had begged him not to slack. Not to leave comms dark. Not to take risks. He had.
He'd said it would be fine.
He thought they'd have time.
But now Dray was gone. Mira. Neris. Thatch. Rusk.
Gone because of him.
He closed his eyes.
Dray. The wall at his back. A joke on his tongue. Always the first to charge and the last to sleep. He'd taken a blade to the ribs once just to drag Valk clear. The way he always made things feel survivable, no matter how fucked it was.
Neris. Leaned against the scaffolds, her smile lopsided. Fire in her bones. She'd patched his shoulder after the Fall River breach and told him to stop bleeding like an amateur. She hummed when she worked. Always off-key.
Mira. The quiet voice that always cut through panic. A steadying hand. A whisper of "I got you." She once talked him down from a full collapse in the tunnels. Kept her hand on his back for two hours until he stopped shaking.
Thatch. His oldest friend. Fought with him. Fought for him. Covered his mistakes without asking. The kind of brother loyalty didn't have to explain. The kind who never asked for thanks. Who bled for you even when he knew you'd messed up.
And in the end, it was Valk's own lance that ended him. The same weapon Thach gave him when he told him he was going to be an uncle . The one Thatch had once fixed when Valk broke the scope.
It hadn't been spite. It had been clarity. Thatch had understood exactly what kind of punishment would last longer than pain. Letting Valk live long enough to realize what it meant. That he had taken the man who stood for him and turned that loyalty into execution.
That would be Valk's hell. Not the death. The knowing.
And Rusk. Gods... Rusk.
Her laughter in the early watch. Her fingers on his jaw. The way she always checked his weapons herself. Her voice when she'd said they could be a family. That they had to make it home. How she'd tell Tasina stories about the stars even though they couldn't see them.
He remembered her sleeping against his chest in the ruins of Westbank. Cold night. She'd hummed the lullaby she planned to teach their daughter.
He saw them all. Not in blood. Not in pain.
In the quiet. The soft.
And then he saw Mel. That dumb haircut. Always asking questions. Trying so hard to be brave. The kid who insisted on carrying a blade too big for him just to "look official." Who looked up to him like he was invincible.
Then Tasina. Laughing in a ruined hallway, hiding under a threadbare blanket. Four years old and already surviving. Her tiny voice saying his name. Her tiny hands reaching up.
He couldn't save them. But someone had to.
And Warren had promised.
The Yellow Jacket didn't speak as he walked over. Didn't drag it out. He crouched slowly in front of Valk, face unreadable.
Valk tried to hold his gaze but his eyes trembled.
"You made yourself the center of a mission that wasn't about you," Warren said. "You risked five lives to feel important."
Valk's shoulders shook. Not in protest. In shame.
Warren reached forward and pulled the gag down.
Valk coughed blood. His lips split when he tried to speak.
"I loved her," he rasped.
Warren's voice didn't change. "Then you should've fought for her the right way."
"She was pregnant," Valk whispered. "She didn't know for sure yet, but... we were trying. She said we'd leave all this behind head deeper into the wilds. When this was over. Maybe start a town out there."
"You made sure that never happened," Warren said flatly.
Valk broke. His body sagged against the wall. His voice cracked like brittle wood. "Please. Don't let our daughter fall. Don't let Mel..."
Warren cut him off. "I already made that promise. She earned it. You didn't."
Tears ran from Valk's eyes. He didn't wipe them. Couldn't.
"I wanted to protect them," Valk said. "I just... I thought I had time."
"No one has time," Warren said. "That's the point."
He stood.
Valk didn't plead again. He didn't look away.
He just whispered, "Make it clean."
Warren raised the lance.
And made it clean.
Warren stood looking at his work. He had gotten what he wanted.
Now the world felt still.
The mistakes that were made had given him a chance to seize this opportunity.
He clenched his fists as he turned toward the Vault.
A whisper surfaced, Mara's voice, not memory, but momentum.
"Protect what's yours. And the innocent ones the world had forsaken."
It wasn't comfort. It was command.
He nodded once, to no one.
The Last Kindness waited for him.