Zev stopped shaking.
That was how they knew it was getting worse.
He sat bound to the chair they'd bolted into the factory floor, wrists locked, ankles secured, chest rising too slowly. His eyes were open—but empty, staring past rusted beams and flickering lights, past everyone in the room.
Too quiet.
Surgien watched him like a live grenade.
"Zev," he said cautiously..
"Talk to me."
No response.
Rue shifted uneasily.
"I don't like this. He's not dissociating—he's compressing."
Circe checked the readings again, fingers trembling.
"Neural activity just… flattened. Like he shut something off."
Spectr's jaw tightened.
"Or like something else took the wheel."
Zev's lips moved.
"…Eli," he whispered.
Everyone froze.
"…Mara."
His breathing sped up.
"I told you i'd Save you..," he said softly.
"Yet, i couldn't do anything."
Surgien stepped closer.
"Zev. Wake up, They're gone. It wasn't your fault"
That word.
Gone.
Zev laughed.
Not broken this time.
Clear.
"No," he said calmly.
"They're still here."
The air thickened.
Metal creaked as if stressed by unseen weight. Dust lifted from the floor, hovering unnaturally.
"They were screaming," Zev continued, voice steady, horrifyingly controlled.
"They screamed every time I blink."
Rue backed away a step.
"Spectr—"
The restraints shrieked.
Not snapped.
Bent.
Zev's muscles swelled, veins darkening under his skin like something was rewriting him from the inside out. His teeth clenched so hard blood ran down his chin.
"I should've torn them apart," he growled.
"All of them. Slowly."
Surgien moved instantly, slamming a second suppressor into Zev's neck.
It did nothing.
Zev's head snapped up.
His eyes weren't human anymore.
"I'm not done," he said.
The chair ripped free from the floor.
Spectr fired a containment round—direct hit. The shockwave blasted outward, smashing crates, shattering windows.
Zev roared.
This time, the sound answered itself.
Somewhere outside the factory, engines stalled. Dogs howled. Gangs scattering in the streets felt it in their bones—that instinctive terror prey animals feel when a predator wakes.
Circe screamed,
"He's destabilizing the structure! We have to—"
Zev lunged.
Chains snapped.
Rue was thrown across the room, slamming into a pillar. Surgien barely rolled aside as claws tore through steel where his head had been.
Spectr braced himself, weapons discarded.
"ZEV!" he shouted.
"THIS ISN'T YOU!"
Zev paused.
For half a second.
Something flickered behind his eyes—pain, recognition, the ghost of who he was.
Then it drowned.
"They deserved mercy," Zev snarled.
"This world doesn't get it."
He turned toward the exit.
Toward the gangs.
Toward the district.
Surgien pushed himself up, blood running down his temple.
"If he leaves this building," he said grimly,
"this becomes a massacre."
Spectr activated the comms again, voice sharp with urgency.
"Netoshka—he's lost control. I repeat, Zev has snapped."
Static.
Then her voice—cold, focused, dangerous.
> "Hold him."
A pause.
> "I'm almost there."
Zev stepped into the moonlight spilling through the broken roof.
His silhouette twisted—wrong angles, too sharp, too large.
He inhaled.
And smiled.
"Let them come,... Grrrr i can't take it anymore.." he whispered.
Outside, alarms finally began to scream.
And the hunt turned into a slaughter, if he had the chance to get what he wanted..