They carried Eva between them, Leo supporting one side, Maya the other. Her eyes were open now, her breathing steady, but she hadn't spoken since waking. The complete healing—under two minutes—had left her more shaken than any wound. Her body had fixed itself faster than ever before, and she didn't know what that meant.
The bunker's entrance loomed ahead, a dark maw in the jungle's green. They'd made it back. They were safe.
Then they heard the screaming.
It wasn't loud at first—a thin, high sound, muffled by concrete and distance. But it was constant. Unending. The kind of scream that didn't stop because the person screaming couldn't stop.
Lily's head snapped up. Her face went pale—paler than it already was, which was saying something. Her eyes, those blue eyes that had seen too much already, went wide with a fear that was older than this moment.
"What... what is that?" she whispered.
Theo, standing guard at the entrance, moved to her side instinctively. His young face was set in hard lines, but his hand when it touched her shoulder was gentle. "I don't know. But we'll find out together."
Lily leaned into the touch, just slightly. Just enough.
The screaming continued.
---
They found the others in the common area. Derek was propped against a wall, his wounds already closing. Jordan sat nearby, his dislocated arm now back in place, his expression unreadable. Chad stood apart, his weathered face a mask of something that might have been horror.
But Wolfen—
Wolfen emerged from the corridor leading deeper into the bunker. His hands were clean—no blood, no fire—but his eyes held a darkness that made Eva's newly healed skin prickle. Behind him, the screaming grew louder, then muffled as a door closed somewhere in the depths.
He stopped when he saw them. Looked at Eva. At Leo. At Maya. At all of them, one by one, as if confirming they were real.
"You're alive," he said. It wasn't a question.
"Barely," Leo muttered. "Eva fought Superior-1. Alone. For like... ten minutes."
Wolfen's gaze snapped to Eva. Something flickered in those golden depths—surprise, maybe, or something softer. "You fought him?"
"I lost," Eva said quietly.
"You're alive," Wolfen repeated. "That's not losing. That's a miracle."
The screaming started again—louder this time, more desperate. A woman's voice, raw and broken, echoing through the bunker's ventilation.
Lily flinched. Her hand found Theo's, gripping tight. "Who is that? What's happening?"
Wolfen's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. "We need to talk. All of us. In Tube-Eva's room. Now."
---
They gathered in the glass room, the familiar hum of machinery surrounding them. Tube-Eva floated in her prison, her face tired but alert, her eyes moving from face to face, cataloging wounds, assessing damage.
Chad stood near the door, his horror now mixed with something else—determination, maybe, or guilt. Wolfen positioned himself in the center, his arms crossed, his jaw tight.
"Tell us everything," Eva said. "Starting with the screaming."
Wolfen was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was flat—the voice he used when he was holding something back.
"The twin. Charybdis. I brought her here."
The room went still.
"You what?" Maya's voice was sharp, dangerous.
"She's in the lower level. Restrained. Alive." He paused. "Barely."
Derek leaned forward, his expression confused. "Why? Why wouldn't you just... finish it?"
"Because she has information." Wolfen's eyes were fixed on some point in the middle distance. "About my maker. About the twins' origins. About things I need to know before I can end this."
"And the screaming?" Lily's voice was small, but steady.
Wolfen looked at her. For a moment, just a moment, his mask slipped—and she saw what lay beneath. Not cruelty. Not indifference. Something closer to exhaustion. To grief.
"She's in pain. She can't heal like you can. Her wounds... they're not closing." He looked away. "I could make it stop. But I won't. Not yet."
Lily's face crumpled. Not at the words—she'd heard worse, seen worse, lived worse. But at the sound. That endless, hopeless screaming, drilling into her skull, reminding her of things she'd spent years trying to forget.
Theo moved closer, his arm sliding around her shoulders. "Hey. Hey, look at me."
She looked.
"You're not there anymore," he said quietly. "You're here. With us. That sound? It's just sound. It can't hurt you."
Lily's eyes glistened. "I know. I know. But it—" Her voice cracked. "It sounds like me. Before you came. Before Eva. It sounds like what I was."
The screaming peaked—a raw, animal shriek of pure agony—then faded to sobbing.
Eva moved.
She crossed the room in three steps and knelt before her sister, taking Lily's face in her hands. Her thumbs brushed away tears that hadn't yet fallen.
"Listen to me," Eva said, her voice fierce and gentle at once. "That is not you. That is not what you were. That is a monster who helped destroy someone's family. Someone our family cares about. And she is in pain because she deserves to be."
Lily stared at her, trembling.
"But you," Eva continued, "you are good. You survived things that would have broken anyone. You came out the other side still able to love, still able to trust, still able to feel. That screaming? It's proof that we're winning. That the people who hurt us are finally hurting back."
She pulled Lily into a hug—fierce, protective, absolute.
"I won't let anything hurt you again," she whispered. "Not ever. I promise."
Lily's arms came up slowly, hesitantly, then wrapped around her sister with desperate strength. The sobs came then—not from the screaming in the walls, but from Lily herself, finally releasing something she'd held for too long.
Theo stepped back, giving them space, his young face soft with something that might have been longing.
Wolfen watched the sisters hold each other, his expression unreadable. But when his eyes met Chad's across the room, something passed between them—a shared understanding of what it cost to be the ones who did the hurting, so that others didn't have to.
The screaming in the depths continued, muffled and distant. But in this room, surrounded by the hum of machines and the warmth of family, it was just sound.
Just sound.
And they could bear it.