Page 111 of Property of Scar

Unblinking.

Silent.

The sound of the fight drains out of the space until all that’s left is the low hum of whatever Mordain has built down here and the faint, uneven shuffle of our own movement as we adjust without meaning to.

Cali shifts at my side.

I feel it more than see it.

Everyone feels it.

That same instinct hits at once…

This isn’t over.

This is worse.

I follow their line of sight.

The chamber ahead opens up, wider than anything we’ve moved through so far, carved clean out of the old infrastructure and filled with sterile blue and white light that doesn’t belong this far underground. Equipment hums in steady, clinical rhythms, casting sharp shadows that stretch too long across the floor.

And at the far end…

He’s already there.

Mordain stands in the center of the space, hands at his sides, perfectly still, like he hasn’t just walked into the aftermath of a warzone, like he’s been standing there long enough for the room to settle around him.

Waiting.

Every rogue in the room is facing him now.

Not us.

Him.

Like we’ve stopped mattering.

Like we were never the point.

No one speaks.

No one needs to.

Because every instinct I have got is already locking onto the same conclusion, the same cold realization settling in under everything else…

We didn’t break through his defenses.

We walked exactly where he wanted us to.

Oh, fuck!

Chapter Twenty-Five

SCAR

Equipment runs wall to wall, monitors glowing in cold blue and white while systems cycle without interruption, every piece of it unmistakably Mordain’s lab. Ventilation forces stale air through the space, carrying the chemical bite of blood and compounds that shouldn’t exist. Nothing down here is accidental—everything is controlled. The light throws hard shadows across every surface, and under it, I can smell him.

Old blood.