Chapter-13
1334 Words
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Chapter 13 – Voices in the Smoke
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Valemont was burning in places no fire could touch.
Dante stood over the cracked remains of the mimic’s body in the cold morgue basement Killian had secured beneath an abandoned church. The man’s face was twisted in a final expression of something between fear and relief. A death that promised freedom.
Killian turned on the overhead lamp. It hummed.
“Autopsy confirmed it,” Killian said, reading the tablet in his hand. “Cyanide in the spinal fluid. Microdose embedded in that injector. Whoever hit him wanted it clean—silent. Like he was never meant to speak.”
Dante clenched his jaw. “But he did.”
He stared at the metal table where the corpse lay. Not Luca. Just another broken puppet from Verratti’s old collection.
Another life wasted.
Aria stood at the edge of the room, arms crossed, trying to process the revelation of the last few hours. Her voice was gentle but shook slightly. “He said Luca was taken to Vanguard Hollow.”
Killian nodded, pulling up a map. “Coordinates point to Montana. Middle of nowhere. Satellite images show an abandoned medical facility buried in the mountains. It was blacklisted after a failed neurological research project. Rumor says the military buried more than just tech there.”
Dante’s eyes didn’t leave the body. “That’s where they turned Luca into something else.”
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The safehouse felt smaller that night.
Dante sat alone in the living room, smoke curling from a half-burned cigarette in his hand. He wasn’t supposed to smoke anymore—not after what happened to his lungs in the fire—but nights like this made it hard to remember promises.
Aria entered, quiet as always, holding two mugs of something that smelled sweet and warm. She offered him one.
He blinked, took it, said nothing.
For a moment, they just sat there. Listening to the distant sounds of rain against glass and the soft breathing of silence between them.
“You haven’t asked,” he finally said.
“About what?”
“If Luca really is my brother. Or if I’m just chasing a ghost.”
She leaned forward, hands around her mug. “I don’t need to ask. I saw your face when you heard his voice. He’s not a ghost, Dante. You just never buried him.”
He stared at her.
And then said something he hadn’t admitted to anyone in years.
“I was the one who taught him how to disappear.”
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Five years earlier – Flashback
The gun range was empty. Luca stood with a small pistol in hand, barely able to steady his grip. He was sixteen then, cocky but eager to learn.
Dante stood behind him, correcting his form.
“If they ever come for you, don’t shoot to kill,” Dante said. “Shoot to vanish. Buy seconds, not victory.”
Luca had laughed. “You always talk like we’re running. You ever think maybe we could win one?”
Dante had smiled back, sad and amused. “The ones who win in our world don’t stay human, little brother.”
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Present
The memory hurt more than the wound in his side ever had.
Aria spoke softly, as if reading his pain. “You didn’t fail him.”
“I gave him the tools to disappear,” Dante muttered. “He just used them too well.”
Before Aria could respond, Killian burst in through the door, phone in hand.
“We got something.”
Dante stood immediately.
“Intercepted a transmission on a restricted frequency—encrypted military tech, but partially cracked. It’s audio. I think… I think it’s him.”
He plugged the device into the speaker system.
The room filled with static. Then a voice.
Broken. Soft. Familiar.
> “…this is Echo-4… repeating: location compromised… I repeat… compromised. If retrieval fails… execute Protocol Hollow. Tell Dante… tell him the fire never went out.”
The message looped once. Then silence.
Killian looked up. “That was sent two hours ago. From Montana.”
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Dante, Aria, and Killian were on a plane by nightfall. A small cargo jet Dante had used years ago for arms trafficking. The inside had been converted for comfort, though comfort was an illusion none of them felt.
Aria sat across from Dante, watching the city lights fade below.
“You think he sent that for you?”
Dante’s voice was low. “He used the phrase ‘fire never went out.’ That’s something only he would know. It’s what he said the day we lost our parents.”
Aria nodded. “And the protocol?”
Killian answered from behind his laptop. “Protocol Hollow was mentioned in some of the encrypted files from the black site. It’s a self-termination directive. Means if an operative can’t be extracted, they’re wiped—memory, body, everything. No trace left behind.”
Aria’s eyes widened. “You mean they’d kill him?”
Dante’s voice was cold. “No. They’d erase him.”
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The landing strip in Montana was hidden between mountains—old, unused, and surrounded by trees that had grown wild in its absence.
They drove for three hours before reaching the edge of a forest where the road ended. From there, it was on foot.
Vanguard Hollow was buried beneath layers of terrain and decades of secrets.
They found it behind a false cliff face—an entrance covered by rock that only shimmered under infrared light. Killian hacked the biometric panel.
The door groaned open.
What lay beyond was not a facility. It was a tomb.
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The halls were sterile, but cracked. Lights flickered. Old security drones lay on the floor, broken and rusting. A haunting stillness clung to the air.
They moved slowly, weapons drawn.
Aria stayed behind Dante, her steps careful, her heartbeat loud in her ears. Every hallway looked the same—white, fluorescent, lifeless.
Then they heard it.
A voice.
Humming.
Soft. Off-tune. Familiar.
Dante held up a hand.
From the end of the corridor, a figure emerged.
Thin. Dirty. Dressed in medical scrubs. He was barefoot. His hair longer. His eyes… hollow.
“Luca,” Dante whispered.
The figure looked at him.
Then… smiled.
“Hello, Dante,” he said. “Did you come for the fire?”
Dante’s breath caught.
“Luca, it’s me. It’s real. I’m here.”
Luca tilted his head. “No. You’re part of the test. They told me you would come. Told me not to trust the voice.”
He pulled a scalpel from his sleeve.
“Luca, no,” Aria said quickly, stepping forward.
Luca’s eyes flicked to her.
Then… softened.
“You’re not from the voice,” he whispered.
Dante lowered his gun slowly. “You remember her?”
Luca blinked. Confusion in his eyes.
“I remember… pain. I remember silence. But I remember you too. You taught me how to disappear.”
Dante stepped closer.
“Then let’s disappear together.”
Luca’s hand trembled.
A gunshot rang out.
But not from Dante.
From the shadows, a new figure emerged.
Black jacket. Black gloves.
Sable.
She walked toward them, calm and cold.
“Step away from him, Dante.”
Dante stepped in front of Luca.
“No.”
Sable sighed. “Pity.”
She fired again.
But Aria tackled Dante, pulling him down as the bullet ricocheted. Killian returned fire, but Sable vanished into the corridor like smoke.
Dante turned to Luca—who was curled on the floor, crying.
“They broke him,” he whispered.
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They escaped with Luca unconscious, Sable in pursuit, and Vanguard Hollow rigged to self-destruct.
As the facility exploded behind them, lighting the Montana sky, Aria held Luca’s hand in the backseat of the truck.
“He’s not gone,” she said quietly.
Dante watched the fire in the rearview mirror.
“No,” he agreed. “But he’s not whole either.”
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- Writer
