The children moved slowly.

Too slowly.

Glen hated that, but he kept his mouth shut. Some of them were limping. One boy had blood soaking through the side of his shirt. A little girl clung to the nurse’s hand with both of hers, flinching every time the building groaned.

His mother walked near the back of the group.

That bothered him more than anything.

Not because it was unsafe. Because it was deliberate.

She was not moving like a civilian who had just survived a monster attack. She kept her body angled toward the hallway, eyes moving from corners to doorways to the cracked ceiling above them. Every few steps, she checked the rear without fully turning her head. It was subtle. Controlled. Practiced.

The nurse did not notice.

The children definitely did not.

Glen noticed.

So did Isla.

They descended through the maintenance stairwell because his mother insisted the main stairs were blocked. She did not explain how she knew. She simply pointed to the narrow door behind a fallen cabinet and said, "This way."

Glen looked at the door, then at her.

"You used this route coming up."

His mother met his stare. "Yes."

"How did you know it was there?"

"I saw the maintenance sign."

"There is no sign."

For half a second, something flickered in her eyes.

Then she looked away. "Then I guessed."

Glen almost smiled.

It was a terrible lie. Not because it sounded impossible, but because his mother had never lied like a normal person. She always placed the lie close enough to the truth that most people stopped digging.

Glen did not stop digging.

Isla walked ahead with the Frostbreaker raised low, dim cold slipping from the gauntlet in thin white mist. Caleb followed near the children, using controlled gravity to make the injured boy lighter whenever he stumbled. The boy did not notice what was happening. He only kept whispering, "I can walk. I can walk."

"You can," Caleb said quietly. "That is why you are still moving."

It was not comfort exactly.

It worked anyway.

They reached the third-floor landing when the tower shook.

Dust spilled from the ceiling. The children cried out. A crack split across the wall like lightning trapped in concrete.

Caleb planted his focus against the floor. Purple light expanded in a ring beneath their feet, and the tremor softened around them.

"The structure is shifting," he said. "Something hit the lower supports."

"Fiends?" Isla asked.

"Bigger."

Glen looked at his mother.

She was already staring down the stairwell.

"What is below us?" he asked.

She remained silent for a moment too long.

Glen stepped closer. "Mom."

Her mouth tightened. "The men who followed us from the transit shelter."

Brutus’s people.

Either they had ignored his warning, or someone else from the group had decided to follow her after she passed through the tunnel. Maybe they wanted the hunter core she had used as payment. Maybe they wanted the children. Maybe they wanted to prove they still had power in a city where power was disappearing fast.

It did not matter.

"What did they want?" Glen asked.

His mother’s eyes turned cold. "The children."

The air around Isla dropped several degrees.

Caleb’s grip tightened around his focus.

Glen only nodded once.

That was enough.

A heavy crash echoed from below. Then came voices, rough and angry, rising through the stairwell.

"She came this way!"

"Check every floor!"

"Brutus said bring the woman alive!"

His mother’s expression did not change, but Glen saw the exhaustion behind her eyes.

Not fear.

Irritation.

Like she had survived monsters, collapsed streets, and days of hiding, only to be delayed by gutter trash with weapons.

Glen turned to Isla. "Take the children down the east service hall. Find another exit."

Isla looked at him. "And you?"

"I am going to have a conversation."

His mother stepped forward. "Glen."

He looked at her.

Whatever she saw on his face made her stop.

For a second, she looked like she wanted to tell him not to be cruel.

Then she looked down at the children.

And said nothing.

Isla led the nurse and the children through the side door. Caleb hesitated, looking between Glen and his mother.

Glen spoke without turning. "Go with them."

Caleb’s jaw tightened. "You sure?"

"No."

Caleb exhaled, then followed Isla.

The door closed.

Only Glen and his mother remained on the landing.

The voices grew closer.

His mother looked at his left hand. "Do not use too much of that power."

Glen glanced at her. "You keep saying things you should not know."

"And you keep asking questions at inconvenient times."

This time, Glen did smile.

It was small and cold.

"There she is."

His mother’s face softened for the briefest moment.

Then the first man appeared on the stairs below.

He wore patched hunter armor and carried a mana shotgun. Two more came behind him, one with a curved blade, another with a chain wrapped around his arm. Their faces changed when they saw Glen standing at the top of the stairs.

The man with the shotgun stopped.

"You."

Glen recognized him from the tunnel. One of Brutus’s men. Not important enough to remember his name.

"You were told to carry supplies back to the shelter," Glen said.

The man swallowed, then forced a grin. "Brutus changed the deal."

"Brutus was on one knee when I left him."

"Brutus is dead."

Glen’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The man’s grin widened. "Had to happen. Weak leaders get replaced."

More men climbed into view behind him. Seven total. Not many. Enough to be annoying.

The new leader lifted the shotgun. "Step aside. We only want the woman."

His mother sighed behind Glen.

It was quiet, almost bored.

That sound did something to the men. Several of them looked past Glen at her, and for reasons they probably did not understand, their confidence wavered.

Glen noticed that too.

He stepped down one stair.

The men stepped back without meaning to.

"Last chance," Glen said. "Go back."

The leader laughed. "Or what?"

Glen moved.

No shout. No warning. No wasted motion.

One moment he stood on the stairs.

The next, he was in front of the leader.

The shotgun barrel lifted toward his face.

Glen’s left hand caught it.

Dead gray energy slid across the metal. The weapon aged a hundred years in a heartbeat, crumbling from muzzle to grip through the man’s fingers.

The leader stared at his empty hands.

Glen drove his knee into the man’s stomach, folded him over, then slammed his head against the stair railing. Bone cracked. The man dropped.

The others froze.

His mother walked down two steps behind Glen, her movements quiet despite the debris underfoot.

"You should listen when my son offers mercy," she said.

The man with the chain panicked and swung.

His mother was no longer where he aimed.

She did not vanish with a skill. She simply moved into the space his eyes had already abandoned.

A second later, she stood beside him with two fingers pressed beneath his jaw. Her other hand held the small kitchen knife.

The man stopped breathing.

Her voice stayed soft. "Bad angle."

She struck once.

The man collapsed, unconscious before the chain hit the floor.

The remaining five stared at her.

Glen stared too.

His mother did not look at him.

"Focus," she said.

The word snapped him back.

Two men rushed together.

Glen met them halfway.

His sword came out in a low black arc, smashing the first man’s blade aside and opening his armor from hip to shoulder. Not deep enough to kill. Deep enough to end the fight. The second man tried to flank him, but the stairs suddenly turned white beneath his boots.

Isla had returned.

She stood at the upper landing, Frostbreaker raised, expression calm.

"I leave for one minute," she said, "and the sewer rats multiply."

The bandits looked up.

Caleb appeared beside her, his focus tapping once against the floor.

Every remaining attacker hit the stairs at the same time, forced down by invisible pressure. Knees cracked against concrete. Weapons clattered loose.

Caleb looked almost apologetic.

Almost.

"Stay there," he said.

Glen walked between the pinned men until he reached the one who had called himself the new leader. The man was still conscious, barely. Blood ran from his forehead into one eye.

Glen crouched beside him. "You said Brutus is dead."

The man spat red. "I killed him."

"Then you are in charge?"

The man tried to smile.

Glen placed one finger against his chest.

The smile vanished.

"Then carry this message," Glen said. "The tunnel belongs to the shelter now. The supplies belong to the people upstairs. Touch the children, touch my mom, or follow me again, and I will come back without wasting words."

A thin gray stain spread across the man’s armor, just enough for him to understand what would happen if Glen pushed harder.

His whole body went rigid.

Glen stood.

"Do you understand?"

The man nodded quickly.

Glen looked at Caleb. "Let them breathe."

The pressure eased.

None of the bandits stood.

Smart.

His mother watched Glen for a long moment as Isla lowered her gauntlet and Caleb checked the stairwell below.

"You have changed," she said.

Glen wiped ash from his blade. "So have you."

Her face tightened.

Before she could answer, a distant shriek rolled through the building from the lower floors. Then another. Then the deep, heavy impact of something climbing through concrete.

Caleb’s scanner flashed red.

"Large hostile. Lower floors. Moving up fast."

Isla’s expression sharpened. "We need to move."

Glen looked toward his mother.

This time, he did not ask whether she could keep up.

He already knew.

His mother adjusted her grip on the kitchen knife and stepped past him toward the upper landing, where the children waited.

"Then stop wasting time," she said.

For a second, the ruined stairwell went quiet around her.

Even Isla smiled.

Glen watched his mom walk through ash and blood like she had done it before.

Then he followed.