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"What the hell did you do?"
Daniel hit the floor like someone cut his strings. One second the vet had a blade of light aimed at Lucas's throat, the next he was flat on his back, eyes open, chest moving, but nothing else. Not a twitch. Not even a blink.
Mark stared. His voice came out hoarse. "What did you—"
"I didn't want to." Lucas backed up against the wall, both hands raised. "I swear I didn't want to."
"He's not breathing right."
"It's a failsafe. They put it in anyone who might resist." Lucas's face was white. "One word and—" He gestured at Daniel. "It's temporary. He'll be fine in an hour."
"Fine." Mark laughed, and it sounded wrong even to him. "Yeah. He looks fine."
He should call 911. He should get Daniel to a hospital. He should—
His phone buzzed.
Then again. Three times. The emergency pattern Amy had insisted they all set up two meetings ago, back when Mark still thought this was just a support group for people with shared delusions.
He pulled it out.
Three texts. All from Amy.
*something at the hospital*
*not human*
*mark it knows my name*
No fourth text.
Mark looked up. Lucas's phone was buzzing too. The kid pulled it out, swiped, and his face went from white to gray.
"They're moving early." Lucas's voice came out in a whisper. "They weren't supposed to—" He looked up. "Amy's the target. They're going to make an example."
"Example of what?"
"What happens when someone escapes."
Mark's burned hand throbbed. It did that sometimes, when he was stressed or tired or when the calendar hit one of the three nights a month he couldn't sleep. But this was different. This was a pulse, steady and hot, like something was answering.
"You're going to help me." Mark grabbed his jacket off the chair.
Lucas looked at Daniel, still frozen on the floor. "If I help you, they'll know. They'll—"
"Your sister's already leverage. You think they're going to give her back when you finish the job?" Mark was already moving toward the door. "You want to keep being their errand boy, or you want to do something that might actually matter?"
Lucas stared at him.
For a second Mark thought the kid was going to bolt.
Then Lucas shoved his phone in his pocket and nodded. "St. Agnes. She works night shift in the ER."
"I know where she works."
Mark scribbled a note for Daniel—*back in one hour, don't move, you literally can't*—and left it on the coffee table. It wasn't funny but he didn't have time to care.
The drive took twelve minutes. Mark ran two red lights. Lucas didn't say a word, just stared out the window with his jaw clenched and both hands fisted on his knees.
The ER parking lot was half empty. Mark's headlights swept over rows of cars and the bright lit entrance where an ambulance sat idling.
Normal.
It all looked so normal.
"Where is she?" Lucas had his phone out, swiping through something Mark couldn't see.
"How should I know?"
"You're the one who got the texts."
Mark tried calling. It went straight to voicemail. He texted. No reply.
"She's still inside." Lucas pointed at the building. "I can feel it. The trace they put on her when she escaped, it's still active."
"You can *feel* it?"
"They gave me a locator when they sent me here. I'm supposed to track anyone who runs." Lucas looked at him, and for the first time since the kid walked into the support group three weeks ago, he looked actually young. Scared. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was going to be like this."
Mark got out of the car.
The ER entrance was locked. After-hours protocol. Mark pressed the intercom button and waited.
Nothing.
He pressed it again, held it down.
A nurse he didn't recognize came to the door, annoyed. "We're at capacity, if you're not critical you need to—"
"I'm looking for Amy Russell. She texted me. Is she here?"
The nurse frowned. "Amy left an hour ago. Said she felt sick."
"Her car's still here." Mark pointed at the lot. He didn't actually know which one was hers but the nurse didn't call him on it.
"Then maybe she got a ride. Look, I can't help you." She started to close the door.
Lucas caught it. "Where's the loading dock?"
The nurse blinked. "What?"
"The delivery entrance. The one you use for supply trucks." Lucas's voice was steady now, cold. "Where is it?"
"I'm calling security."
"Do it," Mark said. "Tell them to check the dock. Tell them to bring a weapon."
He didn't wait for her answer. He was already moving, Lucas beside him, circling the building.
The loading dock was around back, down a ramp, lit by a single yellow bulb that flickered like it was about to die.
Amy was there.
She was on her knees, hands pressed against the concrete, and there was something standing over her.
Mark's brain tried to make it into a person. Tall, long coat, hood up. But the proportions were wrong. The arms were too long. The way it stood was wrong, weight balanced like a mantis, not a man.
"Amy!"
She looked up. Her face was streaked with tears and blood from a cut on her forehead. "Mark, don't—"
The thing turned.
Mark saw its face. Or the place where a face should be. Shadows. Just shadows, moving like oil, and two points of light that might have been eyes.
It spoke. The voice sounded like gravel scraped over glass.
"Mark Chen. The one who refused."
His burned hand was on fire now. Not pain. Heat. The scar tissue on his palm glowed faint red in the dark.
The thing tilted its head. "You should have stayed refused."
It moved.
Mark didn't think. He raised his hand, the burned one, and something in him that had been asleep for three years woke up. The heat in his palm flared bright, and he *grabbed*.
He didn't know what he was grabbing. The air. The dark. The space between himself and the thing. But his fingers closed on something cold and slick and wrong, and he *pulled*.
The creature screamed.
It was a sound that didn't belong in the world. High and sharp and wrong enough that Mark felt it in his teeth, in his spine, in the bones of his skull. The thing thrashed, and where Mark's hand held it the shadows peeled back, showing something underneath that was worse.
Pale. Segmented. Wet.
Amy scrambled backward. Lucas was shouting something but Mark couldn't hear over the noise.
Then the thing stopped struggling. It looked at Mark, and the lights in its face dimmed.
"Gate-marked," it said. Its voice was quieter now. Almost curious. "You bear the seal."
Mark's hand was shaking. He didn't let go.
The thing turned its head, looking past him. At Lucas.
"Lucas Green," it said.
Lucas froze.
The thing smiled. Mark didn't know how he knew it was smiling when it didn't have a mouth, but he knew.
"Gate-opener," it said. "Your task is complete."
Then the thing collapsed into smoke and was gone. Mark's hand closed on nothing. The heat in his palm guttered out, leaving just the ache of old scar tissue.
Amy was still on the ground, breathing hard. Lucas stood five feet away, staring at the place where the creature had been.
Mark looked at him.
"What did it mean, gate-opener?"
Lucas's face was gray. "I don't know."
"You're lying."
"I don't know!" Lucas's voice cracked. "They told me to monitor, to report, that's all. I'm not—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I'm not supposed to be able to open anything."
Amy stood up, shaking. "Mark. Your hand."
He looked down.
The burn scar on his palm was glowing again, faint red, and there were lines in it he'd never seen before.
Symbols.
They pulsed like a heartbeat.
"What the hell is happening?" Amy whispered.
Mark didn't have an answer. He looked at Lucas, who was staring at Mark's hand like it was a bomb about to go off.
"We need to go back," Mark said. "We need to figure out what that thing meant. And you—" He pointed at Lucas. "You're going to tell us everything. No more lies."
Lucas nodded slowly. He looked sick.
They got back to the car. Mark's hand was still glowing. He couldn't make it stop.
Amy slid into the passenger seat, pressing a tissue to the cut on her forehead. "What did you do back there? I've never seen—"
"I don't know," Mark said.
"But you felt it. I saw your face. You knew what to do."
"I didn't know. I just—" He flexed his fingers. The glow was fading but the symbols were still there, etched into his palm like someone had carved them. "I grabbed it. That's all."
"That's not all," Lucas said from the back seat. His voice was quiet. Flat. "Gate-marked means you've been through. You've been to the other side and came back. That's not supposed to be possible."
"Well I didn't—" Mark stopped.
Three years ago. The fire. The warehouse. He'd told himself for three years that he didn't remember what happened after the beam fell, after his hand got pinned under burning metal. He'd told the doctors he didn't remember. He'd told the therapist he didn't remember.
He remembered.
"Mark?" Amy was looking at him.
"I need to think," he said.
They drove in silence. Mark's hand throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The symbols pulsed.
When they pulled into his driveway, Lucas leaned forward. "There's something else."
"Of course there is."
"When it called me gate-opener. That's not—" Lucas's voice shook. "I didn't open anything. I swear I didn't. But if it thinks I did, if *they* think I did—"
"Then what?"
"Then they're going to come for me next," Lucas said. "And they're going to want to know why."
Mark cut the engine.
Inside, Daniel was sitting up on the couch, pale and sweating, one hand pressed to his temple. He looked up when they walked in.
"You're back," he said. His voice was rough. "Good. Because I just remembered something."
"Remembered what?"
Daniel looked at Lucas. Then at Mark. Then at Amy.
"The support group," he said. "It's not random. Someone's been watching us. All of us. Since before we even showed up to the first meeting."
"Who?"
Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. Plain white. No name. Just an address and a single line of text.
*St. Agnes Hospital. Sub-level 3.*
"This was in my jacket," Daniel said. "I've never seen it before in my life. But I know that handwriting."
He flipped it over.
On the back, in neat block letters:
*THE GATE IS ALREADY OPEN. YOU'RE JUST THE LAST TO KNOW.*
Mark looked at the card. At Daniel. At Lucas, whose face had gone white again.
"Sub-level 3," Amy said quietly. "St. Agnes doesn't have a sub-level 3."
"Yeah," Mark said. "It does."
He'd been there. Three years ago. The night of the fire. The night he didn't remember.
The night someone had branded his palm with symbols he was just now seeing for the first time.
"We're going back," he said.
Amy stared at him. "Are you insane? That thing almost—"
"That thing called Lucas a gate-opener. It called me gate-marked. And someone left Daniel a card with an address we're not supposed to know exists." Mark looked at each of them. "Whatever's happening, it started three years ago. And I think we're the reason it's finishing now."
Daniel stood up, shaky but steady. "Then we go."
"I can't." Lucas's voice was barely a whisper. "If they find out I helped you—"
"They already know," Mark said. "That thing saw you. You think it didn't report back?"
Lucas closed his eyes.
"Your sister," Amy said softly. "If we find out what's really going on, maybe we can—"
"Don't," Lucas said. "Don't give me hope. They don't give people back."
"Then we take her," Mark said.
Lucas opened his eyes. "What?"
"You heard me. We go to sub-level 3. We find out what they want. And then we take your sister and we burn the whole thing down."
"You don't even know what you're talking about," Lucas said. "You don't know what they are, what they can do—"
"I grabbed one," Mark said. He held up his glowing palm. "And I'm still here. So yeah. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm done being scared."
Daniel picked up his coat. "When do we leave?"
"Now," Mark said.
Amy looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded.
Lucas didn't move. He just stood there, staring at the floor.
"Lucas," Mark said.
The kid looked up.
"You coming?"
Lucas swallowed hard. Then he nodded.
They walked out together. The street was quiet. Empty. Mark's hand was still glowing, faint red in the dark.
Somewhere across the city, in a sub-level that didn't exist, something was waiting.
And it was