Valebrook Medical Center – Emergency Floor, 1:09 a.m.
Juliana's palms were soaked in his blood. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She didn't even blink. She just pressed harder, her hands clamped over the wound in Damian's side while the hospital staff shouted around her.
~ "Through-and-through. High-velocity shrapnel."
"He's crashing — get the paddles!"
"Ma'am, you need to step back—"
She shoved the doctor against the wall with one arm, gun in the other.
~ "He dies, you die."
The nurses froze.
~ "Let them work," said a voice behind her.
It was Preacher — ex-CIA, rogue priest, and the only man she trusted with her life who hadn't already broken it. He pulled her gently away.
~ "You brought him to a government-controlled hospital. Not your best move."
~ "It was the only one close."
~ "They'll trace you."
~ "Let them come."
Preacher studied her.
~"You're shaking."
~ "I'm not scared."
~ "I didn't say you were."
Juliana finally released the pistol. Just enough to breathe. Just enough to feel the weight of Damian's blood sinking into her coat.
_______
1:33 a.m. – Waiting Room
The waiting room smelled like bleach and cheap coffee. Juliana sat in a corner, hoodie pulled low, boots tapping against the tile floor like a ticking clock.
Damian was in surgery. Bullet fragments. Internal bleeding. One lung partially collapsed. He was alive — barely.
She hadn't prayed in five years, but in that moment, she almost remembered how. Almost.
~ "You know he was ready to die for you," Preacher said, sliding into the seat beside her.
~ "Then he should've asked my permission first."
~ "You think it's your fault?"
~ "No," she replied. "It's Raven's."
Preacher sighed. "She doesn't miss by accident."
~ "That's the part that's bothering me."
~ "She could've killed you."
~ "She didn't."
~ "Why not?"
Juliana stared at the floor. At her reflection in the polished tile. The girl in the reflection didn't look afraid. She looked like a bomb waiting to go off.
~ "Because she wanted me to watch."
_______
2:15 a.m. – Surveillance Room, Sublevel 3
Juliana moved like a ghost through the bowels of the hospital, using Preacher's forged badge to access the surveillance room. The tech on duty didn't even look up before she slammed his head into the console and zip-tied him to the radiator.
She scrubbed the footage from 12:30 to 1:00 a.m., every angle from the alley explosion to Damian bleeding in the street. And then she saw it.
Frame by frame.
Raven. Black hoodie. Tight braid. White bone mask with a slit at the lips. She didn't run from the blast. She walked. Calm. Unhurried. And just before she disappeared around the corner…
She looked up. Directly into the nearest camera. And smiled.
________
2:42 a.m. – Hospital Roof
Juliana stood under the stars, smoking a stolen cigarette, the bitter taste biting her tongue.
The air was cold. Sharp. The kind of cold that made old wounds ache.
She thought of her father. Her mother. The look in her father's eyes the day he sent her away.
"I don't want you to become like them," he'd said.
But she had. She was worse.
~ "You shouldn't be alone," said Preacher, stepping onto the roof.
~ "Everyone I care about ends up dying."
~ "Then you're either cursed... or extremely dangerous."
~ "Why not both?" He handed her a folder.
~ "Nael pulled this from the dark net. Raven's been leaving a trail of bodies. Twenty-seven kills in the past two years. Ten of them Syndicate. Seventeen..." He hesitated.
"Collateral."
Juliana flipped through the images. All surgical. All marked. Each kill left behind a chess piece.
~ "She's not just playing," she whispered. "She's winning."
~ "You know what this means, don't you?"
~ "Yeah." She closed the folder. "She's not cleaning the board."
~ "She's clearing it. For something else."
________
3:10 a.m. – Intensive Care Unit
Damian lay unconscious, pale as ash, hooked to machines. Tubes in his arms. Beeping monitors. Every breath he took looked borrowed. Juliana stepped in, slow. Quiet. Her hand shook as she touched his wrist.
~ "You stupid, beautiful bastard," she whispered. She pulled up a chair, sitting beside him.
~ "You know I never really liked you," she murmured, lips curling slightly. "But then you did the one thing no one else ever has. You didn't run when I got ugly."
She looked down at his hand.
~ "You stayed. And now you're bleeding out because of me."
Tears threatened, but she blinked them away. She didn't cry. Dead girls don't cry.
_______
3:35 a.m. – Parking Garage, Sublevel 1
Preacher loaded the car. Juliana joined him, fresh from the ICU, face carved from stone.
~ "You're leaving him?"
~ "For now."
~ "And the war?"
~ "Starts now." She tossed a new burner phone into the backseat. A message already queued for distribution. She pressed send.
________
3:37 a.m. – All Across Valebrook
The message hit the dark web.
Every assassin, gang leader, bounty hunter, and criminal with a signal saw the same thing:
A video clip.
Juliana. Standing over Malcolm Rivas's corpse. Blood on her dress. Gun in her hand.
~ "I'm not here to negotiate," she said. "I'm not interested in peace. I don't want power."
The camera panned closer.
~ "I want the names of the people who signed my parents' death orders. I want the traitors. I want the architects. You have twenty-four hours to start bleeding for me."
She leaned in.
~ "Or I start carving my way through your cities until every empire falls."
Cut to black.
______
3:40 a.m. – An Unknown Apartment Across the City
Raven watched the video on a projector wall, alone in the dark. She tilted her head. Smiled slightly.
~ "She's not playing anymore," she whispered.
She reached into a box beside her bed and pulled out a chessboard. Pieces already arranged. Except for the queen.
She placed it in the center of the board.
~ "Your move, Juliana."