The instructor didn't file a report.
Desto realized that when night fell and no alarms sounded, no lockdown initiated, no investigators arrived with questions they already knew the answers to. The building settled into its usual rhythm—boots on concrete, controlled violence, breath held tight in chests that hadn't learned how to relax.
The missing kid's bunk stayed empty.
Not cordoned off.
Not marked.
Just… unused.
Desto sat on his bed, elbows on his knees, Glock stripped and reassembled twice without looking. The pressure behind his eyes hadn't faded all day. It pulsed now—slow, deliberate—like something counting him the way he counted angles.
Across the room, Tristo lay on the top bunk, one leg dangling over the edge, maskless face turned toward the ceiling.
"It's learning," Tristo said quietly.
Desto didn't look up. "What makes you say that?"
"It didn't rush," Tristo replied. "It didn't panic. It tested. Took one. Waited to see how we reacted."
Desto slid the magazine home with a soft click. "Like a hunter."
"No," Tristo said. "Like an editor."
The lights dimmed slightly—just enough to notice.
Several heads lifted around the room. Nobody spoke.
The shaved-head girl sat up on her bunk, eyes narrowed. "You feel that?"
Desto nodded once.
Then someone screamed.
Not nearby.
Not distant.
Inside the building.
It echoed once and stopped, as if someone had put a hand over the sound and decided that was enough.
No one moved.
The instructor's voice carried down the hall, calm and sharp. "Stay where you are."
Boots ran.
A door slammed somewhere deeper inside the facility.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
Desto stood before anyone else did. He grabbed his jacket, slid the Glock into place, and stepped toward the door.
Tristo dropped down beside him without a word.
"You're not cleared," someone whispered.
Desto didn't answer.
They moved through the corridors fast and quiet, following the absence instead of the noise. Doors stood open that should've been shut. A trail of radios lay scattered across the floor like breadcrumbs no one remembered dropping.
They reached the far stairwell.
The air there was wrong.
Clean.
Too clean.
Desto raised his Glock.
At the top of the stairs, something hung from the ceiling.
Not a body.
A shape.
Human once, maybe. Now stretched—joints bent the wrong way, limbs elongated as if the ceiling itself had pulled it upward. Its skin was pale and tight, eyes missing entirely, mouth split into something that tried to smile.
Clutched in one elongated hand—
The instructor's head.
Eyes open. Mouth frozen mid-command.
The thing tilted its head.
The lights went out.
In the dark, Tristo laughed softly.
"Oh," he said. "It brought proof."
Desto fired.
The muzzle flash burned the image into his eyes.
The thing didn't fall.
It let go.
The head hit the stairs and rolled.
Then the pressure slammed into Desto hard enough to drop him to one knee.
A whisper brushed his ear.
You stayed.
The lights snapped back on.
The ceiling was empty.
The instructor's head was gone.
Only a dark stain marked where something had decided not to be remembered anymore.
Alarms finally screamed to life.
Footsteps thundered.
Hands grabbed Desto's shoulders, dragged him back.
As chaos flooded the building, Desto locked eyes with Tristo.
For the first time since they met, Tristo wasn't smiling.
"It knows you now," Tristo said.
Desto swallowed, chest tight.
"Good," he replied.
Outside, the city kept breathing.
Inside the Lawless District, something had learned a name.