Gabriel froze.

Leonardo shoved him back a step. “Move!”

The monster roared.

It didn’t lunge, it unfolded. Joints cracked in too many places, limbs unfurling like they had been folded wrong. The shriek that tore through the ravine floor made Gabriel’s earpiece burst into static, then silence.

No more voices. No more signals. Only the Hollow.

Leonardo’s voice cut through the noise, sharp, unshaken.

“Run.”

Gabriel didn’t argue this time.

He ran.

They bolted across uneven ground, boots hitting stone and mud with frantic rhythm. The trees thinned fast. Too fast. The terrain ahead dipped into a shallow ridge that cut through the woods like a wound.

Gabriel didn’t know where he was going. He only knew he had to move. The monster behind them didn’t charge, it glided, its movements stuttering like broken animation. Limbs shifted between steps. Shadows stretched wrong.

Another scream hit them, this one lower, guttural, like a growl dragging across rusted metal.

Gabriel's balance wavered. He nearly slipped.

Leonardo yanked him back upright without slowing down. “Eyes forward!”

They leapt over a fallen log. Behind them, the Hollow plowed through it like it was paper.

The sound wasn’t just in Gabriel’s ears anymore, it was in his spine. His breath hitched as static swirled behind his eyes. Flickers of faces. Sasha. Natalia.

But the voices were wrong. Everything was wrong.

Leonardo skidded to a stop ahead and grabbed Gabriel’s wrist.

A steep rock wall loomed before them, too high to climb fast, too sheer to waste time.

Leonardo scanned it. “We cut right. That outcropping, go!”

They swerved. As they passed a sharp turn, the world warped again. Trees behind them twisted, bending as though gravity had shifted.

Gabriel choked on a gasp. “What is this zone?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Leonardo snapped. “Just keep going.”

Then something hit the ground behind them.

The entire ridge buckled.

Gabriel staggered forward. Pebbles scattered. A deep crack spread underfoot, like the Hollow’s weight alone fractured the world.

A shockwave burst out. The air collapsed inward.

Gabriel’s knees buckled.

He barely caught himself, but the edges of his vision blurred.

Then came another sound, not a roar this time. A voice.

“Gabriel…”

It wasn’t loud. It was soft. Familiar. Kael’s voice, gentle, emotionless.

Gabriel spun around, heart lurching.

Nothing. Just trees. The ravine wall. Empty space.

Then... “Gabriel.” Natalia’s voice now. Warmer. Calmer. “We’re here.”

He saw nothing, but he felt it. Pressure. Psychic pressure. The monster wasn’t chasing them anymore, it was speaking.

Gabriel turned wildly, throat tight. “It’s in our heads.”

Leonardo didn’t answer. He was already drawing power. Heat surged around him, red and gold streaks in the air, rising from his skin like mist from scorched earth.

“Move left,” he ordered. “Stay low.”

They ducked beneath a sharp ledge. For a second, they were hidden, just enough to breathe.

Gabriel clutched his knees. His chest heaved. “It’s mimicking them again.”

Leonardo didn’t look at him. “It’s trying to confuse you.”

“It’s working.”

Another scream, this one real, ripped through the ridge. Not just noise. It slammed into the rock and cracked it like thunder. Gabriel covered his ears. His head pulsed.

Then the creature appeared again, just behind the last row of trees, half-shadowed by broken light. Gabriel saw it shift its weight. He saw the intent.

It was going to lunge.

Leonardo moved first.

Flames erupted from his palm, flaring outward in a sharp arc aimed directly at the creature’s advancing form.

But it was like watching fire through water. The attack warped, bent sideways, and splashed against empty space.

Gabriel’s heart skipped. “It’s the zone.”

Leonardo grit his teeth. “It’s distorting time and space.”

“No,” Gabriel said quickly. “It’s anchored. That beacon... it was the focus. That’s why it hasn’t left.”

The monster's voice came again, too close now. “Still too slow, little Guide.”

Gabriel flinched. The voice had come from the right. Or maybe above. He couldn’t tell anymore.

The sound, the images, the pressure, it was too much.

Then Gabriel saw Leonardo tense. He wasn’t going to dodge.

The monster was too close.

Gabriel moved.

Without thinking, he grabbed Leonardo’s wrist. Skin to skin. No time to filter. No time to breathe.

He pushed everything through. Leonardo flinched, visibly.

“Wait... Gabriel...”

Too late.

The stream snapped into place like lightning hitting exposed wire. There was no prep, no calibration, no safety buffers. Just raw contact. It hit Leonardo like a power surge, a blinding rush of energy that punched straight through his nervous system and set every nerve on fire.

Gabriel’s breath hitched.

The backlash hit him a split second later, sharp and unforgiving. His knees buckled, and white spots flared across his vision. It felt like his chest was being crushed from the inside, ribs grinding under invisible weight. But he didn’t let go.

The link was chaotic. Rushed. Built on instinct and panic. It wasn’t smooth, but it worked.

Leonardo’s body reacted on its own. Heat flooded through him, snapping into his limbs, bending the air around him with pressure. His eyes widened, not in surprise, but in recognition.

He knew this power. He just wasn’t used to getting it all at once.

The fire came next.

No sparks. No arcs. No shaped bursts. These flames weren’t crafted, they were unleashed.

A shockwave of heat exploded outward from Leonardo’s body, driving back the warped air of the zone with a deep, tearing roar. The flames spread in a ring, thick and fast, licking across the terrain with searing force. The rocks cracked. The trees, twisted things that had no right growing in that clearing, caught instantly.

The Hollow reeled back as the fire slammed into it. Its limbs twisted inwards, skin bubbling and blackening. The shriek that escaped it no longer sounded human. It was sharp, layered, like a dozen voices screaming at once in different languages, wrong in pitch and direction.

Gabriel stumbled. His skull throbbed. Blood surged up into his mouth again. The psychic feedback from the creature’s scream slammed into him like a punch.

Leonardo saw him go pale. Saw him sway.

He moved instantly, catching Gabriel around the waist with his free arm and yanking him behind a half-melted boulder.

“Stop the stream!”

Gabriel tried.

His thoughts were tangled, looping. He couldn’t breathe right. His hands shook like he’d just been electrocuted. But somewhere inside the chaos, he found the thread of control and yanked hard.

The connection cut, abrupt and painful.

He slumped against the rock, panting. Blood smeared the side of his mouth.

Leonardo knelt beside him, pale but steady. “Don’t ever do that again without warning.”

Gabriel pressed the back of his hand to his lips. “You were going to get hit.”

“And you were going to melt your own brain.”

“I know.”

“I couldn’t let that happen.”

They looked at each other. Gabriel’s eyes were glassy but focused now. Leonardo’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak again. He just held Gabriel’s gaze for a second longer, then turned back toward the clearing.

The mimic was still moving, barely. One of its limbs dragged behind it, melted and smoking. It twitched with every movement, its frame glitching in and out of cohesion. The voices it had borrowed were gone. Now it only made wet, rattling sounds.

Leonardo stood.

“No time for this. We need to destroy its anchor.”

Gabriel forced himself upright, using the rock for balance. “The beacon’s already gone.”

Leonardo shook his head. “That wasn’t the real anchor. It was a lure. Distraction.”

He pointed across the clearing, past the dying trees and the heat-blistered ground. Near the center, the terrain rippled. Not visibly, but the way shadows bent around it, the slight vibration in the air, it was wrong.

“There,” Leonardo said. “That’s where the zone warps the most. That’s the core.”

Gabriel squinted. There was something there, a faint glow under fractured rock. The remains of the false beacon, maybe. Or something worse.

Leonardo raised one hand.

“Enough finesse,” he muttered. “Just force.”

This time, he didn’t waste energy on scale. He concentrated everything into a single point. The heat shimmered around his body, tighter now, refined. Then it surged down his arm in a narrow column of fire, a lance, sharp and fast.

It struck the warped ground with a low, stomach-churning boom.

The earth cracked.

Blue light bled upward through the break in the rock, pulsing once, twice, then shrieking into brightness as the anchor shattered.

The zone itself reacted.

Trees twisted violently. The ground heaved. The Hollow let out a gurgling, broken scream as its body split apart, smoke pouring from every opening. It didn’t die cleanly, it dissolved, piece by piece, shrieking until there was nothing left.

Then came the collapse.

The ravine mouth, already weakened, gave way completely. Stone sheared off the upper ridge, crashing down in waves. Shards of rock and dirt exploded into the air. The ground shuddered under their feet.

Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Leonardo...”

Leonardo was already moving.

He grabbed Gabriel by the arm, spun him around, and shouted the only word that mattered.

“Run!”

They sprinted across the ruined clearing, dodging debris, leaping over split ground. Smoke coiled around their legs. The pressure in the air kept changing, making it hard to stay upright.

Gabriel’s lungs screamed. His body barely responded. He tripped once, then again. The third time, he felt himself falling.

Leonardo caught him, yanking his arm over his shoulder, dragging him along.

“Almost there!”

The gap in the rock was just ahead, a narrow tunnel, cracked open by an earlier quake. Leonardo shoved Gabriel through it and dove in after him just as the rest of the ravine collapsed.

Stone thundered down behind them.

They hit the tunnel floor hard.

Dust and ash rained from above. A final rumble echoed through the stone like a dying breath, and then… stillness.

Gabriel tried to push himself up.

Pain lanced through his chest, and he collapsed to his side, coughing. Blood stained the ground.

Leonardo dropped to his knees beside him, catching his face in both hands.

“Hey. Hey, look at me.”

Gabriel’s eyes fluttered open.

“Don’t pass out,” Leonardo said, voice rough. “Not now.”

Gabriel’s eyes fluttered. The world was still spinning, but Leonardo’s face was close, grounded, real. He latched onto that.

“I’m not,” he rasped, even though his body felt seconds away from giving up. His head lolled slightly before Leonardo eased him flat onto the ground.

The floor was hard, uneven, soaked in old runoff and ash. The air burned in his lungs, too thick, too hot, too heavy. Gabriel turned his head and spat blood into the dirt. It tasted like rust and smoke.

“I’m fine,” he whispered.

“Sure you are,” Leonardo muttered, kneeling beside him. He pressed two fingers to the side of Gabriel’s neck. The pulse beneath was fast. Too fast. His skin was cold to the touch.

“You overloaded your stream. Idiot.”

Gabriel gave a faint, breathless huff. He didn’t have the strength to fire back.

Leonardo peeled off his jacket and folded it under Gabriel’s head with care that didn’t match his voice. Then he shifted to crouch, half-guarding, half-listening. His eyes moved constantly, scanning the narrow passage that stretched in either direction. The only light came from behind them, a fading orange glow barely visible through cracks in the stone wall.

The tunnel was crude. Not manmade. Pressure or time had carved it out, maybe both. Jagged roots hung from the ceiling, swaying faintly with every breath the earth took. The air shimmered with leftover heat. Every few seconds, loose dust still drifted down like ash.

Gabriel lay still, eyes closed for a moment. His hands were stiff. His chest ached. But slowly, the panic was ebbing. What remained was something quieter. Tiredness. Awareness. A strange sort of calm.

“I think we’re safe,” he murmured.

Leonardo didn’t answer immediately. He stayed alert, listening to the rock, the silence, the lack of movement beyond them.

Then finally, “For now.”

Gabriel opened his eyes again, voice quiet. “Was that a Mimicry? It imitated them really well. It sounded just like them.”

“That’s what they do,” Leonardo said. “They don’t just attack your body. They twist what you see. What you believe. They study you. Copy what you’ll follow.”

“But it wasn’t perfect,” Gabriel said after a pause.

Leonardo raised an eyebrow.

Gabriel’s gaze drifted upward, following the curve of the ceiling. “I think I knew. Deep down. That they weren’t real.” He paused, voice quieter. “They called me Gabe. No one does. I hate that nickname.” A shaky breath. “My family used to call me Bee… and even when we argued, they never got it wrong.”

Leonardo shifted his weight slightly. He didn’t speak at first. When he did, his voice had dropped, low, certain.

“Wanting something doesn’t make you weak,” he said. “Especially not when you’re starving for it.”

Gabriel blinked slowly. His throat tightened.

“You were trying to survive,” Leonardo added, softer now. “Anyone else would’ve walked straight into that thing’s arms. You didn’t.”

Gabriel looked at him, his face streaked with grime and blood. “You still saved me.”

“After you nearly fried my circuits,” Leonardo replied, but without heat. A ghost of a grin tugged at his mouth. “Lucky for you, I’m flameproof.”

Gabriel exhaled a breath that might’ve been a laugh. Weak, but real.

Leonardo’s grin sharpened. “Careful, bunny. I might start thinking you like having me around.”

Gabriel blinked. “What?”

“You know. Small, soft, fast heartbeat, jumps three feet when startled.”

Gabriel groaned, half-exasperated, half-flushed, dropping his head back with a scowl. “No. Absolutely not. That’s not a compliment so don’t call me that.”

“Too late,” Leonardo said, smug. “It suits you.”

“It really doesn’t.” He said, pouting.

Leonardo leaned in, brushing a thumb over a smear of ash near Gabriel’s cheek. “You really scared me, you know.”

Gabriel blinked again. “Me?”

“You’re not allowed to collapse without warning.”

“I’ll try to schedule it better next time.”

Leonardo let out a quiet laugh. Just a breath, but it was something real in the middle of all this ruin.

Gabriel reached out, fingers curling lightly into Leonardo’s sleeve. The pressure was barely there, but it was intentional.

“Leonardo…”

The name settled between them, quiet and weighted.

Leonardo looked at him fully. “What is it?”

Gabriel hesitated. There was so much he could say. He could speak of fear. Of nearly losing him. Of trusting him more than he thought he ever could.

But in the end, he just said, “Thanks for not leaving me behind.”

Leonardo didn’t blink. “Not happening.”

They sat like that for a few more breaths. Just the quiet creak of settling stone and the faint rustle of dust falling from above.

Eventually, Leonardo looked down the tunnel. “We can’t stay here long. Smoke’ll reach us.”

Gabriel nodded, the motion slow and heavy. “Just… give me another minute.”

Leonardo didn’t argue.

He stayed exactly where he was, one hand steady on Gabriel’s shoulder, the other ready, just in case anything happened.