Not blinking awake. Not gasping for breath. Just open—sudden and wrong. The man in white stood, stepping back. The bald man rose to his feet. Stiffly. Mechanically. His chest still had three bullet holes, blood still soaking his shirt. But he was standing.
"No," Monty breathed. "No, no, no—"
The bald man turned toward his former allies—two Saint Patro members who'd taken cover behind the couch, still firing at the tactical team. And he attacked them.
He moved wrong—too fast in some places, too jerky in others, like his body was being puppeted by someone who didn't quite understand how joints worked. But he was strong.
He grabbed one of the Saint Patro members, slamming him into the wall with inhuman force. The man screamed, trying to push him away, shouting his name—
"Carlos! Carlos, what the fuck—"
But Carlos—the bald man, the dead man—didn't respond. His face was slack, eyes empty. He just kept hitting, kept crushing, until the other man stopped moving.
Then Carlos turned on the second Saint Patro member.
"Jesus Christ," Kínitos whispered.
Monty switched cameras, his hands shaking.
Another room. Another body being touched by the man in white. Another corpse standing up and turning on its former friends. A woman who'd been shot in the hallway—throat torn open by bullets—rose to her feet at the man in white's touch.
Her head lolled at an unnatural angle, blood pouring down her chest. But she moved.
She stumbled toward a Saint Patro member trying to escape through a window. Grabbed him by the ankle. Pulled him back inside, her dead fingers impossibly strong.
His screams cut off abruptly. The tactical team didn't interfere. They just watched, weapons lowered, forming a perimeter around the man in white as he moved through the house.
Touch. Rise. Attack.
Touch. Rise. Attack.
Every Saint Patro member he resurrected turned on the living immediately—driven by something that wasn't hunger, wasn't rage, just purpose. Single-minded and unstoppable.
The few surviving Saint Patro members tried to fight back. They shot the resurrected dead, but the bodies just kept coming.
A man took six rounds to the torso and barely slowed down. A woman with half her skull blown off still grabbed and clawed and crushed. Only headshots stopped them. Complete destruction of the brain.
And even then, Monty watched one body shot through the head, brain matter splattered across the wall. Twitch for a full ten seconds before finally going still. The man in white stood in the center of the office now, surrounded by carnage.
Living Saint Patro members screaming and dying. Dead Saint Patro members rising and killing. He didn't look concerned. He looked satisfied.
He pulled out a phone, said something into it. Too far from the camera's microphone to hear—then pocketted it again. His tactical team moved in, finishing off the survivors. Quick. Professional. No hesitation.
Then they put down the resurrected dead with headshots. One by one. Until nothing in the house was moving. The man in white walked back outside, his pristine suit somehow still unmarked despite the massacre.
The vans loaded up. Engines started. And then they were gone.The whole thing had taken less than seven minutes. Monty and Kínitos sat in stunned silence, staring at the phone screen.
The Marlow Street house was a slaughterhouse. Bodies everywhere. Blood on every surface. And the Saint Patro's operation—gutted in a single strike.
By dead men killing their friends.
"Who the hell was that?" Kínitos asked, his voice hollow.
"I don't know." Monty's hands were still shaking. "But he brought them back. The dead ones. He touched them and they got back up and they killed their own people."
"That's not possible." Said Kínitos
"I just watched it happen. Multiple cameras. Multiple bodies." Monty looked at Kínitos, fear clear in his eyes. "What the fuck type of paradox is that?" Questioned Monti
Kínitos looked back at The Stack, then at his watch. "We don't have time to process this. It's almost midnight. We need to move." He said
"Are you serious? We just watched—" said Monti
"I know what we watched." Kínitos's voice was hard, but Monty could hear the tremor underneath. "But that woman is still up there. Salmo's still in the building. And whatever just happened at that house doesn't change our mission." Continued Kínitos
Monti wanted to argue. Wanted to call Jade, report what they'd just seen, get backup, get answers. But Kínitos was right. They had a job to do.
"Alright, they will have to send people over there right?" Monti questioned, pocketing his phone.
"Let's go get her." Monti says
They stood, activating their suits. Purple and red light traced across their bodies, the material forming seamlessly. Monty checked the camera feeds one more time. Salmo was still on the lower floors.
The top floor hallway was clear. This was their chance. They moved toward The Stack's fire escape, ready to climb. Ready to save someone who'd helped them. Not knowing that in forty-four minutes, the entire top floor would explode.