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The office door was still closed, but something had already shifted in the room.
Slate felt it before he could name it—a pressure in the air, subtle as a held breath but wrong enough to prickle the skin along his arms. His office had never felt this still, not even during the worst nights of the Blackwell case when sleep came in broken scraps.
He hadn't slept tonight either. Two hours on the narrow couch in the corner had done nothing but leave him sore. The stale coffee smell that lived in the carpet mixed with the metallic tang of stress and exhaustion.
He rubbed his eyes.
Get a grip. You're just tired.
But exhaustion didn't make shadows move.
Something flickered near the window—just at the corner of his vision.
He looked up fast.
Only blinds. Only morning light cutting gray slashes across the floor.
Nothing else.
Slate let out a slow breath, but his instincts stayed tight.
He scanned the blinds, the edges of the room, the faint reflection in the glass of his framed commendation. Everything looked normal.
Except it wasn't.
The corner beside the window moved.
So slight it could've been his imagination—light bending, then settling back. The shadow there wasn't acting like a shadow should. It breathed. Stretched a little. Shrank again. Never quite still.
His heartbeat picked up.
He didn't stand. Didn't reach for the backup weapon in his drawer. Years on the force had taught him that when something unnatural tries to hide, you don't make the first move until you know what you're dealing with.
Instead, he leaned back in his chair. Casual. Like he hadn't noticed anything.
Waiting.
A faint tremor rippled through the air—something felt more than heard, like a vibration in his bones.
Slate's eyes narrowed.
Someone was in here with him.
Then the shadow stepped forward.
It didn't emerge so much as unfold, peeling away from the darkness with a fluid grace that didn't belong to anything human. At first glance it seemed man-shaped, but the longer Slate looked, the more the details went wrong.
The suit wasn't fabric.
It was woven from thin metallic threads that webbed across the torso like living circuitry. At the center of the chest, embedded deep, sat a small orb—no bigger than a coin—rotating silently inside the lattice.
No hum. No mechanical whir. Just that dim light turning inside it, the color of something dead and cold.
Slate's breath caught.
*What the hell—*
The figure paused, tilting its head. If Slate hadn't been staring right at it, he might never have seen it at all. The suit shifted with the light, blending into the wall, the floor, even the blinds.
This wasn't stealth gear.
This *was* stealth.
The figure moved again, and the suit rippled like oil on water.
Slate swallowed. "You're a long way from the shadows, friend."
No response.
Then it moved.
Fast. Silent. Deadly. The kind of movement Slate had only seen in old martial arts footage—footwork that glided like water, angles sharp and precise, the body folding inward just to snap out in a whip-fast strike.
Slate jerked back. The desk caught the first blow—a slicing arc from the figure's hand. Not a blade he recognized. A narrow strip of dark metal extended from its palm, thin as wire, gleaming dully.
He rolled sideways, his chair screeching across the floor. Papers scattered as he hit the ground and kept moving.
The second strike cut through the air where his throat had been a second ago.
Too close.
Slate slammed into the filing cabinet, pain shooting down his side, but he pushed off immediately. The figure advanced, almost weightless, each step a ghost of motion—floating, pivoting, never announcing itself until it was already there.
Slate's mind raced. He'd been in more fights than he could count. But nothing like this.
He dodged another slash. The metal strip kissed his jaw, drawing a thin line of blood.
He winced.
The figure didn't pause. It lunged.
Slate blocked with his forearm, twisted, and threw a counterpunch at the neck.
But the figure vanished into his blind spot, slipping around the blow like smoke.
What in the nine heavens—
It was behind him.
Slate spun, but he felt it before he saw it—the cold touch of metal brushing his throat. The blade poised, a breath away from finishing this.
His pulse hammered. His muscles locked.
And then something happened between his eyes.
A flare.
A spark.
A light.
It ignited just above the bridge of his nose—a glimmer at first, then a streak of brightness pulsing outward like reality itself was splitting open. He didn't understand it. Couldn't explain it.
But it sharpened everything.
The world slowed.
Slate moved on pure instinct. He dropped his head, twisted his shoulders, and the blade missed by a hair. His reflexes surged, every possibility lighting up at once.
He exhaled.
Then struck.
Three blows—fast, precise, unthinking. Palm to the ribs. Knuckle to the wrist. Elbow to the sternum.
The figure staggered back, forced to retreat for the first time.
The rotating core in its chest stuttered, flickering in jagged pulses.
The figure hissed—mechanical, layered, wrong.
"You..." its voice rasped. "You are a Sutran. How is that possible?"
Slate wiped the blood from his jaw with the back of his hand. He didn't know what that word meant. Didn't care. His voice came out rough.
"What's so shocking about it? And who the hell are you? Are you the Azaqor freak messing with my life?"
The figure said nothing.
Its stance shifted—subtle, cautious, calculating.
Slate caught it instantly.
"You're not going anywhere."
The figure dropped into darkness.
Slate lunged—
The office door slammed open.
The shock cut off the light between his eyebrows. The flare vanished, leaving only faint warmth on his skin.
Slate stumbled, blinking hard.
Anthony Veyne stood in the doorway with federal authority written all over him—charcoal suit, glasses hiding half his expression, two uniformed officers flanking him.
Polished boots. Gleaming handcuffs.
Slate's breath stilled.
The window behind him was empty.
The shadow-figure—gone.
Like it had never existed.
Anthony's voice came down like a judge's gavel.
"Chief Slate of Crestwood PD," he said, flipping open his badge. "You're under arrest."
Slate barely heard the rest. His mind was still on the window. The faint trace of where the figure had been standing seconds ago.
His jaw tightened as Anthony listed the charges—Effexaine distribution, cocaine trafficking, evidence tampering. Slate didn't respond. Couldn't.
He couldn't stop staring at the window.
Because something had been there.
And now it wasn't.
Two officers grabbed his wrists. Cold metal clicked shut. His shoulders stiffened, irritation and disbelief coiling inside him.
Owen appeared in the hallway with a half-empty coffee cup, eyebrows raised as Slate was escorted past.
"Seriously," Owen said with a smirk, "what's the world coming to? Higher-ups turning into thugs. One head barks justice, the other head barks gold. Maybe that riddle Azaqor gave us was pointing at you crooks."
Nia and a few nearby detectives stifled laughter.
Slate didn't react. He just stared at Owen with an expression so faint it almost wasn't there—a slight pull at his brow, a tightening around the eyes. Something that looked less like anger and more like pity.
A look that said: *You have no idea what's coming.*
Anthony pulled him away.
As Slate was shoved toward the exit, Anthony leaned in close—too close—and whispered something in his ear.
Whatever it was made Slate's face twist like he'd swallowed something rotten. His stomach clenched. His jaw locked tight.
By the time he reached the police car, he looked genuinely shaken.
Owen frowned. "What the hell was that about?"
Anthony stood straighter beside the car, jaw clenched. He didn't look pleased. Didn't look relieved. He looked tired.
Nia approached carefully. "Anthony... what's wrong?"
He hesitated. Then lifted his phone.
"Last night while the Mayor and Slate were talking... Azaqor broadcast them," Anthony said quietly. "Posted it on the dark web. Somehow it bounced onto Vtube Live. Half the town watched it."
Nia sucked in a breath. Owen cursed under his breath.
Anthony pressed play. The video showed Slate and Blackwell in conversation. Their words damning. Their deals exposed. Every ugly thing laid bare.
It looked real. Too real.
But Slate's fight?
His attacker?
The shadow-figure?
None of it was in the footage.
Anthony rubbed his forehead. "Now the whole city's in chaos."
Owen shrugged, still skeptical. "Well, people saw their 'protectors' were dirty. Azaqor unmasked them."
Nia snorted. "Don't start praising him. That man's a psychopath who needs to be stopped."
Anthony nodded. His voice hardened. "Nia's right. We find Azaqor. We bring him in before more people get hurt."
The team gathered near the police car, voices tense in the cold morning air, completely unaware of the darker presence that had slipped out of Slate's window moments earlier.
Unaware of how close death had come.
Unaware of the shadow that had almost changed everything.
Slate sat silent in the back seat.
And in the reflection of the car window...
Just for a heartbeat...
He thought he saw the faint flicker of that rotating core—somewhere far down the street—watching him.
Then it disappeared.