Chapter 13 – Extraction

The earth was still soft from the rain.

Max dug in silence. No shovel – just hands, clawed and scraped raw, the sleeves of his coat soaked through with blood and soil. Dan worked beside him, slower, careful. Victor stood watch, arms crossed, eyes locked on the horizon like he expected the world to attack them again at any moment.

Chloe and Alyssa sat nearby beneath the broken frame of a garden trellis behind the hospital – what used to be a flowerbed, now just mud and weeds. Jack’s body, wrapped in a torn emergency blanket, lay between them. His face was covered. His fingers still clutched the edge of the blue paper crane.

It should have been quiet. It wasn’t.

The hospital still groaned with dying power – flickering lights, distant beeps, the occasional metallic clang of something shifting that shouldn’t be. Smoke rose from a scorched corridor nearby.

They hadn’t spoken since carrying him out.

Not even when Max found a place – shielded by overgrowth and rubble, half-collapsed concrete walls from what used to be a nurse’s garden.

Now it would be a grave.

“Deeper,” Victor muttered. “Animals’ll get to him if it’s too shallow.”

Max didn’t answer. He just kept digging.

Dan’s voice was hoarse. “It’s deep enough.”

Max stopped. Looked down into the earth. Then back at the body.

Chloe stood first. She moved like a shadow, slow and shaking, and gently placed the crane on Jack’s chest.

“I never folded one for him,” she whispered. “He always said his luck came from hers.”

Alyssa stepped beside her, face pale, but no tears now. Just grit. “He made a dumb joke. Called himself our tank.”

She looked at Max. “He was. He took the hit.”

Max nodded. Nothing more.

Victor lifted the body. Laid it in the ground with more gentleness than any of them expected. For all his monstrous strength, there was care in the way he moved. A respect.

Dan knelt and said nothing, but light flickered around his hands once – just a flicker – and faded. A blessing, maybe. Or an apology.

Max picked up a handful of dirt.

“He didn’t run,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the morning fog like steel. “He didn’t have powers. No training. Just guts and bad jokes.”

He paused. Looked at the crane resting on the boy’s chest.

“But when it mattered, he stood up. That’s more than most with power ever do.”

The dirt hit the blanket with a soft thud.

One by one, they followed. Until the grave was full. Until the shape of him was gone beneath the soil.

Silence settled again.

Then tires crunched gravel nearby.

Victor’s head snapped up. “Movement.”

Max rose slowly. His fingers were bleeding. He didn’t wipe them clean.

Out on the cracked pavement behind the hospital, a black convoy rolled in – three matte SUVs, headlights off, moving like predators through fog.

They stopped. Doors opened in sync.

Six soldiers stepped out. Not Singaporean. Not government. Their armour was sleek, gunmetal-grey with strange runes etched into the plates. Each carried a standard rifle, but also something stranger: a melee weapon strapped to their back – swords, axes, long knives – and a faintly glowing ruby pendant around their necks.

On each breastplate: a crest.

A sword, a scroll, and bat-like wings.

Max tensed.

Dan stood.

Victor’s hands flexed like claws.

The lead soldier – tall, helmet off, silver buzzcut and scarred cheek – stepped forward.

“Mr. Jaeger.” His voice was clipped, British, all business. “Dr. Grimm requests your immediate presence.”

He stopped five feet from the grave. Eyes didn’t flicker once.

“We’re here to extract you.”

…………………

The air shifted. Tighter. More dangerous.

Max didn’t move. “You’re not military.”

The lead soldier didn’t blink. “No, sir. We’re the Grimm Institute.”

His voice was flat. Controlled. And absolute.

“We specialize in the kind of threats you just dealt with.”

Victor stepped forward, half-shifted again. “And you just show up? What, were you watching us the whole time?”

The soldier met his eyes without flinching. “Dr. Grimm has standing alerts on Category-3 incursions. A spontaneous manifestation of that magnitude triggered every sensor we have in Southeast Asia. Your… outburst lit up half a dozen satellites.”

He looked at Max. “We’ve been en route since the hospital burned.”

Max narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?”

The man didn’t answer immediately. He reached up, tapped a device behind his ear. “This is Hawthorne. Extraction team is on-site. Target located. Subject is cooperative.” He paused, listening. Then added, “Yes. All three.”

Dan whispered, “All three?”

Another vehicle pulled in – sleek, black, and clearly not for combat. A modified medical transport, armoured, marked with the same crest.

From the back, two more figures emerged – medics in dark grey, their faces obscured by full visors. They carried something between them.

A pod.

Glossy black metal. No windows. Cables and runes etched along its sides. It hissed open slightly, revealing a soft white interior lined with strange silver threads. It looked more like a coffin than a stretcher.

“Don’t touch her,” Alyssa growled, stepping forward.

The medic paused. The lead soldier – Hawthorne – held up a hand. “This is for her protection. That girl is not just comatose. She’s submerged. If she wakes up without containment—” he looked directly at Max “—we might lose a whole hospital. Again.”

Max’s voice was stone. “You knew about her.”

“We know about everything,” Hawthorne said calmly. “Or we try to. Dr. Grimm flagged her case six months ago. As soon as your name came up in relation to a failed summoning attempt, she was classified a potential Awakened of Interest.”

Dan blinked. “She’s… what?”

“Power dormant. Locked beneath trauma or corruption. If she breaks surface in the wrong place, it’ll be catastrophic. That’s why we’re taking her to London. To containment. And to him.”

Alyssa stepped between them and the pod. “She’s not a threat.”

“Neither was the boy you just buried,” Hawthorne said. “And look how that turned out.”

The silence that followed was jagged.

Max stepped past Alyssa slowly. “I don’t trust you. But I know she can’t stay here.”

“She won’t,” Hawthorne said. “We’re wiping this site. Psych scrub teams are en route. Survivors will be implanted with trauma suppression markers. Anyone who saw the demon won’t remember it.”

Victor growled. “That’s not comforting.”

“It’s not meant to be,” Hawthorne replied. “It’s effective. And it keeps the world turning.”

Max nodded slowly. Then pointed. “We take her together. You don’t move her until I’m in that aircraft with her.”

“Agreed.” Hawthorne turned to his team and gestured. “Secure the perimeter. Prepare lift. Full silence protocol.”

Chloe leaned closer to Max. “Who the hell is Grimm?”

Max exhaled. “Someone with too many answers.”

…………………

The rooftop shook slightly beneath their feet.

Below, teams were moving – quick, clinical, silent. Grimm Institute operatives in black-and-silver uniforms swept through the hospital grounds with eerie coordination. Some were armed with traditional rifles. Others carried glowing melee weapons – axes, blades, glaives – unusual weapons for soldiers.

But it wasn’t the soldiers that made Max uneasy.

It was the man walking down the centre of the corridor, flanked by guards.

He looked normal – mid-30s, glasses, neat suit. Except his eyes shimmered faintly blue, and the air around him wavered like heat haze.

Two nurses passed him. They slowed. Their faces slackened. Then relaxed.

By the time they reached the stairwell, they looked completely calm. As if nothing had happened.

Victor watched, unsettled. “What the hell is that?”

Hawthorne didn’t even glance over. “Contractor. Class-Theta. Psychic focus. Operative Kane handles information suppression and memory overwrite.”

Alyssa frowned. “You’re erasing people’s memories?”

“Not erasing,” Kane said, stepping up behind her. “Rewriting.”

Dan’s jaw tightened. “Isn’t that—”

“Necessary,” Kane snapped. “You want a media frenzy? You want cops trying to explain why a teenage boy was impaled by a six-armed nightmare? You want the entire world to start making pacts with demons before we’re ready to control it?”

No one had an answer.

The psychic turned a corner. His eyes met Max’s for a moment – and Max flinched. Just for a second, something brushed against his mind.

A whisper. A shape. A voice that wasn’t his.

Then it was gone.

Hawthorne glanced at him. “First time?”

Max nodded, jaw tight. “Won’t be the last.”

…………………

The landing pad was set atop a rooftop that hadn’t existed yesterday.

Max stared at the matte-black VTOL jet sitting like a sleek predator against the Singapore skyline. No logos. No visible engines. Just the Grimm Institute insignia etched into its side: a scroll, a sword, and a pair of bat-like wings, glowing faintly red in the fading night.

As the wind picked up, the rooftop lights flickered. Below them, the city stirred – sirens far off, police lines forming, drones sweeping rooftops. But none of it reached this level. The Grimm Institute had carved out a bubble above the chaos. Silent. Absolute.

“Move fast,” Hawthorne said. “This corridor won’t stay clear long.”

The group approached in silence.

The medics rolled Liz’s sarcophagus-pod with clinical precision. The containment unit gave off a soft hum – like white noise but laced with something deeper. Power. Max walked beside it the whole way, one hand never leaving the smooth metal lid.

Dan lagged slightly, his steps uncertain. He looked up at the aircraft, then down at his hands – still raw from the failed healing. Still empty.

Victor stayed at the rear, scanning for threats that weren’t coming. His shirt hung in tatters. Blood had dried across his side. He didn’t care.

Alyssa and Chloe walked in silence. Both pale. Both hollowed out by grief and exhaustion. Alyssa clutched her hands with tension while Chloe hadn’t let go of Liz’s necklace once.

The others were prepping gear, strapping down Liz’s pod.

Max stepped away from the group for a breath of air.

Alyssa followed.

“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” she said quietly.

Max didn’t turn. “Do what?”

“Wake us up.”

He looked over at her. Her arms were crossed. Her eyes hard.

“You saw what happened to Jack,” Max said. “It’s not a gift. It’s not even power. It’s just... survival with scars.”

Alyssa didn’t blink. “And I want to survive.”

He hesitated.

“I don’t know what you’ll become,” he said. “I don’t know what’s inside you. It’s not like flipping a switch. It’s like... lighting a fuse.”

“Then light it,” she said. “I’m already burning.”

Chloe’s voice came quiet, but sharp. “We were already on fire the moment we walked into that room.”

Max looked at her, then at both of them – eyes too young to be this hard.

Max looked away. The jet engines whined louder.

Chloe approached them, quietly. She’d heard enough.

“If Alyssa’s in, I’m in,” she said. “You don’t get to fight this war without us.”

Max looked at them both. Then at Dan, still kneeling beside Jack’s sarcophagus, shaking.

“No one walks away clean,” he said.

“Good,” Alyssa said. “I’m tired of being clean.”

Max studied their eyes – hollow, yes. But hard. No fear. Just resolve.

He didn’t answer. Not yet.

But a choice had been made.

Behind them, the last soldier called out. “Flight crew’s ready. Final boarding!”

Max turned.

He would decide on the plane.

And if he was wrong...

He’d have to live with whatever monsters came out of them.

At the aircraft ramp, another man waited.

Black tactical coat. Silver insignia on his collar. Short grey hair, sharp beard, eyes like cut glass. Not a soldier. Something worse.

“Operative Kane,” Hawthorne said with a short nod. “Clearance confirmed?”

Kane didn’t look at Hawthorne. He looked at Max.

“Jaeger.” The man’s voice was velvet over razors. “Been briefed. You’re unstable, unpredictable, and – for reasons that make no mathematical sense – possibly critical to the survival of the species.”

He smiled, thin and mirthless. “So, here’s your user manual: You don’t touch the controls. You don’t lecture command. And you absolutely do not ask how we found you.”

He tilted his head. “If you’re still alive in 72 hours, maybe we’ll compare neuroses.”

Max stared back, unimpressed. “You left out ‘don’t trust anyone.’”

Kane smirked. “If that’s not obvious, you’re already dead.”

“We scanned the site,” Kane added casually, as if reading Max’s thoughts. “The boy’s body – Jack, was it? – already flagged under Incident Triage. Someone will handle it.”

Max didn’t respond. Neither did Chloe. But the silence that followed was colder than the jet’s air.

Victor stepped forward, expression unreadable. “Are we prisoners?”

Kane stepped aside. “If you were, I’d be smiling.”

The team moved up the ramp. Inside, the jet looked more like a war room than a plane – black walls, red lighting, reinforced chairs with harnesses, a central tactical display glowing with runic overlays. Data streamed across the screen in languages Max didn’t recognize. Or maybe they weren’t languages at all.

Liz’s pod locked into place automatically. It let out a soft hiss. The temperature dropped two degrees.

“She’ll be fine,” one medic said. “Mostly.”

Max didn’t answer. He strapped himself into the seat beside her.

Chloe took the seat opposite. Alyssa next to her, still tense, arms crossed like armour. Dan hesitated before dropping into the far corner, eyes down. Victor sat last, watching the back ramp like he didn’t trust it to stay closed.

Hawthorne stayed standing, gripping a ceiling rail as the engines rumbled awake.

“You’re now under provisional Institute protection,” he said. “You’ll be flown to HQ in London. You’ll be debriefed. Examined. And, if approved, integrated into containment operations.”

“And if we’re not approved?” Alyssa asked quietly.

Hawthorne didn’t blink. “Then you’ll be released into the wild.”

Victor snorted. “Nice to know your hospitality comes with an expiration date.”

The ramp sealed shut. Red lights dimmed. A deep thrum passed through the floor as the jet rose.

No windows. No sound of engines. Just the world falling away beneath them.

Max leaned back in his seat.

The war had followed them into the sky.

And somewhere above the clouds, the real enemy was waiting.

Max closed his eyes for just a moment, listening to the quiet hum of the engines, the breath of people still alive.

He reached out, resting one hand on Liz’s pod.

“I broke the rules once,” he murmured. “I’ll do it again.”