Chapter 7 – Coiled Spring

The rain had stopped but Singapore’s humidity came back with a vengeance. The air was thick enough to drink, and the sun – now fully risen – pressed down like an open palm.

Max leaned against a rusting handrail near the hospital’s rear service exit, a cigarette dangling unlit between his fingers. He wasn’t allowed to smoke on hospital grounds, but he liked the feel of it. The shape. The weight. It gave his hands something to do while his brain spiralled.

Dan stood a few feet away, arms crossed, watching the horizon like it had something interesting to say.

Dan glanced sideways. “You spoken to Ethan recently?”

Max shook his head. “Not since Liz collapsed. Why?”

Dan hesitated. “I don’t know. He just... hasn’t been himself lately. Said some weird things on the phone. Like he was obsessed with your daughter’s condition. Almost sounded like he blamed himself.”

Max forced a shrug. “He’s under stress. We all are.”

Dan didn’t push. But the look in his eyes said he wanted to.

Max squinted at the city skyline through the rising steam off the pavement. The faint sound of traffic in the distance. The echo of hospital trolleys rolling somewhere behind them.

Peace. For now.

Then—

“You’re a damn idiot, you know that?!”

The voice cracked the silence like a thunderclap.

Max stiffened, slowly turning toward the source.

A figure was storming across the small parking lot, past a confused security guard who looked about two seconds away from calling backup.

Victor Drake.

Same broad-shouldered bear of a man Max remembered, but a little older now—his beard rougher, his skin darker from sun and sweat, his gait somewhere between a march and a warpath. A forest-green army surplus duffel bag bounced off his back as he moved, heavy enough to be mistaken for a body bag.

He wore a battered leather jacket over a faded T-shirt that said RANGERS NEVER QUIT, the letters half-peeled from years of wear. Combat boots. Wrists taped. No umbrella. Just soaked from the knees down and radiating heat like a pissed-off volcano.

Dan straightened slightly.

Max just sighed.

“Here we go.”

Victor stomped past the security guard, who gave a half-hearted “Sir, you can’t be—” before deciding his life wasn’t worth the confrontation.

Victor stopped three feet from Max.

Glared.

Then threw his duffel bag on the ground hard enough to make the concrete flinch.

“You blew up a motel.”

Max blinked. “Allegedly.”

Victor’s glare deepened. “I left the field for this. April didn’t drag me out of Syria just to see you die dumb in a newsreel.”

Dan blinked. “Field?”

Max half-smiled. “You didn’t tell him?”

Victor grunted. “Doctor Victor Drake, PhD. Wildlife biology. Specialization in apex predator response. Used to lecture in Darwin between conservation gigs. April convinced me to trade deserts for degrees.”

“And now you’re here,” Max muttered.

“I flew here from Darwin and the first thing I see on the news is you in a damn crater, surrounded by flaming debris and half the Singapore Civil Defence Force. You think that’s not going to give me a fucking heart attack?!”

Max shrugged. “It wasn’t my best day.”

Victor took one step closer. His jaw was clenched. His fists balled. He looked ready to punch Max, strangle him, or both.

Then his shoulders dropped – just slightly.

Instead, he pulled Max into a bear hug and slammed a fist into his back.

“Asshole,” he muttered.

Max grunted. “You’re still too strong.”

Victor stepped back, eyes softer now. Still furious. But under it, relief. And fear. The kind that only shows up in old friends and war buddies.

Dan watched them both with a faint smile. “It’s good to see you Vic.”

Victor turned, looked Dan up and down. “And you’re looking classier than ever Dan.”

“I’m a class act.”

They shook hands – firmly, but without tension. Two men who’d read the same book on violence and just bookmarked different chapters.

Max lit his cigarette. Didn’t inhale.

“Victor,” he said, “Liz is alive. But she’s not waking up.”

Victor didn’t speak.

Didn’t nod.

Just picked up his bag again, eyes locked on the hospital entrance.

“Then what the hell are we standing out here for?”

…………………

Victor didn’t know what he expected when he landed in Singapore. Maybe a fight. Maybe a funeral. But the message from Dan had been too vague, and the lack of a call from Max said more than words ever could. So, when he stepped out of the cab, soaked from the knees down, he already knew something had gone wrong.

The man waiting by the rusting hospital service exit wasn’t the Max Jaeger he remembered. He was thinner. Pale. His shoulders were hunched – not from weakness, but from weight.

Victor weighed heavy thoughts as he walked the long march into the hospital.

The corridor leading toward the ICU was quiet, save for the squeak of Victor’s boots on the polished linoleum. Max walked beside him, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, Dan trailing a few paces behind like a calm shadow.

Victor hadn’t spoken since they left the cafeteria.

He didn’t need to.

The silence between them wasn’t comfortable but it was familiar. The kind of silence forged in foxholes and fire. A silence where every unspoken word still left its weight in the air.

They passed a nurse. She gave Victor a glance, looked him over – broad shoulders, old scars peeking from under the sleeve, eyes like someone who’d been through real shit – and then looked away without a word.

Max was the first to break it.

“You’re walking like you’re casing the place.”

Victor grunted. “I am. It smells wrong.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Hospital funk not to your liking?”

“No,” Victor muttered. “The air. It’s… heavy. Like a place where something’s gone bad but nobody’s admitted it yet.”

Max didn’t respond.

They rounded the corner near the ICU. The glass doors stood like sentinels. Lights overhead buzzed faintly. A janitor passed with a mop cart, pausing briefly to glance at them.

Victor stopped.

Max kept walking. Then noticed.

Turned back.

Victor was staring at him.

“Tell me,” he said. “What really happened in that motel.”

Max folded his arms. “You saw the news.”

Victor’s jaw ticked. “I saw the crater.”

Max didn’t move.

Victor stepped forward, his voice low.

“I’ve been in enough blast zones to know what an IED looks like. What a gas leak looks like. What a revenge bombing looks like. This? This was none of those.”

Max didn’t reply. His eyes were flat.

Victor pressed on. “You were at the centre of it. You walked out of a levelled building without a scratch. That’s not a miracle. That’s a problem.”

Dan spoke up from behind, gently. “Vic – he’s still figuring it out. Give him time.”

But Victor wasn’t done.

“I saw footage from a traffic cam,” he said, eyes never leaving Max. “Right before the explosion, there was a flash. Blue fire. Looked like lightning, but there was no storm. And then – boom. Gone.”

Max exhaled through his nose. “And?”

“And I’ve seen evil before, Jaeger,” Victor said, voice tight. “War zones. Executions. Places where the wrong kind of men did the wrong kind of things. I’ve felt it in the pit of my gut.”

He leaned in slightly.

“But that motel? It didn’t feel like evil men. It felt like something else. Like the ground itself had flinched.”

Max stared at him for a moment.

Then quietly said, “I made a deal.”

Victor didn’t blink.

“With who?” he asked.

Max shook his head. “I… I’m not ready to say.”

Dan stepped in, steady as always. “He’s not hiding it out of pride. He’s just not ready to share what it cost.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “So, something happened. Something not normal.”

Max met his gaze. “Something I’m still trying to survive.”

Victor let that sit.

Then, finally, he took a step back. Rolled his shoulders like he was trying to shake off the weight of a decision.

“You’ve changed,” he said. “Your eyes. Your presence. It’s like being near a downed power line – you don’t hear it, but your skin knows.”

Max didn’t deny it.

Victor studied him another beat, then gave a slow nod.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “But I believe in people. And I believe in you. So, whatever this is – whatever you’ve done – I’m not bailing.”

Max’s jaw clenched. “Even if I’ve crossed a line?”

Victor smirked faintly. “Just means I’ll be the one dragging you back.”

Dan smiled. “Worst self-help duo in the world.”

Victor gave a short laugh. “We don’t do therapy. We do triage.”

He turned toward the ICU doors. Pulled a keycard from his pocket and tapped it to the panel. It beeped green.

Max blinked. “Where’d you get that?”

Victor shrugged. “Nurse gave it to me. Said I looked like I wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

He pushed the door open.

Max hesitated.

Victor glanced back. “Coming?”

Max nodded.

They stepped through together.
…………………

Victor didn’t follow them into Room 805.

He stopped just short of the doorway, standing in the hallway like a sentinel carved from old stone. Max moved past him without a word, entered the room with slow, deliberate steps. Dan followed, offering only a glance in Victor’s direction – a silent you coming?

Victor didn’t move.

He stood there, staring through the glass panel set into the door. Silent. Unblinking.

Liz lay where she always did – motionless, pale, half-buried under wires and blankets. The faint hum of machines was muffled by the wall, but Victor didn’t need to hear them. He could feel the fragility of it. The edge-of-the-cliff stillness. Like walking into a field where a bomb hadn’t gone off yet.

Her face was thinner than he remembered. Skin too smooth, too delicate. The kind of look soldiers had when the war had taken everything but their heartbeat. But even then… there was something else. Something wrong.

Victor squinted.

Not at her injuries. Not at the IV drips or vitals.

At the air around her.

It shimmered. Only for a moment. Like a heat mirage. Like a veil fluttering when no wind was present. It wasn’t visible exactly but it pressed against his instincts like a pressure drop before a storm. A wrongness his gut couldn’t name.

Dan stood near the window now, speaking softly to Liz – gentle, warm, grounding.

Max knelt beside the bed, holding her hand. His other rested on his knee, clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

Victor’s throat tightened.

He looked away.

Not because he couldn’t face it.

Because he couldn’t trust himself if he stepped inside.

There was a darkness in him – one he’d carried since the day he buried his unit in a firefight gone wrong. He kept it contained. Buried beneath discipline, gritted teeth, and workouts that left him half-dead. But that room? That girl?

She wasn’t just sleeping.

And Victor knew, in the marrow of his bones, that if he walked in, he might see something he wasn’t ready for.

Something looking back.

He backed up a single step and crossed his arms.

Max turned slightly toward the door, saw him still standing there.

“You alright?” he called out.

Victor didn’t answer right away. His voice, when it came, was quiet. Gravelled.

“She doesn’t look weak.”

Max blinked. “She’s dying, Vic.”

Victor shook his head. “No. She’s… loaded. Like a coiled spring. That girl’s not slipping away – she’s holding back.”

Dan turned to glance at him, brow raised. “Holding back what?”

Victor didn’t reply.

He just watched Liz for another second, then turned away, retreating down the hall.

Max watched him leave. Didn’t argue.

Dan looked between them, then back to Liz.

Outside, the sky cracked with the sound of distant thunder.

And behind the glass, Victor stood still – watching the storm through someone else’s window, knowing it would come for all of them soon enough.

…………………

The hallway outside Room 805 was quiet. Sterile white walls hummed with electricity. Somewhere far off, an elevator dinged. A nurse’s shoes squeaked across linoleum. The rest was silence.

Victor leaned against the far wall, arms folded, face unreadable.

Max stepped out of the room slowly, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He looked wrecked. Hollow-eyed. Still pulsing faintly with that strange golden glow beneath his skin. Like something divine—or infernal—had been locked inside and hadn’t figured out which way to burn yet.

Dan followed, hands in his jacket pockets, calm as ever.

For a moment, none of them spoke.

Then Max looked at Victor.

“You’re really not going to go in?” he asked, voice low.

Victor didn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t do… hospitals.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Since when?”

“Since Cairo,” Victor said simply.

Max didn’t press.

Victor pushed off the wall, finally standing straight. His posture was military by default—balanced, solid, like a building that wouldn’t fall unless a wrecking ball made the first move.

He looked at Max now.

Really looked.

“You’ve changed.”

Max blinked. “I was always this charming.”

Victor didn’t smile. “I mean it.”

He stepped closer. Close enough that Max could feel the heat rising off him—the tension coiled in his spine like a predator trying to stay leashed.

“Your hands are shaking,” Victor said. “But you don’t look weak. You look like a guy who swallowed a grenade and is waiting to see if it goes off.”

Max exhaled. “It already did.”

Dan watched the two of them carefully, not speaking.

Max met his gaze. “You think I’m dangerous.”

“I.. don’t know.”

Dan finally stepped in. “We’re not here to judge. We’re here to help.”

Victor nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’m here because of Liz. I owe April that. I owe you that.” His eyes flicked back to Max. “But I need to know something.”

Max tilted his head. “Ask.”

Victor’s jaw tensed. “Are you still you?”

The question hung in the air like a blade.

Max didn’t answer right away. He looked at his hands – veins still pulsing gold, a shimmering golden aura clear to his eye, fingers still aching from the transfer to Liz. His soul still burned like it hadn’t forgiven him yet.

Then he looked back up.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m still her father.”

That was enough.

Victor nodded once. A soldier’s nod. Acceptance. Not peace, but trust earned on credit.

Dan clapped both of them lightly on the shoulder. “Good. Because we’re going to need each other.”

He looked toward the door, his gaze hardening.

“We’re not letting it win.”

The three men stood together in the corridor – no fanfare, no declarations. Just battered souls holding each other upright.

The team hadn’t formed yet.

But whatever this was – it wasn’t over.

…………………

They found a quiet corner on the rooftop – not the main observation deck, but a maintenance platform near the east wing. It was quieter here. No nurses. No hospital hum. Just open air, rusted rails, and the sounds of a waking city far below.

The rain had stopped. Singapore’s skyline stretched around them in cold steel silhouettes. Mist clung to the towers like ghosts that hadn’t decided whether to stay or leave.

Max sat on the ledge, elbows on his knees, fingers clasped. Dan stood nearby, arms folded. Victor leaned against a generator box, silent but sharp, like he was waiting for an enemy to walk through the door.

Max didn’t speak at first.

He just breathed.

Then, finally:

“I made a deal.”

Dan blinked. Victor straightened.

Max kept his eyes on the horizon. “I didn’t believe in demons. Thought it was bullshit. Internet garbage. Urban legends dressed in dead languages and candles.”

He turned his head slightly, just enough to catch their eyes.

“But I was desperate. Liz was dying. The doctors had given up. And I couldn’t live with that.”

Dan’s gaze softened. Victor said nothing.

“So, I tried something. I found April’s old things. Books. Instructions. Occult stuff. About how to summon a demon” Max’s voice dropped. “It was written like a recipe. Dangerous, but simple. But it described a risk. That I wouldn’t know what kind of demon answered. That it could be a trick. A curse.”

“And you still did it,” Victor said.

Max nodded. “Because if there was even one percent chance it could save her, I had to try.”

Dan stepped closer, quiet. “What happened?”

Max looked down at his hands.

“I summoned something. Something evil. A demon. Its name was Aamon.”

That made Victor twitch.

“It didn’t just show up. It inhabited someone. A young guy. A guy who tried to kill me. Killed him mid-ritual and it used his body to break through into our world.”

Max’s gaze drifted, somewhere past the edge of the room. But his voice didn’t waver.

“He didn’t offer strength for me. Not directly. What he gave was... a key. The ability to awaken it in others. To reach into someone’s soul and light the fuse that was already there.”

He paused.

“I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust anything. Especially not something like that – touching her. Liz.”

A breath.

“So I made the call. I’d be the conduit. If power was the only way to save her... then it had to go through me.”

Dan leaned forward, brow furrowed. “That’s what you did to Liz?”

“Yeah.” Max nodded. “But not the way I planned. Aamon had no intention of keeping the deal clean. As soon as the Contract was fulfilled, it tried to devour me.”

Victor stepped off the wall. “Like... eat you?”

“Not physically,” Max said. “He tried to rip my soul open. Possess me. Use me as a vessel to stay in this world. But something happened. I don’t understand it all, but when he tried to take me, something in me fought back. Caged him.”

Max tapped his chest. “I didn’t die. I absorbed it. Its soul. His fire. I burned with it. And I’m still burning.”

He opened his hand.

A faint golden glow curled to life in his palm. Not bright. Not wild. Just a flicker – enough to light their faces.

“This is what’s left of it. Of the power. It’s soul fire. It hurts to use it. It hurts to hold it. But it listens. Sometimes.”

Victor stared. Not speaking. Not blinking.

Dan exhaled, slow. “You’re carrying what’s left of a demon inside you.”

“Yes,” Max said. “And I think that makes me the first person to ever imprison one instead of being consumed.”

The flame flickered out. His hand closed.

“That’s what happened in the motel. That’s what destroyed it. The Contract. The fire. Aamon’s death – or whatever you want to call it.”

Dan rubbed his jaw. “And Liz?”

“I used the power on her. Transferred it. Gave her something. I don’t know what. She didn’t wake up, but she changed. Her aura… it’s red. Furious. Alive. She’s not dying anymore. But something’s still keeping her under.”

Victor finally spoke.

“And you’re telling us this now… why?”

Max met his eyes. “Because whatever’s coming next — I can’t face it alone. I need people I trust. I need you.”

Dan nodded once, silent affirmation.

Victor took a breath. “I don’t know if I believe all of this.”

Max looked at him. “You don’t have to believe the story. Believe this.”

Max raised his hands unleashing a flare of wild golden flame into the sky.

Victor eyes widened as he clenched his fists. “So, what now?”

Max stood.

“I find out what’s happening to Liz. I find out if I can control this thing inside me. And then…” His eyes hardened. “I find who else made a deal. Because I doubt I’m the first Contractor to survive a demon...”

He turned away from the ledge.

“This isn’t just about saving her anymore.”

…………………

The elevator down was quiet.

Too quiet.

Max stood between Dan and Victor as they descended. Each man lost in his own head. No one spoke.

Floor numbers ticked down. 12. 11. 10.

Victor’s arms were folded tight. Max could feel the tension radiating from him — not fear, but a soldier’s discomfort when the rules of engagement shift.

Dan, by contrast, seemed calm. Not passive, just still – the same way monks sat beside burning pyres.

Max’s hands remained in his pockets. He could still feel the ember of fire curled inside his chest. Waiting. Listening.

Ding.

The elevator stopped at the ninth floor.

Nobody had pressed it.

The doors slid open with a soft mechanical hiss.

Empty hallway.

Dim lights.

No movement.

Smoke.

A thin, grey tendril of smoke curled through the air just outside the elevator door. Not the acrid black of fire — but pale, like incense burned too long. It coiled through the hallway like a question mark.

Max felt his skin tighten.

Dan said nothing. But his stance changed — subtle, alert. One hand lowered slowly toward his hip, like reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there.

Victor squinted. “Fire alarm’s not going off.”

Max stepped forward, peered down the hallway.

Fluorescent lights buzzed above. The air shimmered slightly at the far end — heat distortion, like sun on asphalt. But it wasn’t hot. It was cold. And something about the silence was wrong.

Hospitals were never this quiet.

Then, a sound.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Slow footsteps, coming from around the corner.

Not hurried. Not medical.

Measured.

Like someone walking for effect.

Max turned back to his friends. “Stay in the elevator.”

Victor didn’t move. “Not a chance.”

Dan didn’t speak, but stepped forward to stand beside Max.

The three of them faced the hallway as the footsteps drew closer.

Then—

A figure emerged.

A man. Maybe. Dressed in hospital scrubs, barefoot, head down. Shoulders hunched. Movements twitchy. His joints bending wrong. His face was obscured by a surgical mask, stained dark at the mouth. His eyes were hidden beneath long, tangled hair.

But his aura – Max could see it.

Dark red. But not like Liz.

This red was twisted. Unstable. Flickering with black edges, like the flame of a dying match. It pulsed erratically, too fast, like something trying to break through skin.

Dan leaned slightly toward Max. “You seeing this?”

Max nodded once.

The man – if it was a man – stopped halfway down the hall. Lifted his head slowly.

His eyes were completely black.

No whites. No irises. Just endless void.

And then – he smiled beneath the mask. A twitching, head-tilted grin that didn’t match any known human expression.

“Found you,” he rasped.

Max’s fire surged.

Victor took one step forward.

Dan whispered, “This hospital’s about to be a battleground.”

Max didn’t blink.

He raised his hand, and golden sparks flickered at his fingertips.

Then—

The man moved.

So fast he blurred.

And the hallway exploded into chaos.