The night was heavy, wet with the breath of rain. The city’s lights swam in the puddles, long broken reflections that seemed to ripple like living things. Luna pulled her hood tighter, following close behind her sister. Neither spoke. The silence between them wasn’t agreement — it was survival.

  They had rehearsed their faces for returning home: tired, a little shaken, but otherwise ordinary. It was part of the ritual now — what the System expected. They moved like shadows through the hospital’s empty wings, hearts pounding with the terrible knowledge that what they were doing might never be forgiven.

  By dawn, the devices confirmed their work. A soft, clinical chime announced:

  MISSION: SUCCESSFUL.

  ZOLA’S APPROVAL: GRANTED.

  BULLSEYE’S SIDE MISSION: COMPLETED.

  EVALUATION SCORE: 4/5.

  Before the morning light had fully bled into the streets, a new message appeared: a summons. The girls were to meet two of their handlers that night — Zola and Bullseye — at a warehouse in the old industrial quarter. The location smelled of oil, rust, and decisions that had no place in daylight.

  They arrived together, cautious and small under the cavernous roof. The air inside the warehouse was colder than the night outside, and the echoes of their footsteps sounded loud and useless. A single lamp hung over a metal table where two figures waited like judges.

  Zola was a small man, his white coat stained in ways that made the hairs on Sabrina’s arms rise. He moved like someone who’d invented the rules of the room and then delighted in breaking them. When the girls stepped into the pool of light, his eyes fixed on them like instruments.

  “Aha,” Zola crooned, rubbing his hands together. “Our youngsters returned. Let us see the goods.”

  Sabrina felt her stomach twist. She and Luna exchanged a glance and then produced the evidence the System would accept — cleaned, folded, and packaged in a way that showed neither the method nor the cost. Zola’s grin widened, a wet, hungry thing.

  “Ooooh,” he murmured, almost maniacal. “You did… a magnificent job.” He slapped the table once, a sound like dry thunder. “Five out of five.” His laugh echoed off the corrugated metal, high and a little unhinged. “Full points. Such efficiency. Such… imagination.” He leaned back and left, chuckling at nothing.

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  After Zola’s exit, a different shadow detoured into the circle of light. Bullseye looked calmer by contrast — composed, deceptively pleasant. He studied the girls with a calculating little smile. “You did my side-mission well,” he said, voice flat and amused. “Clever. I like clever.”

  He reached into his coat and, in a movement that made the lamp light catch steel, drew a compact pistol. It caught the girls’ faces in the lamp’s glare—a cold, bright geometry. The gesture was a test more than a threat, a demonstration of power performed with the casual cruelty of a man confident in his tools.

  Luna flinched and instinctively moved behind Sabrina, protective as always. Sabrina’s throat worked; she kept her voice steady even as the world narrowed.

  Bullseye’s laugh was soft. “Is that all that is,” he said, amusement plain. “You think the world is only noise? I can stop a breath in four seconds. Want an example?”

  Both girls found their voices together: “No. We trust you.” Their answer came quick, the practiced politeness of those who had learned which refusals would not be tolerated.

  Bullseye’s disappointment was small and almost polite. “Ah,” he said, sliding the weapon back into its place. “Very well. Keep that courage. It will be useful. Good night, girls. We will see each other again soon.”

  They left the warehouse to the rain and the neon — altered, hollowed, carrying the approval of monsters who measured people in points.

  Denis did not witness the meeting. He only saw what came afterwards: the change in the girls’ step, the way Luna’s hands trembled as they reached their door, the hard little laugh Sabrina forced into being. He watched them move through their morning like two actors finishing a scene. He would later trace the edges of the warehouse district in his notes, but that night his attention was elsewhere.

  Later, in his study, the files were open like a patient’s chart. He searched through coded logs and municipal reports until a pattern sharpened enough to bruise. Sector 7’s incident, the hospital breach, and a cluster of juvenile assignment markers all lined up on a map his hand traced with growing fear.

  He paused when a small, smudged mark caught his eye — a portion of a hospital security barcode faintly printed on the inside seam of Luna’s bag, the same quick smear he had seen earlier while cleaning. It was not proof in a legal sense, but it was a thread. Threads could be pulled.

  Luna hovered in the doorway then, drawn by the light and the sound of his voice. Denis hid the bag under a stack of papers and smiled, the motion fragile.

  “Nightmares again?” he asked, the question more armor than curiosity.

  She nodded, voice thin. Denis wrapped his arms around her. She fit into the cradle of his shoulder like a small, breaking thing. That evening his resolve hardened into a plan that would not be shouted but written: careful visits, quiet questions, and a slow, patient pulling of threads until the seams of the System showed.

  Outside, the city kept its indifferent hum. Inside the house, two devices glowed in the dark like tiny, patient hearts, and the world, for a family of three, began to tilt toward a danger that would not be answered with words alone.