CHAPTER 25: TAINTED BLOOD

The night at camp had a bite to it, sharper than usual, as if the cold itself carried warnings no one could read. The air smelled of metal and burnt fuel, the usual perfume of soldiers who had been running missions far too long.

Generators hummed in the distance, a low mechanical heartbeat that never stopped. Inside the command tent, Richard hunched over after-action reports, the blue glow of the tablet washing his face in tired light. His shoulders were stiff, his eyes dragging from line to line.

He didn’t hear footsteps. He only heard the door snap open.

Lance stood framed in the doorway, breath uneven, sweat trickling down his temple. His expression was enough to silence the camp. Fear lived in his eyes, the kind a trained soldier didn’t wear unless something had gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.

"Captain, we have a problem!"

Richard straightened immediately, placing the reports aside. "What is it?"

Lance swallowed hard. "Team B, Captain Zyrus’ squad, and Team C under Captain Dominic... they both lost connection during their mission."

The words hit Richard like a fist to the gut. "Lost connection? How long ago?"

"Almost five hours, sir. The comms went dead right after their last check-in."

Five hours. In their line of work, that kind of silence was the sound of doom.

"What was the mission?" Richard asked. His voice was steady, but the tension in his jaw betrayed him.

Lance tapped on the tablet until encrypted notes bloomed into holographic light. "They were tracking a facility. A suspected underground laboratory conducting illegal genetic modification."

Richard’s eyes narrowed. "On what subjects?"

At that, Lance hesitated. His throat tightened before he finally answered. "Humans, Captain. They call them Tainted Bloods."

The phrase made something cold bloom in Richard’s chest. "Explain."

"The intel suggests they’ve been fusing human DNA with apex predator genes." Lance’s voice dropped, turning heavy.

"What kind?"

"Wolves. Tigers. Serpents. Anything with strength, predatory instinct, and regenerative capability. They frame it as human advancement. Longer life, enhanced senses. But the ones who survive..." He shook his head. "They aren’t human anymore."

The hologram shifted to grainy footage from inside a containment chamber. A figure writhed in shadows, its limbs twitching at unnatural angles, veins glowing faintly beneath the skin like foreign circuitry. The sight made Richard’s stomach twist.

"And they sent only two teams for this?" Richard murmured.

"Recon only, sir. But something went wrong. Both squads went dark."

A thick, suffocating silence settled between them. Only the buzzing overhead lights dared to speak.

"If two units lost contact," Richard finally said, "then they’re in deep trouble... or gone."

Lance nodded grimly. "That’s our fear. But... headquarters hasn’t ordered a rescue team. They’re choosing new squads instead."

Richard stared at him. For a moment, he didn’t feel the cold air. He only felt anger, swelling and tight, coiling deep under his ribs like something dangerous.

"No rescue?" he said quietly. "None?"

"No, sir. The order is to continue the mission. Not recover the fallen."

It was a familiar cruelty, but it burned every time. The Division didn’t waste resources on retrieving bodies. They just replaced them.

"So their lives meant nothing," Richard said. His voice was calm, but the calm felt brittle, a thin veneer over something breaking.

Lance dropped his gaze. "Yes, Captain."

Richard looked down at the insignia stitched onto his uniform. The emblem that once symbolized purpose, pride, and possibility. Now it felt like a well-made shackle. A reminder of the boy he once was, the one who dreamed of soaring above the world, not drowning beneath it.

Two days later, the full mission file arrived. The briefing room felt colder than the camp outside. Recycled air pressed against chests like an invisible hand. The table was cluttered with satellite photos, fragmented comm logs, and recovered sensor pings from Team B and Team C before everything went quiet.

Their assignment was simple on paper. Infiltrate the facility, neutralize threats, and extract intel before the site could relocate or self-destruct.

In reality, they were walking straight into the same abyss that swallowed two teams whole.

Richard scanned the room. His men stood tall, trying to hide their fear behind straight backs and blank expressions. Many were young. Too young. Recruits who still believed valor existed, that glory wasn’t just a ghost. The Division used to recruit warm bodies.

Only Lance understood him, understood how far they had already walked into darkness. They had left City C together three years ago with bright futures and even brighter families, believing lies that sounded safe. Their families thought they were working in a government tech unit. Nothing dangerous. Nothing bloody.

But what weighed on Richard more than the danger was the silence. The lies.

Because this time, he wasn’t just leaving behind a family.

He was leaving behind a wife.

Headquarters gave them a week to settle affairs, wipe their data footprints, schedule sham emails, and pretend to be living ordinary lives. It was a week dedicated to the most delicate part of their job, building believable normalcy before vanishing into the shadows again.

Richard told the team he’d use the time to prep gear and dig through intel.

But the truth was, he needed that week to weave lies tight enough to hold his life together.

He sent early submissions to his professors, maintaining the illusion of a diligent college student. The Division always made sure their false identities never cracked.

He called his parents next, telling them about a "flight project" that would keep him busy. His mother’s pride lit the phone with warmth he didn’t deserve. His father’s relieved hum nearly undid him. They believed he was still chasing his dream of becoming a pilot. They didn’t know he flew war drones, not aircraft.

And then there was Ahce.

Facing her was the hardest battlefield he’d ever stepped onto.

Every time he looked at her, fear crawled up his spine. Not fear of exposure, not fear she would discover the truth, but fear of what the truth would do to her.

She deserved honesty. Yet all he could give her were soft lies wrapped in affection.

That evening, he stood silently in the doorway of her apartment, watching her work at her desk. The soft light of her screen bathed her in calm blues. Her brows knitted slightly when she concentrated. She hummed under her breath, unaware of how much he had missed that sound in the field.

He memorized her like a dying man memorizing the sky.

"Boss," he said quietly.

She looked up and smiled. Warm. Effortless. Completely trusting.

His ribs tightened.

"I might get busier this week," he said, keeping his tone light. "Group projects. Maybe a few late nights."

She nodded without suspicion. "Alright. Just don’t skip meals, okay?"

Her concern was simple. Gentle. Human in all the ways his world wasn’t.

He felt something crack inside him.

Out there, he could survive bullets, explosions, and abominations twisted in labs. But here, every lie he told her sliced deeper than any blade he’d faced.

As she returned to her work, unaware of the storm beneath his skin, Richard realized the truth he had been running from.

He could fight monsters, outsmart enemies, and survive hell.

But the one person he wanted to protect most... he was becoming the danger she never saw coming.