The house didn’t look abandoned.
That was the first problem.
Porch light on. Curtains drawn but not tight. A wheelie bin dragged halfway back to the fence like someone had changed their mind. Rain beaded on the front step and didn’t wash anything away.
He stood across the street long enough for the sodium light to cycle twice.
No television glow. No exhaust heat from the driveway. No neighbours hovering at windows—though that didn’t mean anything. People missed things all the time. Especially when they didn’t want to see them.
“Visual on target residence,” he murmured, barely moving his lips.
A soft click in his ear.
“Copy. Any activity?”
“None that wants to be seen.”
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He crossed when a car passed—timing it so its headlights swallowed him—and tested the front door.
Unlocked.
He didn’t go in that way.
Back garden first. Fence latch lifted without sound. Grass dark and slick underfoot. The kitchen window was ajar by half an inch, wedge still in place. Someone had planned to come back.
He slipped inside and let the window rest exactly as he’d found it.
The smell hit him immediately.
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Not rot. Not old blood.
Cleaning products. Too much of them. Citrus and bleach fighting something metallic underneath.
He paused, listening.
A drip somewhere. Refrigerator hum. No breathing.
He moved room by room—shoes off, gloves on—neither fast nor slow. Just thorough. Torch kept low.
Living room first.
The father lay slumped sideways in the armchair, head angled wrong, jaw slack. A dark bloom spread across his chest, soaked deep into the fabric. Single shot. Close range. Powder stippling visible even in low light.
Execution. Not panic.
The mother was in the hallway.
She hadn’t seen it coming. Broken neck. No defensive wounds. Her phone lay a metre away, screen spiderwebbed but still glowing with a half-dialled number.
He checked the display.
Probation Service – Out of Hours.
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Something tightened.
Kitchen next.
The parole officer lay against the counter, face down in a pool that had begun to congeal. Two wounds. One to incapacitate. One to finish.
Methodical.
“Control,” he said quietly. “Three deceased. Parents and assigned parole officer. All internal. No forced entry.”
A pause.
“That’s escalation,” Control said. “Local police?”
“Not yet. Scene’s been staged to delay discovery.”
A beat.
“He bought himself hours.”
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He moved again.
Upstairs was worse—not because of bodies, but because of order.
Bedroom stripped. Mattress gone. Wardrobe emptied with care. Documents missing, but not randomly—selective. Purposeful.
James Waters hadn’t run.
He’d pivoted.
Back downstairs, something tugged at him—not instinct exactly, but pattern.
The bookcase.
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Too flush against the wall. Too clean at the base.
He pressed where a book spine should have been.
The shelf shifted.
He exhaled once through his nose.
“There it is.”
The stairs down were narrow, unfinished. Concrete sweating damp. A single bulb buzzed overhead, shadows crawling when he moved.
The air changed.
Paper. Dust. Old ink.
Hate had a smell. He knew it instantly.
The walls were lined.
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Not decoration—curation.
Pamphlets. Flags folded with reverence. Photographs in cheap frames. Clippings laminated and annotated in a careful hand.
He didn’t touch anything at first.
He read.
Blood remembers.
Weakness breeds extinction.
Finish what they started.
His jaw tightened.
The desk was worse.
Maps. Printed addresses. Timetables. Names circled and crossed out—some old, some new.
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At the centre of it all, written hard enough to tear the paper beneath:
SKYE MUST DIE
Over and over. Different pens. Different days.
Rushed now. The last entries jagged, uneven, like the hand had started shaking.
Tonight.
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This wasn’t grief.
This was course correction.
He opened the drawer.
Inside: a photograph.
Black and white. Old. A uniform too neat. A smile that didn’t belong anywhere human.
The camp gate was unmistakable.
His chest tightened—not sharply, not yet. Just enough to register.
He knew that gate.
He knew the angle of the watchtower. The way the shadow fell in the morning.
Sound leaked into his head before he could stop it.
Not words.
Noise.
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Too many voices in too little air.
His breathing went shallow. Fast.
He pressed his thumb into the edge of the desk until pain cut clean through the noise.
“No,” he muttered—not to the room, but to whatever had opened inside him.
“Control,” came the voice, sharper now. “Your vitals just spiked. Talk to me.”
He gripped the desk harder, then let go.
The smell was wrong. The air too close.
For a second—just a second—he wasn’t in the basement.
He was somewhere smaller.
Colder.
Hands clawing. A child crying until there wasn’t enough breath left to cry.
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He slammed the desk sideways.
It crashed into the wall, scattering papers like startled birds.
“Control,” he said, voice low, steadying. “James Waters is ideologically motivated. Family lineage confirmed. Active planning underway. Targets expanded.”
Silence. Then, carefully:
“Understood. You’re compromised. Stand down.”
He straightened slowly.
“No.”
A beat.
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“If I don’t intervene,” he said, each word measured, “a child ends up dead again.”
“You don’t know that,” Control said.
He looked at the writing on the wall.
He did.
“Your orders are to disengage,” Control said. “We’re rerouting you. French Embassy just went hot. Hostages.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
Two fronts. Two fires.
James wouldn’t wait.
He’d already hired men who didn’t ask questions.
“Log this,” he said. “James Waters is a priority threat to a protected minor.”
“That’s not your call.”
“It is tonight.”
Another pause. Longer.
“Finish at the embassy,” Control said finally. “Contain that. Then we reassess.”
He knew what that meant.
Delay. Debate. Committees.
James wouldn’t wait for any of them.
He took one last look at the photograph.
The rage didn’t come all at once. It settled—dense, deliberate.
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“I’ll finish the embassy,” he said. “Then I stop pretending time is neutral.”
He turned to leave.
His phone vibrated.
A private line.
He stared at it a fraction longer than necessary.
Then answered.
“Yes.”
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Her voice was thin, but steady. Familiar in a way nothing else was.
“You’re shaking, Elias,” she said.
His breath hitched despite himself.
“Margaret,” Elias said quietly.
“What have you seen?” she asked.
He swallowed. “The kind of inheritance that doesn’t stay buried.”
A pause. Oxygen hissed softly on the other end.
“She went to see me,” Margaret said. “Linda.”
His shoulders stiffened.
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“How is she?” he asked.
“Terrified,” Margaret replied. “And standing anyway.”
He closed his eyes.
“I’ll handle it,” he said.
“I know,” Margaret said gently. “That’s what worries me.”
He exhaled—slow, controlled.
“I won’t let him near them,” he said. Not a promise. A fact.
Margaret was quiet for a moment. Then, softer:
“When things get loud—come back to yourself.”
“I will,” he said.
The call ended.
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Outside, blue lights flickered faintly at the end of the street.
Time had started moving again.
He pulled his coat tighter, stepped into the night, and disappeared before anyone knew they’d been spared a little longer.
First the embassy.
Then James Waters.
And this time—
He wouldn’t be late.
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and then Add to home screen.