He staggered back to the street, blood on his sleeve and dirt on his jeans. He didn't care who saw.
He needed answers.
He needed them now.
The warehouse.
He was going back.
---
Kade didn't remember much of the walk.
Just the sound of his heart hammering in his ears, and the way people turned to stare at him like he'd crawled out of a grave. He probably looked like it. Hoodie torn, shoulder bruised, dirt and dried blood painting streaks down his arms. But he didn't stop. Didn't flinch. Didn't even breathe right until he saw it—the old, rusted door to that run-down warehouse, the one with a fresh dent in it from when he'd slammed it shut before.
He pushed it open. Didn't knock.
The place was darker than he remembered. Dust floating in the air like ash. Somewhere inside, something buzzed—machinery maybe, or one of them powering up.
"Ren!" he shouted. "You better be here!"
No response.
He kept walking, deeper into the warehouse, the floor creaking under his boots.
"Hey!" he tried again, voice cracking this time. "You said I was chosen, right? You said this thing picked me—then what the hell do you call what just happened?!"
Still nothing.
Until a voice echoed behind him.
"Told you he'd come back," Nico said.
Kade spun. Nico stood leaning against a wall, arms crossed, smirking like he was watching a bad sitcom. Lila and Ava were beside him—Lila glaring, Ava looking… sad, maybe. Hard to tell.
And then Ren stepped forward from the shadows. Calm. Still wearing that same unreadable expression like nothing could faze him.
"You alright?" Ren asked.
Kade's eyes flared. "Do I look alright?"
Ren didn't answer. Just looked at the blood on Kade's sleeve. The dirt. The pipe still gripped tight in his fist like a lifeline.
"You saw another one," Ren said.
"Yeah," Kade snapped. "In broad daylight. In the same alley. It came for me. You didn't warn me they'd come back."
"We didn't think they would," Ava whispered.
"They usually don't," Nico added. "Once a Hollowborn's been taken out, it's rare another shows up so soon. Let alone in the same place."
Kade scoffed. "Lucky me."
He tossed the pipe to the ground. It clanged and rolled.
"You said I wasn't part of this," he said, eyes on Ren. "You said I could walk away. Then why the hell is this thing still on me? Why am I suddenly Jackie Chan in the middle of an alley fight I didn't ask for?"
Ren stepped closer. "Because whether you like it or not… you're one of us now."
Kade froze.
He hated that sentence. That certainty in Ren's voice. Like it was some fate he'd already signed on to.
"No," he muttered. "I didn't agree to this."
"The artifact did," Ava said gently.
Kade looked at her. Her voice didn't have that edge like the others. There was something weirdly comforting in it. But it still didn't change the facts.
"I'm not like you," he said. "I don't have powers. I'm not cursed. I don't even know how I survived."
"You felt it, didn't you?" Ren asked. "When the artifact reacted. You didn't just swing. You moved."
Kade's jaw clenched.
He had felt it. That pulse. That shift. Like something else was steering him, guiding his body like it had done this a hundred times already. But it wasn't power. It was instinct. Rage, maybe. Panic. All wrapped in that damn pulse.
"It's not a power," Kade said. "It's... something else."
"That's what makes you dangerous," Lila said flatly. "You don't have the curse. That thing on your wrist—every one of us would kill to be rid of our own. But it chose you, and you're walking around like it's some bad tattoo."
"I didn't ask for this!" Kade snapped.
"None of us did," Lila fired back.
Silence fell between them.
For a second, the warehouse just breathed around them—all rust and shadows and echoes of things no one said.
Then Ren spoke.
"Look. You came back. That's what matters. You had a choice and you still came back. That means something."
Kade exhaled through his teeth, jaw tight. "I didn't come back for you."
"I know," Ren said. "You came back because you want to know what the hell's happening. You want answers."
Kade didn't respond. Because yeah. That was exactly it.
Ren turned, motioning toward the back room. "Then let's give you some."
Kade hesitated.
And then followed.
---
The back room was different.
It looked like someone had tried to set up a makeshift base—maps pinned to the walls, red threads running between locations, notes scribbled in sharpie. A few metal lockers lined the edge, half-open, filled with gear Kade couldn't begin to guess the use for. Swords, tech-looking gadgets, gloves with weird runes etched into them.
At the center, a table. And on it, a small, cracked tablet—stone, old, with the same black markings that now circled his wrist.
Ren stood over it.
"This is where it started," he said.
Kade narrowed his eyes. "The artifact?"
Ren nodded. "We found it three years ago. Buried under a collapsed church outside the city. It was meant to seal the Hollowborn in. Keep them locked out of this world. But something… went wrong."
Nico chimed in from the side. "The seals broke. Instead of keeping them in, it let them out."
"And the artifact?" Kade asked, staring at the table.
"It's a shard," Ava said. "From the original binding stone. It shouldn't have worked. Shouldn't have chosen anyone again. But when we brought it into battle, it reacted—for the first time ever."
Ren looked at Kade.
"You."
Kade swallowed, throat dry. "So what, I'm some kind of—what—chosen weapon?"
"No," Lila said. "You're something we don't understand. Yet."
Kade looked down at his wrist. The band had gone dark again. Like it was sleeping.
He took a slow breath.
He didn't want this.
He didn't ask for this.
But the thing had chosen him, and monsters were showing up like he had a target on his back.
Whatever this was… it wasn't going away.
He pulled up a chair.
"Alright," he muttered. "Then start from the top."
---
To be continued...