Page 87 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

I can’t not look. He’s forced us all into a front-row seat to slaughter, made sure we watched—helpless, caged, collared like animals.

He planned this.

He wanted this.

He murdered them and made us watch.

“You bastard,” I whisper, not caring if he hears. I want him to hear. I want him to burn.

Something inside me cracks open. Not just grief. Fury. White-hot. Acid-sharp. I don’t care about consequences. I don’t care if he kills me next.

He showed us this to break us.

But all he’s done—is given me a reason to survive.

“You’re a monster.” Rebel’s voice emerges strangled, half sob, half scream.

“I am what circumstance requires.” Malfor steps into our line of sight, blocking the screen showing our last hope burning on black water. “But this lesson isn’t about me. It’s about you. About understanding your situation with perfect clarity.”

He paces before us, measuring each step, hands still clasped behind his back. “I gave you hope. The promise of rescue. The knowledge that someone was coming for you.” His smile neverreaches his eyes. “Now I’ve taken that away. Hope is a luxury you can no longer afford.”

“They’ll send others.” Jenna’s voice remains steady despite everything. “Guardian HRS doesn’t abandon its people.”

“Perhaps.” Malfor nods as though considering her point. “But how many teams must die before they reconsider? How many bodies must wash ashore before the mission is deemed too costly?” He stops directly before her. “And how long can you survive waiting for them?”

The screen behind him shifts, replaying the destruction from different angles. Slow-motion footage of explosions tearing metal and flesh apart. Enhanced views of burning wreckage striking water. Close-ups of debris that might once have been human.

“Each of those men,” Malfor continues, his voice taking on the cadence of a professor delivering a lecture, “died believing they were heroes.” His smile becomes razor-sharp. “They were wrong.”

The words are designed to inflict maximum psychological damage. He’s not just reporting their deaths—he’s defiling their memory.

“You’ll need time to process this loss,” Malfor speaks as though delivering a therapeutic intervention rather than psychological torture. “Time to understand your new reality. Time to accept that resistance is not heroism—it’s suicide.”

He turns to the guards. “Return them to their cells. Double the watch. Suicide risk is elevated after events like these.”

Rebel snaps.

It’s not a scream—it’s a sound, raw and inhuman, ripped from someplace wild inside her. She lunges so fast that the guards barely register movement. The collar jerks her back mid-charge, wrenching her to her knees with a crack of electricity that lights up her spine.

But, she doesn’t stop.

Snarling, she surges up again, her arm catching Malfor’s lapel. Fingernails shred fabric, leaving angry red lines across his chest before the guards slam into her from both sides, driving her into the ground.

Malfor steps back, brushing his suit like she’s filth. Like none of it mattered.

But it did.

Because for one breathless second, she almost had him.

The beating comes fast, brutal—like they’ve rehearsed it. A boot slams into her ribs. Once. Twice. The third strike cracks something deep and real. She coughs, the sound wet, sharp. One guard drops to a knee, pinning her broken arm beneath him. Her scream splinters the air—high and raw, animalistic.

The third doesn’t move. Just stands there like a monolith, hand on her collar’s control, ready to press again if she so much as twitches.

Malfor brushes invisible dust from his lapel. Calm. Immaculate. Then he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out something small—silver catching the light.

A blade.

“Impulsivity has consequences.” He crouches beside her, voice smooth as silk pulled tight over broken glass. “Beauty is a privilege. Easily revoked.”