Elbow.
Alessia's. In his ribs. Hard. The kind of deliberate jab that said wake up now or I'll do it again harder. Her knuckles ground against the intercostal space between fourth and fifth rib — she knew exactly where to hit a sleeping man.
"Your phone," Alessia said, a doctor's flat efficiency.
Jae-min's eyes opened. Gray light bled through frost-rimed polycarbonate. The generator hummed in the storage room — a sound that had become the heartbeat of Unit 1418, steady and constant, the only proof they were still alive.
19°C on the HVAC display. Two degrees colder than last night. The heater was working harder. The fuel was burning faster. The math was simple and merciless.
His phone was buzzing. Victor. Early. The name on the screen was a weight before he answered it.
[Victor]: "Boss. Sweep complete. All nineteen floors, both buildings. I need to talk to you in person," Victor said, a controlled urgency.
Victor's voice was controlled. But there was a weight behind it that Jae-min recognized — the same compressed intensity the man carried when reporting bad news.
"That tone. I know that tone. Something's wrong," Jae-min thought, a cold recognition.
[Jae-min]: "Here. Ten minutes," Jae-min said, a flat efficiency that tasted like ash and sleep.
Jae-min was in the kitchen when Victor arrived. No escort. Victor didn't bring escorts into Unit 1418 anymore — Jae-min could feel every heartbeat in the building, which made the concept of a security detail redundant. The door opened on silent hinges and closed with a hydraulic whisper that said more about Victor's discipline than a salute ever could.
The kitchen air tasted of reheated instant coffee and the metallic tang of a unit losing heat faster than the generator could replace it. Near the window, breath misted. Faint. Barely there. But visible. Nineteen degrees and the cold was already winning the argument.
Victor's face was carved from exhaustion. Trenches beneath his cheekbones. Lines across his forehead. Skin the color of wet concrete. But his eyes — sharp. Alert. The kind of sharp that cut through fatigue the way a blade cut through frost.
"Coffee?" Jae-min asked, a measured offer.
"No. I've been up since three," Victor said, a soldier's discipline.
Jae-min sat at the obsidian-wood table. Victor across from him. The surface between them scattered with roster printouts and a half-empty mug of instant coffee that tasted like burnt copper and a prayer someone forgot to finish. Jae-min's fingers found the mug — the ceramic was cold. Room temperature. The cold ate everything eventually.
"Talk," Jae-min said, a scalpel's demand.
It was a statement, not a question.
Victor pulled out his phone. The screen cast pale blue light across the table — the only color in a kitchen drained to grays and blacks by twelve days of overcast sky. He turned the phone toward Jae-min.
Small. Black. 3D-printed casing with rough solder joints and a copper antenna jutting from one end like a finger bone. Identical design. Modular. The same rough solder joints as the device on twelve. The same hand. The same tools. The same builder.
"Building C. Seventh floor stairwell. Behind the fire suppression bracket. Same placement. Same hidden Wi-Fi network," Victor said, a precise recitation.
Jae-min studied the photo. The solder joints — rough, hand-made, not factory. Someone had built these devices on a workbench. Someone with steady hands and a soldering iron and enough time to get it right twice.
"When did your men find it?" Jae-min asked, a surgeon's incision.
"Four hours ago. Building C is harder to sweep — the residents there aren't as cooperative as ours. They don't like PNP officers wandering their hallways at three in the morning. Had to pull two men off rotation to do it quietly," Victor said, a sharp edge cutting through the fatigue.
"Anyone see them?" Jae-min pressed, a scalpel's precision.
"No. But it took longer than I wanted. Every minute we spend searching is a minute someone could notice," Victor said, a guarded caution.
"Two devices. Two buildings. Both behind pipe brackets. Both in camera blind spots. Both transmitting on the same hidden network. Same team. Same method. Same window of opportunity," Jae-min stated, a clipped certainty.
Victor leaned forward. His forearms rested on the obsidian-wood. The gun oil smell of his jacket mixed with the burnt-coffee air — a chemical cocktail that said soldier, said late night, said I haven't slept in a bed since the world ended.
"Boss, the patrol gap on twelve is mine. I built that rotation. I know who could have noticed it. But Building C's patrols — those were set up before the freeze by building management. I never had full visibility on their scheduling," Victor said, a professional's accountability.
"You're saying Building C's gaps were known before I ever got involved," Jae-min said, a quiet realization.
"I'm saying whoever planted these devices knew gaps in both buildings. That's two separate patrol schedules, two separate camera systems, two separate stairwell configurations. You don't get that from watching one building for two days," Victor said, a tactical analyst laying out the facts.
Jae-min absorbed this. The implication was clear. Someone with knowledge of both buildings had given the recon team their entry points.
"A mole. Inside the compound. Three hundred and ninety suspects and one of them sold us out," Jae-min thought, a cold, coiling dread that settled in his sternum like ice water.
"Could Marcelo be the leak?" Jae-min asked, a cold speculation.
Victor shook his head. Definitive.
"Marcelo's a rich man with opinions. He works through group chat, not hardware. Planting surveillance devices is not his style — too direct, too risky. If those devices get found, the finger points at whoever had access to both buildings' security layouts," Victor said, a soldier's logic.
"Who else has that access?" Jae-min asked, a cold narrowing of focus.
"Before the collapse — the building management office. Ground floor of Building A," Victor said, a grim certainty.
Victor paused.
"Which is now under three meters of frozen rubble," Victor added, a soldier's grim finality.
The kitchen felt colder. Not the number on the HVAC — something deeper. The kind of cold that came from understanding. Someone in this compound had opened a door. And something was walking through it.
"Who worked in that office?" Jae-min asked, a cold curiosity.
"I don't know. Wasn't my department. But someone who worked there would know every patrol schedule, every camera angle, every blind spot in all three buildings. If they survived the collapse and talked to the wrong people—," Victor said, a methodical deduction.
"They'd have everything needed to map this compound," Jae-min finished, a quiet, unreadable certainty.
Victor's chin dipped once. Crisp. Military.
Jae-min's spatial awareness swept outward. Automatic. Three kilometers of perception radiating from his position like sonar through frozen concrete — every heartbeat a signal, every breath a data point, every body in the compound a dot on a map he could read with his eyes closed.
"Three hundred and ninety people. One of them was a leak. Maybe more," Jae-min said, a flat, unreadable certainty.
"Keep searching. Every floor. Every junction. If there's a third device, I want it found," Jae-min ordered, a tight-jawed command.
"Quietly," Victor said, a clipped understanding.
"Quietly," Jae-min echoed, a cold, deliberate restraint.
Victor stood. Paused at the door. His hand was on the frame when he turned back. The hallway light caught the exhaustion in his eyes — not the kind sleep could fix. The kind that came from knowing the enemy was already inside the walls.
"Boss. One more thing. The Wi-Fi network — it's not just transmitting. I had De Vera run a packet capture before I came up. The device on twelve is sending data in compressed bursts. Every ninety seconds. Small packets. Metadata, not payload," Victor said, a former intelligence officer laying out the intercept.
"Meaning?" Jae-min asked, a cold focus.
"Meaning they're not just marking the building. They're listening. These devices are picking up something and sending it out. Signal strength, device count, network traffic patterns. Someone is building a real-time profile of our communications," Victor said, a former intelligence officer spelling out the threat.
The room felt colder. The generator hummed. The frost on the polycarbonate crept another millimeter. Outside, the wind pressed against the building like a patient creditor. Inside, someone was already counting their coin.
"Can you block the signal without removing the device?" Jae-min asked, a cold curiosity.
"Already working on it. A jammer would be obvious — they'd know we found them. But I can set up a reflector on the same channel. Feed them garbage data. Make our network look dead or abandoned," Victor said, a tactical countermeasure.
"Do it," Jae-min ordered, a scalpel's demand.
It was a statement, not a question.
Victor left. The door closed softly. The hydraulic whisper of a seal that was never meant to be opened more than necessary.
— • • • —
Alessia appeared five minutes later. Scrub top. Indigo hair tied back. Coffee in hand. The smell of it — bitter, scorched, medicinal — drifted ahead of her like a warning.
She'd heard half the conversation from the bedroom. Thin walls. No secrets in Unit 1418. Just the hum of the generator and the sound of two men talking about betrayal and the cold spaces between words.
"Two beacons," Alessia murmured, a grim, clipped confirmation.
It wasn't a question.
"Two. Building C, seventh floor. Same design," Jae-min murmured, a calm as still as frozen water.
"That means the mole knows both buildings," Alessia murmured, blue eyes sharp.
Jae-min nodded.
Alessia sat across from him. Set the coffee down. The ceramic clinked against the obsidian-wood. Her clinical mask was on — the flat, focused expression that replaced whatever churned beneath. But underneath it, something sharper. The ER attending who'd just been handed a patient with a bullet wound and no exit strategy.
"Let me think through this with you. The recon team needs inside knowledge. Patrol schedules, camera placements, stairwell configurations. That's operational security data. Most residents wouldn't know it," Alessia murmured, reading him like a patient.
"Correct," Jae-min whispered, quiet and certain.
"Building management would. Security staff would. Anyone who worked in the office before the freeze," Alessia declared, warm but firm.
"Building A's management office is buried," Jae-min whispered, quiet and certain.
"Then whoever worked there is either dead or in B or C," Alessia said, a pragmatic narrowing.
She tapped the table once.
"Jae-min, we have a roster. Three hundred and ninety names. How many of them listed their occupation?" Alessia asked, the calm of the ER.
"About half. Most didn't fill in the form," Jae-min stated, a clipped admission.
"Then we need to find out. Quietly. Without making it look like an investigation," Alessia murmured, the calm of the ER triaging the problem.
He looked at her. This was why she mattered. Not just the medical skill. The mind.
"She sees through noise the way I see through walls. I need her in this," Jae-min thought, a cold, clear recognition.
"How?" Jae-min asked, a cold focus.
"The medical station. People come to me every day. Frostbite, dehydration, anxiety. They talk when they're scared or in pain. I can work occupation into the intake questions without it feeling like an interrogation," Alessia said, the woman, not the surgeon.
"Subtle," Jae-min acknowledged, a flat recognition.
It was a statement, not a question.
"I treated a man yesterday who told me his entire life story while I was checking his ears for frostbite. People want to talk. They just need permission," Alessia said, a warm, knowing pragmatism.
Her hand found his arm. Fingers on the inside of his wrist. Warm. The only warm thing in a kitchen that was slowly losing the fight against the cold pressing through every wall, every window, every crack in the sealant.
"Start today. Focus on anyone who mentions building management, maintenance, or security work. Cross-reference with the roster," Jae-min whispered, quiet and certain.
"Already planning to," Alessia said, a blade's edge of commitment.
She stood. Leaned down. Her lips found his — warm and brief and tasting of bitter coffee, the pressure soft but certain, her hand on the back of his neck holding him there for one second longer than a peck. Then gone. The warmth lingered on his mouth after she pulled away.
"Eat breakfast. You're running on coffee and spite," Alessia declared, her eyes steady.
"I'm running on spatial awareness and spite," Jae-min breathed, a dry calculation.
"That's worse. Eat," Alessia ordered, the doctor in her speaking.
— • • • —
Three degrees.
Unit 104. Ground floor. The cold didn't enter — it was already there, a tenant that had moved in days ago and refused to leave. It hit like a closed fist through every gap in the thermal sealant, through every crack in the polycarbonate, through the spaces where walls used to be whole. Breathing felt like swallowing glass shards wrapped in ice. Exhale misted. Inhale burned. Three degrees and the air was a weapon.
The steel plate Rico had bolted over the gash was rimed with frost. White crystals feathered across the surface like frozen moss. The floor gash had been filled with quick-set concrete — ugly, gray, functional. The north wall still bore the ghost of Ji-yoo's eight-meter spatial cut, sealed behind a second steel plate that hummed faintly when the wind pressed against it.
Through the cracked windows, the snowbank pressed against the building's north face like a white tide. Ten meters of hard-packed frozen snow dense as concrete, the surface hard as stone, the wind having packed it into something closer to glacial ice than powder. Beyond the compound, only rooftops broke the white plain.
Ji-yoo stood in the center of the room. Soulcleaver across her back. The eight-foot scythe's shaft rose above her shoulder, the blade's compressed-gravity edge catching the gray light like a sliver of black glass. Her breath misted around her. Her fingers flexed inside tactical gloves — stiff, the cold making the joints resistant.
She'd barely spoken since waking. Two protein bars for breakfast. Four glasses of water. Loading fuel before the burn. Her body was already preparing for the session — loading calories like fuel before a fire.
Alessia was by the door. Blood pressure cuff. Pulse ox. Stopwatch. The same setup as yesterday. The same clinical precision. Her breath misted too — three degrees didn't care about medical degrees.
Jae-min leaned against the far wall. Arms crossed. The cold pressed through his shirt and into his shoulder blades. He didn't move. Watching.
"Gravity cuts first. Five. Controlled. Same as yesterday," Jae-min said, a flat directive.
Ji-yoo drew Soulcleaver.
The blade materialized from compressed gravitational energy — eight feet of black steel humming at a frequency that made the concrete vibrate, that made Jae-min's teeth ache in their sockets, that turned the air itself into a subtle tremor he could feel in his sternum. The sound was subsonic and absolute, like the heartbeat of something vast and patient that had been sleeping under the building since before the freeze.
She swung.
Overcrank. Frame by frame: the scythe's arc rising. The gravitational discharge releasing. The pressure wave expanding outward in a visible ring — air compressing, dust particles suspended for one impossible instant in the shockwave's leading edge. Then impact. The east wall shuddered. Dust cascaded from the ceiling in a fine gray rain that tasted like pulverized concrete and old copper. A hairline fracture split the wall — in the same spot as yesterday's first swing. The crack was becoming a signature. The building was learning her name.
"One-oh-eight. One forty-two over eighty-eight," Alessia murmured, eyes soft but unyielding.
Ji-yoo swung again. Harder. The crack widened. A chip of concrete fell and shattered on the floor like a broken tooth. The sound was sharp. Crystalline. The kind of sound that only existed at three degrees, where the material was brittle enough to snap instead of bend.
"One sixteen. One forty-eight over ninety," Alessia stated, a clinical warmth.
Third. Fourth. Fifth. Each one precise. Controlled. She was pacing herself — conserving energy for what came next. A metronome of destruction. The room smelled of ozone and crushed concrete and the copper-penny tang of exertion.
"One sixty-four. One eighty-four over ninety-eight," Alessia read, a clinical vigilance.
Alessia looked up from the pulse ox.
"Better than yesterday. Same five swings, lower peak pressure," Alessia stated, clinical and caring.
"Adapting," Ji-yoo said, a defiant challenge.
"Ten minutes rest. Then spatial," Jae-min breathed, no emotion in his voice.
The spatial cut felt different on the second day.
Ji-yoo closed her eyes. Reached for the violet thread woven through Soulcleaver's blade. It came easier now — less searching, more recognition. The void-edge responded to her intent like a muscle she was learning to flex.
She pushed. The gravitational aura contracted. The air warped — visible distortion, heat-mirage ripple, the light bending around her body as energy concentrated into a point.
Swing one. Horizontal. Full force.
Overcrank. Frame by frame: Soulcleaver's blade completing its arc. The violet thread igniting. The edge of the scythe touching the air and the air parting — not cutting, not breaking, but opening, like a wound in the fabric of the world itself. A ten-meter rift split the east wall. Violet-black. Clean. The spatial fabric held for three seconds, edges shimmering like heat mirage, before the rift knitted closed.
The cut remained. A perfect gash through reinforced concrete. No debris. No rubble. Just a seam of nothing where something had been. The edge of the cut was cold to look at. Colder to stand near. The air around it shimmered with residual void-energy that tasted like ozone and the absence of everything.
"Eighty-eight. Heart rate lower than yesterday's first spatial cut. Ninety-six over seventy-four," Alessia murmured, a scalpel wrapped in silk.
Yesterday's first spatial cut: ninety-four. Today: eighty-eight. Her body was adapting. The conduit was widening.
"One more. Full force," Ji-yoo snapped, the reaper's edge.
"Wait two minutes," Alessia countered, the doctor in her speaking.
"Seventy seconds," Ji-yoo snapped, the reaper speaking.
"Ninety," Alessia said, the doctor in her speaking.
Ji-yoo didn't argue. She stood still. Breathing. Feeling the cellular drain — not as deep as yesterday. Still pulling from reserves, but the well was wider now.
Ninety seconds.
She swung.
Overcrank. Frame by frame: the arc rising. The violet thread blazing white-hot along the blade's edge. The gravitational discharge — not a wave this time, but a scream. The rift tore through the east wall like a blade through wet paper. Through the north wall. Through the sealed steel plate Rico had bolted two days ago. Twelve meters of impossible wound cut through three barriers in one continuous, devastating line.
The plate SCREAMED free of its bolts — a sound like metal being torn by invisible hands, a shriek that vibrated in the jaw and the teeth and the base of the skull. The plate clattered across the frozen courtyard outside, spinning end over end on the ice.
Wind screamed through the gap — and with it, a face-full of powdered snow that had accumulated against the north face. Fine. Crystalline. Cold as broken glass. It hit skin like sandpaper. It hit lungs like drowning. It hit the back of the throat and tasted like the inside of a freezer and the end of everything warm.
Nine degrees to zero in four seconds. The cold didn't enter. It invaded. It colonized. It took the air by force, three degrees becoming zero becoming a number that hurt to breathe, the kind of cold that didn't chill — it burned.
"Seventy-nine. Heart rate crashing. Blood pressure one-oh-two over sixty-four," Alessia murmured, reading the vitals like a patient.
Ji-yoo's legs buckled. She caught herself on Soulcleaver's shaft. Knees on concrete. The impact was dull, bone on stone. Vision swimming. The room tilted. The walls breathed.
But she didn't collapse.
Yesterday, the second spatial cut had put her on her back. Today she was still standing. Barely. Shaking like a leaf in a typhoon. But standing.
"Sit down," Alessia declared, a firm medical authority.
"No," Ji-yoo snapped, a flat defiance.
"Ji-yoo—," Alessia murmured, one word, final.
"No. I'm fine," Ji-yoo said, a stubborn denial.
She forced herself upright. Three breaths. Four. The world steadied.
"I'm fine," Ji-yoo repeated, a defiant conviction.
She looked at Jae-min. Eyes sharp despite the drain. Reached out. Her fingers found his wrist — instinctive, unconscious, the way she always reached for him. Squeezed once. Cold fingers. Warm pulse. The contact was grounding.
"Two cuts. Twelve meters. Yesterday was eight and four," Ji-yoo said, sharp as her scythe.
"Progress," Jae-min breathed, flat.
"Third cut?" Jae-min asked, a cold narrowing of focus.
"No. Two is the ceiling today. Your body adapted — that's good. But a twelve-meter rift through steel plate nearly dropped you. A third would kill you," Alessia murmured, an absolute veto.
It wasn't a request.
Ji-yoo stared at her for a long moment. Then sat down. Back against the wall. Arms on her knees.
"Tomorrow," Ji-yoo said, a defiant promise.
"If your vitals hold. And you eat six meals. And you sleep eight hours," Alessia murmured, a tender condition.
Ji-yoo said nothing. Her eyes were already closed. Soulcleaver hummed beside her, dormant. The violet thread dim.
— • • • —
Rico appeared in the doorway. Looked at the missing steel plate. Looked at the twelve-meter gash through two walls. Looked at Ji-yoo.
"That's the second wall this week," Rico said, thirty years of command in his voice.
"She's getting stronger," Jae-min said without looking up.
"She's getting stronger at destroying my building," Rico corrected, a dry, long-suffering acceptance.
Rico stepped inside. Pulled a folding chair from the corner. Sat down. Reached into his jacket and pulled out a wrapped sandwich. Set it on Ji-yoo's knee. The smell of peanut butter cut through the cold-concrete-ozone cocktail like a memory of a kitchen that no longer existed.
His other hand found the back of her head — a brief, rough touch. Paternal. The gesture said: you're alive. That's what matters. Everything else is just noise.
"Eat," Rico rumbled, gruff.
Ji-yoo opened one eye. Looked at the sandwich. Looked at Rico.
"Peanut butter, Uncle?" Ji-yoo asked, a testing mischief.
"Eat," Rico rumbled, one word, final.
She unwrapped it. Took a bite. Chewed slowly.
Rico turned to Jae-min.
"Victor told me about the second beacon. Building C," Rico rumbled, his jaw like granite.
"You know," Jae-min stated, clipped.
"I know everything in this building. It's my job," Rico said, a quiet, heavy certainty.
He was quiet for a moment.
"Someone's feeding them intel. Building management is the most likely source," Rico declared, hard eyes, steady hands.
"We're working on it," Jae-min said, a restrained urgency.
"Work faster," Rico said, a flat, unyielding weight.
His voice was flat. Not angry. Just the voice of a man who understood operational security better than anyone in the room.
"Every day we don't find the leak, they get another day of data. Patrol patterns. Headcount. Movement schedules. They're building an invasion plan," Rico warned, a soldier's certainty.
Rico stood. Walked to the gash in the wall. Looked through it at the frozen courtyard. Wind howled. Ice crystals swirled in the gap. His silhouette was small against the white void — five-foot-five of compressed military history, framed by the wound in his building.
"I'll weld a new plate. Thicker this time," Rico said, a builder's resolve.
He turned.
"And kid — check your fuel," Rico added, his voice a bark.
— • • • —
Jae-min's stomach dropped.
He'd been so focused on the beacons, the mole, the spatial cuts — he hadn't checked the diesel in three days. Three days of heater and HVAC and generator runtime, and he hadn't looked at the gauge once. The generator had been humming and he'd assumed hum meant fine. Hum meant alive. Hum meant they had time.
He pushed to his feet. Walked to the storage room. The air grew warmer as he approached — the generator's heat bleeding through the reinforced walls. The hum grew louder. Deeper. The heartbeat of Unit 1418, and it was slowing. He pressed his palm flat against the storage room wall and felt the vibration — the generator wasn't humming. It was laboring.
He opened the tank gauge.
Overcrank. Frame by frame: the red needle. The white dial. The black numbers. The needle pointing at forty-one. Not moving. Not flickering. Just sitting there, red against white, a number that didn't care about the three hundred and ninety people depending on it.
Forty-one liters.
Day twelve. Forty-one liters remaining.
At minimum power — heating and air filtration for Unit 1418 — roughly four days. Four days of generator runtime for the bunker. After that, no heat. No power. No air filtration. Unit 1418 goes dark.
The storage room full of food and medical supplies from Jae-min's spatial inventory keeps three hundred and ninety people alive. But the bunker — the only warm room in the building — becomes a freezer. The spatial storage held enough to sustain a thousand soldiers for a century. Water was filtered from the storage tanks. The only thing the bunker couldn't generate was fuel.
He stared at the gauge. The number didn't change.
Behind him, Alessia appeared in the doorway. She didn't ask. She just looked at his face. The diesel smell was on her too now — in her hair, on her scrubs, mixing with the coffee and the antiseptic until she smelled like the apocalypse itself.
"How long?" Alessia asked, her brow furrowed.
"Four days. Maybe less," Jae-min said, a regressor's flat acceptance.
"You need to go out," Alessia whispered, her voice low.
It wasn't a question. She'd known before he did.
"Everything we need is in storage. Everything except fuel. The one thing I can't pull from nothing," Jae-min thought, a regressor's cold arithmetic.
"I need to find diesel. Close range — within three kilometers of the compound. My spatial awareness covers that radius. I can map every structure, every vehicle, every potential fuel source before I leave," Jae-min breathed, his eyes black and absolute.
"In minus seventy," Alessia said, the doctor in her speaking.
Minus seventy. The number landed between them like a blade. At minus seventy, exposed skin froze in under a minute. Metal stuck to flesh. Lungs burned with every breath. The cold didn't kill you quickly. It killed you slowly, beautifully, like a lullaby made of ice.
"My spatial storage has thermal gear. Military cold-weather rated. Minus eighty. And I can move through space if I need to," Jae-min said, a regressor's cold pragmatism.
Alessia's jaw tightened. The doctor's mask cracked — just for a second. Underneath it was something rawer. Something that tasted bile every time he walked out that door and counted the minutes until he came back.
She stepped closer. Her hand found his chest. Rested there — over the warmth, over the void, over the heartbeat that kept her anchored to this frozen world. Her fingers pressed into the fabric. She could feel the pulse. Steady. Too steady. The pulse of a man who had already decided.
"You're not going alone," Alessia stated, blue eyes sharp.
"Alessia—," Jae-min started, a clipped resistance.
"I'm not arguing. I'm stating," Alessia cut in, a warm, iron resolve.
She crossed her arms.
"You collapse in the cold, you die. You encounter whoever planted those beacons, you die. You go alone, you die. Take Ji-yoo. Take Uncle. Take Victor and two of his men. You come back with fuel and all your limbs," Alessia laid out, a tactical prescription.
Her hand found his. Squeezed hard.
The woman was impossible.
"Ji-yoo can't go. She's still recovering from this morning's session. Her spatial cuts drain her — she'd be a liability in a fight," Jae-min said, his voice like a blade.
"Then she stays. Take Uncle and Victor. That's three. Enough to carry diesel back, enough to fight if something goes wrong," Alessia countered, a firm, final arrangement.
It wasn't a request.
He thought about it. Rico — superhuman strength humming beneath skin harder than steel. Victor — former PNP, tactical training, knows the streets. Both reliable. Both lethal.
"I go tonight. Three-kilometer sweep from the compound. Find the nearest fuel source, extract it, come back," Jae-min decided, something almost warm in his tone.
"Tonight. Before the cold decides for us," Jae-min thought, a regressor's ironclad resolution.
"Tonight. After four hours of sleep and no breakfast," Alessia murmured, a tender exasperation.
"The sooner I go, the sooner we have fuel. Every day I wait is a day less of buffer," Jae-min whispered, his voice a whisper of ice.
She was quiet for a long time. The generator hummed. The diesel smell clung to the walls. The frost crept. The cold was patient — it didn't need to hunt. It just needed them to run out of fuel. It just needed to wait.
Then she nodded. Once.
"Then you eat first. Full meal. Protein, carbs, water. And you take the medical kit from storage — the trauma pack, not the basic one," Alessia declared, warm but firm.
Her fingers traced down his arm, found his hand, held it. Not letting go.
She turned toward the kitchen. Paused.
"Jae-min," Alessia said, the doctor in her speaking.
"Yeah," Jae-min said, a clipped acknowledgment.
"Come back," Alessia murmured, an aching simplicity.
Not a request.
He watched her walk into the kitchen. Heard the pantry door open. The clink of cans being stacked.
He pulled out his phone.
[Jae-min]: Victor. Uncle. Meeting in one hour. We're going outside tonight.
[Jae-min]: Fuel run. Three-kilometer radius. Gear up.
He looked at the gauge one more time.
Forty-one liters. Dropping.
The cold was patient. It didn't need to hunt. It just needed them to run out of fuel.
Jae-min wasn't going to let that happen.