Chapter Seven: The Break 2 ( Escape Of The Devil)
"...Not until the world ahead whispered.
'Welcome back, Lia.'
.....
Hours After the Escape
Location: Alcum Asylum – Emergency Security Briefing Room
Status: Code Red
The walls of the asylum groaned under the weight of panic.
The sirens had long died out, but the tension still rang louder than the alarms. Inside the command center, every officer stood stiff, cold sweat dampening their uniforms. The monitors on the wall flashed red with looping alerts:
> SUBJECT 17: STATUS – MISSING
SECURITY BREACH: LEVEL 4
The director of the institution, Mr. Grey, slammed his fist on the table. The table shook so hard that a cup of untouched coffee jumped and shattered on the floor.
"How the hell did she escape?" he barked,
his voice cutting through the silence like a blade.
But nobody dared to answer.
The silence was heavier than the question itself.
" Ans...Answer....
Before he could finish his statement, the entire administrative panel dropped to their knees their uniforms rumpled, fear stamped on every expression. "We...we deeply apologize for our failure, sir."
Immediately their apology landed with a hollow thud. It felt quite useless and infuriating.
Bang!
The director's palm slammed down on the desk, the sound echoing like a gunshot.
Chairs trembled. And everyone present flinched.
"Your apologies won't bring her back!" he roared when he saw them dropped to their knees, begging for forgiveness, stammering out excuses.
"Will your apology drag her back in chains?"
"WILL IT?" he snapped once again,his voice cracking like thunder.
Grey's eyes swept across the trembling staff. He already knew they had underestimated her. They treated her like another broken case file with a pretty face and a burned mind. But Annalisa Laurel was more than that. She wasn't broken.
No one dared to answer. No one dared.
None of them had ever seen him like this. His composure, usually sleek and cruelly calm, had shattered.
Finally after gathering every ounce of courage one technician tried his best to speak. "S-Sir, her vitals went dead at 02:57. We thought she'd... she'd overdosed again."
Grey's nostrils flared. "And instead, she slipped out right under our noses through ductwork, no less armed with what? Rust and willpower?"
Nobody answered, because they all knew too well that it wasn't a question anyway. It was a sentence.
"Damn it all to hell" Grey collapsed into his seat, scrubbing his hand down his face. This wasn't just an escape. This was a message.
And she had written it in silence, with blood and dust.
His mind was racing.
How had she slipped through every safeguard?
How had the fire walked out... without a sound?
He was still unraveling the horror when, a voice too calm for the tension cut through the room like a scalpel. It was all too calm for the situation, broke the silence from the corner of the room.
"Mr. Grey..." It was the facility's psychiatrist, Dr. Rowan, stepping in from the hallway, he had clipboard under his arm.
"Why are you so stressed?" he asked, his tone smooth. "We were going to let her go in a few days anyway. Council's orders, remember?"
Grey turned slowly, eyes throwing daggers at him.
"And now that she's gone on her own...?" Rowan added, arching a brow.
"...Now she controls the narrative."
Immediately as if a realization struck Grey, his face paled because he had finally realized that Dr. Rowan was right.
This wasn't an escape.
This was her opening move.
.....
Forest Outskirts — 2:16 a.m.
Lia continue to ran until her lungs felt raw, she moved like smoke through the trees, Her bare feet kissed the soil like it knew her, every footstep calculated, silent, lethal. She didn't glance back once. Not at the asylum. Not at the towers. Not at the red lights behind the fence flickering like sirens.
That was behind her now.
She ran until the sirens faded into the wind and the trees swallowed every trace of her scent. Her breath was measured, never wasted. Every breath she took tasted of vengeance.
Her body throbbed cuts on her elbows, bruises blossoming on her ribs, but she didn't falter because even in pain, she had to be precise. Pain had never been a weakness. Pain was memory. Pain was proof she was alive, still burning, still walking.
She dropped low, reached into the rotted tree stump, looking closer at the tree there was a scare carved into the little bark it had, and pulled out a waterproof pouch she buried months ago during a "transfer walk." Inside: a black phone, a burner SIM, a coin etched with her insignia, a flame inside a laurel and a letter written in code.
She pressed the coin to her lips.
"For you, Liora," she murmured.
Her twin.
Her blood.
Her heart.
Her rage.
One of the reasons she still stands.
They thought her transformation happened when she saw her sister died screaming, choking, broken.
But they were wrong.
She had already burned the girl she used to be long before that day.
The asylum wasn't a prison.
It was a warning.
She let them catch her.
She wanted them to feel safe.
Now, she had made her point.
From the trees, headlights flickered once, twice. A signal.
Without wasting anytime she stepped into the road. And a matte black SUV rolled to a halt. The back window lowered just an inch.
"Nice fireworks," came the voice. Velvet. Dangerous. And familiar.
"Damien," she said.
Her right hand. Her blade. Her silence in human form.
The door opened. She slid inside, her blood leaving prints on the leather.
He glanced at her through the mirror. "You good?"
She smirked. "They're not."
As the SUV roared back into the night, Lia tapped on her burner phone. A soft beep responded.
Far away, systems stirred. Quiet a number of processes began, unnoticed by most—but not by the ones who mattered. Something was slipping past firewalls. Digging under defenses. Watching.
They thought they'd buried her.
They forgot she had a shovel.
They forgot she had claws.
They forgot her name.
But they were about to remember