The Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital smelled of industrial floor wax, instant coffee, and the quiet, heavy resignation of men who had survived the worst days of their lives only to be defeated by Tuesday afternoons.

  Sean walked through the sliding glass doors, moving slowly. The adrenaline of the cartel shootout was completely gone, leaving his muscles feeling like lead. His knuckles were still wrapped in white gauze, and he wore dark sunglasses to hide the bruised, crimson blood pooling in his left eye.

  Lyra walked beside him, her heels clicking softly on the linoleum. She carried a sleek black leather portfolio. The ambient noise of the hospital—the squeak of wheelchair tires, the drone of the PA system, the coughs of old men—softened into a muted hum as her dampening field rolled over them.

  "Corporate security won't work," Sean murmured, keeping his voice low as they navigated a crowded corridor. "Chloe wanted to hire ex-cops or Blackwater washouts. But the second a gun melts in a guy's hand, a normal mercenary breaks his NDA and runs to the press. We don't need guards, Lyra. We need disciples."

  Lyra offered a sharp, single nod of agreement.

  "I need someone who understands violence," Sean said, scanning the waiting area of the physical therapy wing. "Someone who already knows the world is broken. And someone who has nothing left to lose."

  He stopped.

  Sitting in the corner, staring blankly at a muted television playing a daytime soap opera, was Javier "Javi" Garza.

  Javi was thirty years old, built like a lightweight boxer, with a tight military fade and a jawline covered in dark stubble. He wore gray sweatpants and a faded Army Ranger t-shirt. A heavy, black metal cane rested against his chair.

  Sean focused on him. He reached into the "Static."

  The data surrounding Javi was a jagged, ugly mess. IED blast, Kandahar, 2023. L4 and L5 vertebrae compression. Severe sciatic nerve damage. Right leg functional capacity: 18%. Pain level: Constant. Javi was holding a small orange plastic bottle. Oxycodone. He was rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, staring at it with a mixture of hatred and absolute dependency.

  Sean walked over and sat in the empty plastic chair next to him. Lyra stood a few feet away, her posture impeccable, projecting a bubble of absolute acoustic privacy around the two men.

  Javi didn't look up. "Seats are for patients, man."

  "I know about the leg, Javier," Sean said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "The nerve damage. The fire that runs from your lower back down to your heel every time it rains. I know the pills only turn the volume down, they don't turn it off."

  Javi stopped rolling the pill bottle. His hand tightened. He slowly turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto Sean’s sunglasses. The look was pure, trained hostility.

  "Who the hell are you?" Javi asked, his voice dead flat. "You from the VA board? Because if you're here to cut my disability—"

  "I'm not the government," Sean said. "I'm a contractor. I'm opening a... private facility on the West Side. High-end clients. We need a head of security. Someone to manage the door, handle threats, and keep absolute silence."

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  Javi let out a short, bitter laugh. He tapped his black metal cane. "You want a bouncer? Did you miss the crippled leg, Ray-Ban? I can barely walk to the bathroom without a piece of aluminum holding me up. I can't run. I can't fight. The Army threw me away, and they were right to do it."

  "The Army looks at the hardware," Sean said. "I look at the software. You have the discipline. You have the instinct. The hardware is just a biological variable."

  Javi stared at him, his anger simmering. "A biological variable. Are you high, man?"

  "No," Sean said. He leaned closer. "I'm the guy who is going to give you your life back."

  Sean didn't ask for permission. He reached out with his wrapped hand and gripped Javi’s right knee.

  Javi flinched, instinctively reaching to break Sean’s wrist, but Sean’s grip was like a vice.

  Sean closed his good eye. He didn't reach for a massive, reality-shattering probability. This wasn't a shootout. This was a Mending. A localized, biological rewrite.

  If A happens, then B happens, Sean thought. He found the reality where the shrapnel had missed the sciatic nerve by a millimeter. He found the timeline where the myelin sheath around the nerve endings was perfectly intact, smooth, and functional.

  He pulled that reality over Javi’s leg.

  Shift.

  The cost was instantaneous and brutal. A spike of pure, white-hot agony shot up Sean’s own right leg. The sympathetic resonance tore into his nervous system. His thigh muscle spasmed violently, and his calf seized into a knot so tight he nearly bit through his tongue. His breath hitched in his raw throat.

  Under Sean’s hand, Javi gasped. The pill bottle slipped from Javi's fingers, clattering onto the linoleum floor.

  The dull, constant, grinding fire that had lived in Javi’s lower back for three years... vanished. It didn't fade. It was simply excised. A rush of cool, terrifying clarity washed down his right leg. He could feel his toes. Not pins and needles. He felt the fabric of his sock. He felt the pressure of the floor.

  Javi looked at his leg, then looked at Sean. Sean was pale, sweating profusely, his jaw clamped shut in silent agony.

  "Stand up," Sean hissed through his teeth.

  Javi gripped the armrests of his chair. He didn't reach for his cane. He pushed himself up. He put his full weight on his right leg. It held. No buckling. No shooting pain. Strong, solid, and completely whole.

  Javi stood at his full six-foot height for the first time in thirty-six months. He looked down at his hands, which were shaking. He looked at the cane resting against the chair.

  Then, he looked at Sean. The skepticism of a broken soldier melted away, replaced instantly by the terrifying, unquestioning awe of a man who had just touched the divine.

  Belief. The faith hit Sean like a defibrillator. It rushed into his chest, hot and heavy, stabilizing his thundering heart and pushing back the exhaustion of the cartel fight.

  But the physical cost of a Mending didn't disappear. The energy fueled his core, but his right leg remained dead, screaming with the sympathetic pain he had taken from the soldier.

  Sean tried to stand. His right leg gave out instantly.

  He would have hit the floor, but Javi moved with the speed of a Force Recon Marine. He caught Sean by the arm, holding him up with effortless strength.

  "I've got you," Javi whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I've got you, boss."

  Sean leaned heavily on the soldier. He reached down, picked up Javi’s discarded black metal cane, and leaned his weight onto it. He looked up at Javi through his dark lenses.

  "The pay is five grand a week," Sean rasped, adjusting his grip on the cane. "And you answer only to me. Are you in?"

  Javi looked at the pill bottle on the floor. He kicked it under the chair. "Tell me who to hit," Javi said.

  Lyra stepped forward. She didn't smile, but she gave Javi an approving nod. She opened her leather portfolio, pulled out an Apex Society non-disclosure agreement and a heavy black pen, and handed them to the soldier.

  Javi signed it against the wall without reading a single word.

  Sean turned toward the exit, leaning heavily on the cane. He dragged his right leg, his face set in a grim mask of pain. The Morning Star now had its sword, but the Architect was limping.

  "Let's go," Sean said, the cane clicking loudly on the linoleum. "We have a church to open."