The bulletproof window lowered another two inches. Eleanor Montoya's face appeared in the gap. Her skin was perfectly lifted and tightened by expensive surgeons, but right now, it was twisted into an ugly snarl.

"Did you not hear me?" Eleanor screamed at the guards outside. "Shoot her! She's a deranged beggar trying to extort us!"

Beside Eleanor, a younger woman draped in a Chanel shawl leaned over. Tess Logan covered her nose in disgust. "Nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars? That wouldn't even cover my weekly manicure. These street rats are getting desperate."

The PMC captain adjusted his grip on his rifle. He received the direct order from the family matriarch. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Before he could apply the final pound of pressure, a sound came from the deep shadows at the back of the cabin.

It was a cough.

It was incredibly weak, barely more than a ragged exhalation of air, but the moment it echoed through the truck, every single mercenary outside froze. The captain immediately pulled his finger off the trigger and lowered the barrel of his gun.

The interior motion-sensor lights flickered on, illuminating the back of the cabin.

A young man sat in a high-tech, motorized wheelchair. Camden Montoya's skin was the color of old parchment. A thick, gray cashmere blanket was draped over his lap, making him look frail enough to be shattered by a strong gust of wind.

His eyes were a striking, deep gray-blue. They held a terrifying emptiness, a profound exhaustion that looked right through the physical world.

Camden raised a pristine white handkerchief to his mouth. He coughed twice more. When he pulled the cloth away, a faint web of red blood stained the white cotton.

Eleanor's face instantly shifted from rage to cloying sweetness. "Camden, darling, please don't strain yourself. The cold air will worsen your condition."

Camden didn't look at his stepmother. He slowly turned his head, locking his gray-blue eyes onto Eloise standing in the rain.

Their gazes collided through the open window. For a fraction of a second, Camden felt a strange, violent stutter in his chest. His heart missed a beat.

"On what basis," Camden asked, his voice raspy but dripping with the heavy, crushing authority of an apex predator, "do you claim he is alive?"

Eloise stared right back at him. "The man in the pod, Barton Montoya, has a flat brainwave. But his heart meridian still holds a sliver of life force."

She leaned an inch closer to the glass. "He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage three days ago at exactly 3:00 AM. It was accompanied by a massive, retrograde blood flow-a total reversal of circulation."

Eleanor's face drained of all color. The blood reversal was a level-one classified Montoya family secret. Not even the hospital staff knew the full truth.

Tess panicked, grabbing Eleanor's arm. "She... she must have bribed the nurses! She's a corporate spy!"

Camden's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He studied Eloise's posture, the way she stood perfectly still in the freezing rain, completely unfazed by the guns or the money.

Eloise glanced at her bare wrist as if checking a watch. "You have three minutes," she said coldly. "Once the reaper crosses the threshold, not even an archangel can drag your grandfather back."

Camden's index finger tapped once against the leather armrest of his wheelchair. It was a subtle, rhythmic tap.

He slowly turned his head toward his personal assistant standing by the door.

"Cole," Camden ordered, his voice devoid of emotion. "Open the intensive care pod. Let her try."

"Are you out of your mind?!" Eleanor shrieked, jumping up from her leather seat. She pointed a trembling finger at Camden. "You want to kill him faster? That is an FDA-approved Level-4 sterile pod! If you break the seal, the infection risk is one hundred percent! I will hold you legally responsible!"

Tess nodded frantically, her Chanel shawl slipping off her shoulders. "Camden, please! You're grieving! You can't let some voodoo street rat experiment on your grandfather!"

Cole, Camden's personal assistant, stood by the pod. His hand rested casually on the grip of his holstered pistol. He didn't look at the women; he only watched Camden, waiting for the final nod.

Camden ignored the screaming women. He kept his gray-blue eyes locked on Eloise.

Eloise sighed. The rain dripped from her eyelashes. She looked directly at Eleanor through the window.

"You don't care about a sterile environment," Eloise said, her voice projecting clearly over the storm. "You care about the Cayman Islands offshore account you opened last week."

Eleanor froze. Her mouth hung open.

"Two hours ago," Eloise continued, her tone surgical and precise, "you transferred twenty million dollars into a short-selling fund. You are betting that Barton Montoya dies in transit tonight. When the market opens tomorrow and Montoya Group stock plummets, you cash out."

Eleanor's face turned the color of ash. Her knees gave out, and she slumped back into her seat, her whole body shaking violently.

The air inside the cabin turned to ice. Outside, the mercenaries exchanged uneasy glances.

Tess clamped both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with terror. She had just heard a corporate secret that could get people buried in concrete.

A terrifying, suffocating killing intent flooded Camden's eyes. He slowly turned his head toward his stepmother.

"It's... it's slander!" Eleanor stammered, her voice cracking. "She's a witch! She's trying to divide our family!"

Camden raised one pale, thin hand. The gesture was slight, but it instantly silenced the cabin.

"Cole," Camden said softly. His voice was gentle, but it carried the lethal hiss of a viper. "Escort Eleanor and Tess to the rear vehicle. If they attempt to step out of that car, break their legs."

"Yes, sir," Cole replied. He stepped forward, grabbed both women by the arms with brutal efficiency, and dragged them out of the ICU truck into the rain.

The heavy doors slammed shut. The cabin was now empty, save for the comatose Barton, Camden in his wheelchair, and Eloise standing at the threshold.

Camden pressed the joystick on his wheelchair, backing up half a meter to clear the path to the medical pod.

He looked at Eloise. "If my grandfather dies," Camden whispered, "I will chain you to that offshore account and sink you both into the Mariana Trench."

Eloise shook the water from her coat and stepped up into the cabin.

She looked down at him, her face completely blank. "Have your nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars ready. I don't take checks."

She walked past him, stopping in front of the massive, transparent intensive care pod. She placed both hands on the heavy metal latches.

Eloise took a deep breath. The dark purple light in her irises flared brilliantly.

She yanked the latches down. A loud hiss of depressurization screamed through the cabin as she ripped the sterile door wide open.

The moment the pod seal broke, the cabin erupted into chaos.

Every medical monitor mounted on the walls flashed blinding red. The EKG machine let out a continuous, ear-piercing scream. The jagged green line on the screen instantly dropped into a dead, flat line.

Barton Montoya's pale skin immediately turned a horrifying, bruised shade of blue-black.

A blast of freezing air rushed out of the pod. It wasn't just the climate control; it was a physical manifestation of death-a heavy, bone-chilling miasma that swept across the floor.

Camden, sitting closest to the pod, took the full force of the metaphysical shockwave.

He gasped, his hands flying to his chest. A violent, tearing cough ripped through his throat. It sounded as if his lungs were collapsing.

He hunched forward, pressing his white handkerchief to his mouth. When he pulled it away, a massive splatter of dark crimson blood soaked the fabric.

The blood hit the air, and instantly, the cabin smelled different. It wasn't the metallic scent of iron. It smelled like burning ozone, radiating a terrifying, scorching heat.

Eloise's head snapped around. Her eyes widened as she stared at the bloody cloth in Camden's hand.

She could feel it. The blood was practically vibrating with an immense, scorching power-a dominant, sovereign life-force she had only read about in the most ancient, forbidden texts.

Eloise didn't think. She moved.

She lunged across the narrow space and snatched the bloody handkerchief right out of Camden's hand.

Outside the window, Cole saw the sudden movement. He roared in fury, drawing his pistol and aiming it at Eloise's back.

Camden fought through the agonizing pain in his chest. He raised two bloody fingers, giving Cole a sharp, commanding signal to stand down. Cole froze, his gun trembling.

Eloise pressed her index and middle fingers hard into the thickest pool of blood on the handkerchief.

The hot, viscous liquid coated her fingertips. The scorching energy of Camden's blood shot straight through her skin, burning down her meridians.

She spun around and slammed her hands onto Barton's chest.

With one brutal pull, she ripped the sterile hospital gown down the middle, exposing the old man's sunken, gray ribcage.

Eloise held her breath. Her bloody fingers flew across Barton's skin. She drew a complex, ancient rune of "Awakening," her movements precise and aggressive.

As she dragged the final stroke across his sternum, the fresh blood flashed with a faint, dark red luminescence.

"Return!" Eloise shouted.

She slammed her open palm directly onto the center of the blood rune.

A massive, invisible shockwave blasted outward. The kinetic force threw Eloise backward. She slammed hard against the metal wall of the cabin, a sharp grunt escaping her lips as the air was knocked from her lungs.

The cabin fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Only the shrill scream of the flatlining EKG monitor continued to wail.