(LIMITLESS) CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: SWEAR

The knock at her door was too soft.

Taylor stirred on her cot, blinking up at the ceiling as the familiar sounds of the PRT headquarters settled around her—fluorescent lights, recirculated air, the dull electric pulse of security systems—like a second skin that never quite fit.

It was too early for training and she wasn't cleared for patrol yet, so why…?

Weird. 

She sat up slowly, rubbing at her eyes.

The door creaked open.

Miss Militia stood in the hall. She didn’t step inside. Didn’t meet her eyes. A vague sense of wrongness crawled up the back of her neck

“There was an attack,” she said quietly. “Docks district. Empire hit one of the neighborhoods last night. Hard.”

Taylor felt her stomach twist. A cold, slow drop through her gut.

“Anyone hurt?” she asked, already reaching for her jacket, her mind halfway out the door.

Miss Militia hesitated. That was worse than any answer.

“You might want to see for yourself,” she said.

That was all Taylor needed.

. . . . .

The van ride was a blur of wet streets and tightening dread. Buildings slid past the fogged windows in streaks of gray. The sky above the city hung low and heavy, like it knew something she didn’t.

She didn’t wait for the van to stop.

She was out the door before the brakes hissed, boots splashing into a puddle of black water.

Then she ran. 

Even before she turned the corner, she knew.

The area was cordoned off by a ring of police cruisers, allowing only law enforcement beyond the barricade. The stench of scorched concrete and melted rubber clung to every surface, the kind of smell that sank into your clothes and stayed with you for days. The fire trucks were gone now, hoses packed up and engines rolled away once the blaze had been contained. 

It was the PRT and police’s scene now.

And then she saw it.

The gym—Keith’s gym—was gone.

What had once been a haven of sweat, rhythm, and discipline, the place where muscle memory was made and skills forged—it was now a carcass. Steel beams bent and skeletal. Walls gutted by fire. The heavy bags were nothing but unrecognizable scraps.

She stopped just inside the threshold of what had been the entrance. Rubble crunched beneath her boots.

It didn’t feel real.

But then she saw the yellow tape. The body bag.

She didn’t need to see the face. The way the responders moved, the reverence in how they handled the body—that told her enough.

Keith.

He hadn’t run. Even after knowing what kind of monsters were after her, he’d stayed. Probably opened the doors that night like he always did. Probably told some scared kids they were safe here. That the world hadn’t gone completely to hell.

Her throat closed.

She couldn't breathe.

A nearby PRT agent muttered something about structural damage, about perimeter security. Useless words. Background noise. White static.

Then one word cut through everything else:

“Empire.”

Her focus snapped back, sharp and cold.

“They hung him,” another voice said, low and grim. “From the rafters. A lynching.”

“And they left a mark,” someone else added. “Spray-painted a swastika on the wall behind him. Red. Big.”

Taylor’s breath hitched.

There wasn’t a part of her forcefield that could dull that kind of hit.

She moved past the responders, each step heavier than the last, until she reached the back wall.

There it was. The message.

Charred brick. Scorched paint. But the shape stood out clear—a crude swastika in thick, angry strokes, red as blood and just as hateful.

Her stomach turned.

They hadn’t just killed Keith. They hadn’t just burned down the gym.

They’d made it a fucking spectacle. 

A message.

A warning.

To her.

Cowards. Monsters. They’d chosen him not for any tactical reason, not because he was a threat, but because of what he represented. A black man who built something real. Who helped kids stay off the streets. Who’d taken in a girl with blood on her hands and never once asked her to be anything but better. 

Someone who had trained the very person that had torn Hookwolf a new one. 

This was their retaliation for the perceived insult. 

She stared at what was left of the ring. This was where she’d first learned to use Blue. Where she’d stood after confessing everything to Keith. Where he had taught her how to fight, not just with fists, but with her powers.

She felt something crack in her chest.

The air around her thickened—just barely. The forcefield, ever-present, seemed to respond to the change in her breathing. Her emotions. Her will.

She didn’t feel rage. Not exactly.

She felt clarity.

They’d taken him. Burned away what little peace she had built. Left a message written in blood and smoke.

And now they would learn.

Not about her power.

Not about what she could do.

But who she had chosen to become.

And what she would no longer allow the world to take from her.

She turned from the wreckage, her eyes catching the dull reflection of light—too bright.

“I’m going to find them,” she said, voice low, nearly inaudible.

“And this time, I won’t hesitate. Even if it means crossing a line.”