Chapter 28: continue
The salt-scrubbed summer hardened into a brittle, beautiful fall. Five months at the glass house had etched a new rhythm into their bones, one built on the silent language of survival and the loud, demanding poetry of a growing baby.
Leo, at nine months old but measuring closer to five, was a force of nature contained in a nineteen-pound package. The ghost had become a gravitational pull.
He sat in the center of the pastel pink rug, a stable, grinning monument amidst a sea of plush toys. His back was straight, no wobble, as he babbled a stream of enthusiastic nonsense at a stuffed whale. “Ba-ba-da-ba!” He waved his fists, then with a look of intense concentration, reached for a blue block just beyond his toes. He didn’t topple. He just… leaned, snatched it, and popped it triumphantly into his drool-wet mouth.
From the kitchen island, Aria watched, her heart doing its familiar, fragile acrobatics. It was a miracle that never got old. The preemie clothes were long gone, replaced by sturdy 6-9 month outfits. The oxygen concentrator was stored in a closet, a relic. Now, the dominant sounds were his rumbling giggles, his dramatic grunts of effort, and the soft shush-shush of his pajama-clad knees and hands dragging himself across the polished concrete.
He was crawling. Sort of. It was more of an efficient, determined army crawl, his little arms pulling his body forward with surprising strength, his legs pushing. He could cover the length of the great room in under a minute if motivated—usually by Levi’s boots entering the room.
“Look at you,” Aria murmured, taking a sip from her Stanley tumbler. “Absolute menace.”
Levi entered from the garage, the crisp autumn air clinging to his flannel shirt. He carried a box of generator parts under one arm. He didn’t say a word. He just looked at Leo.
Leo’s head swiveled. His babbling stopped. A wide, gummy smile split his face, revealing two tiny bottom teeth. “Da!” he announced, voice echoing in the open space. He dropped the block and began his urgent, dragging scramble across the floor, a tiny diesel engine of devotion.
A soft, almost imperceptible exhale escaped Levi. It was his version of a laugh. He set the box down and knelt, his knees cracking faintly. He opened his arms, not wide, but just enough.
Leo powered into his chest, grabbing handfuls of flannel. Levi’s large hands, capable of disassembling an engine or breaking a man’s neck, came up and encircled his son. He lifted him, settling Leo easily on his hip. Leo immediately grabbed Levi’s nose.
“Da-da-da-ba,” Leo said seriously, patting Levi’s cheek.
“Yes,” Levi replied, just as serious. “Generator needs a new carburetor.”
Aria snorted, stirring the oatmeal on the stove. “He said he wants blueberries in his. And a new torque wrench.”
Levi carried Leo to the counter, leaning against it to watch Aria. Leo contentedly gnawed on Levi’s shirt collar. “Perimeter’s clear. Mikasa’s doing a supply run. She’ll be back before dark.”
“Did you give her my list?” Aria asked, dumping a handful of frozen blueberries into the pot.
“The pink plastic thing?”
“It’s a silicone feeder. It’s for teething. And it’s raspberry-colored, not pink.” She shot him a look. “And the more teething toys the better. This one,” she nodded at Leo, who was now trying to gum Levi’s chin, “is apparently part wolverine. My nipples are a war zone.”
A flicker of something dark and protective crossed Levi’s face. He shifted Leo higher. “He’s eating solid food now. You should stop.”
“I’m trying. It’s a process. He likes the comfort.” She shrugged, but the shrug was too tight. The feeding relationship was a complex tangle of trauma, biology, and a clinging need to feel essential that she couldn’t quite explain. She changed the subject. “He finished an eight-ounce bottle before his nap. The elephant one. Number three nipple. Kid’s a vacuum.”
Levi’s thumb brushed over Leo’s head, feeling the solid, warm skull beneath the soft hair. The accelerated development was undeniable. The strength in his grip, the coordination, the sheer durability. Leo had face-planted off the sofa last week and just blinked, annoyed, before demanding to be picked up. No cry, no bruise. Just pure, indignant Ackerman resilience. It was a secret source of grim pride, layered with a deep, abiding fear. What did it mean for him? What would it make him?
After lunch—Leo enthusiastically smearing blueberry oatmeal everywhere—Aria ran a bath. The giant, cold-concrete-encased tub was one of the house’s few luxuries. She filled it with warm water and a ridiculous amount of lavender-scented bubbles, another Mikasa procurement. She lowered Leo in, his laughter bouncing off the tile walls as he slapped the water.
She was kneeling beside the tub, sleeve rolled up, fishing for a sinking rubber duck when Levi came in. He leaned in the doorway, watching.
“He’s getting too big for the infant tub,” Aria said, her arm dripping. “We’re gonna need to just put him in the big one soon.”
Levi didn’t answer. His eyes were on her, on the curve of her neck as she leaned over, on the damp spot darkening the front of her t-shirt from splashes. Five months of paranoid vigilance and bone-deep exhaustion had left little room for anything else. But the room was warm, steam curling, and their son was splashing happily, and for a stolen moment, the threat felt theoretical.
He walked over, crouched beside her. He didn’t touch her. He just looked. “After he’s down,” he said, his voice low enough that Leo’s giggles drowned it out for anyone but her.
Aria’s breath caught. She understood the subtext. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a statement of fact. A need, finally surfacing through the cracks of duty. She met his gaze, saw the restrained intensity there, and felt an answering pull low in her stomach. A need to be used, to be taken out of her own head, to feel something other than love and fear.
“Okay,” she whispered back.
Bath time became a hurried affair. Leo, pickled and prune-fingered, was dried, lotioned, and stuffed into fox-print pajamas with a speed that left him blinking in confusion. His final eight-ounce bottle—the cream-colored one with the foxes—was drained in record time. Aria sang a sped-up, punk version of a Taylor Swift lullaby, and Leo’s eyes drooped, heavy with food and warmth.
They tucked him into the crib in the blue-and-cream nursery Levi had built. He sighed, turned onto his side, and was gone.
The silence in the hallway was sudden and immense. They stood there for a beat, just outside his door, listening to his soft, even breaths. The monitor in Levi’s hand emitted a gentle green glow.
Without a word, Levi took her wrist. His grip was firm, purposeful. He led her not to their bed, but to the leather sofa in the main room. The glass wall was a black mirror now, reflecting the dim interior lights and their two figures.
He pushed her down onto the cool leather. His movements were not rough, but supremely deliberate. He pulled her leggings and underwear off in one motion. He unbuttoned her shirt, pushed it open. He left her there, exposed, while he went to their bedroom. She heard the drawer open. He returned with the small, rose-gold vibrator and the silicone plug, both purchases from a lifetime ago, another world.
He held them up. A question, but only in form.
She nodded, her throat tight.
He lubed the plug, his fingers clinical. “Turn over.”
She obeyed, the leather cool against her belly. Her cheek pressed against the grain, her body open and waiting. She heard the quiet snap of the lube bottle again, then felt the broad, silicone tip of the plug press against her.
He worked it in slowly, relentlessly, with no preamble. The stretch was immediate, a burning fullness that made her gasp into the leather cushion. He didn’t pause, didn’t ask if she was okay. He just seated it fully, letting her feel the uncomfortable, grounding intrusion. Her fingers curled against the sofa. This was what she needed. To be occupied, claimed, her anxiety forced out by physical sensation.
Levi’s hand came down on her ass, a sharp, stinging slap that echoed in the quiet room. The pain was bright and clarifying. “You’re mine,” he stated, his voice devoid of its usual controlled calm, stripped down to something darker and more possessive.
“Yours,” she choked out, pushing back against his hand, seeking another.
He gave it to her, twice more on the opposite cheek, the blows landing with precise, practiced force. The heat spread through her, pooling low in her gut. He used his knees to push her legs wider apart. She heard him unbuckle his belt, the rasp of the zipper loud in the silence.
He didn’t enter her. First, he pressed the buzzing head of the vibrator against her clit.
The sudden, electric shock of it made her jerk. He held it there, a relentless, humming pressure that had her biting down on her own arm to stifle a cry. He worked it in small, tight circles, his other hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. Pleasure coiled, tight and too fast, a live wire in her core. She was panting, her body strung taut between the plug inside her and the vibration on her most sensitive nerve.
“Levi—” she begged, but the word was just a broken sound.
He removed the vibrator. The absence was agony. Before she could protest, he shoved into her cunt in one brutal, deep thrust. He was thick and hard, and the sudden, brutal fullness alongside the plug stole the air from her lungs. He fucked her with a punishing, rhythmic force, each drive pushing the plug deeper, stretching her impossibly.
“Fuck,” he grunted, his voice strained. His hands dug into the flesh of her hips, holding her in place for his thrusts. The sound of skin slapping skin, wet and crude, filled the air. “Take it. Just take it.”
She did. She pushed back against him, meeting each drive, letting the force of him atomize every thought. The world narrowed to the sweat-slick press of leather on her cheek, the brutal fullness in her ass and cunt, the raw, ragged sound of his breathing above her. She came with a sharp, silent convulsion, her walls clamping around him in violent pulses, the pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.
He followed moments later. With a final, deep groan, he buried himself to the hilt, his body going rigid against hers. She felt the hot pulse of his release inside her. He stayed there, slumped over her back for a long moment, his breath hot on her shoulder.
Slowly, carefully, he pulled out. He eased the plug from her, the sensation a slow, unsettling emptiness. He left her there, sprawled and spent on the sofa, and walked to the kitchen. She heard the sound of water running, a cloth being wrung out.
He returned and cleaned her with a gentle, impersonal thoroughness that contrasted starkly with the violence of minutes before. He pulled her leggings back up, buttoned her shirt. He sat on the edge of the sofa and pulled her into his lap, her back against his chest. They sat in the dark, listening to each other's heartbeats slow.
On the coffee table, the baby monitor glowed its steady green. Leo’s soft, sleeping sighs whispered through the speaker.
“Mikasa’s late,” Levi murmured into her hair, his voice back to its normal flat cadence.
Aria tensed. The careful, constructed peace of the evening shattered. The green light on the monitor wasn’t just a signal of their son’s safety anymore. It was a timer. Mikasa was never late.
Before she could form a question, the green light on the monitor blinked once, then went out. The soft audio feed died, leaving a void of silence.
A second later, it blinked back on. Green. Leo’s sigh.
A deliberate, coded signal. A breach.
Levi was moving before the next breath, easing Aria off him and onto the sofa. He was across the room in silence, pulling a handgun from a concealed panel near the fireplace. He tossed a smaller pistol to Aria. It landed on the cushion beside her, cold and heavy.
“Get Leo. Go to the panic room. Now.” His eyes were on the black glass, scanning for movement outside. His voice was absolute, ice over steel. “Don’t turn on any lights. Don’t make a sound.”
The ghosts weren’t in the glass anymore.
They were at the door.
The cold weight of the pistol against Aria’s thigh was a shock that bypassed her brain and shot straight to her nervous system. For a suspended second, she was back in the sterile hospital room, the smell of antiseptic choking her, hands pulling Leo away.
Then Levi’s order cut through the memory, sharp as a scalpel. “Get Leo. Go to the panic room. Now.”
Her body moved before her mind could start spinning. She scooped up the pistol, her fingers clumsy on the unfamiliar textured grip. She was already running, bare feet slapping silent on the cold concrete, toward the nursery. Her lungs burned. Every shadow in the open-plan room seemed to breathe.
Leo was a warm, solid lump in the darkness of his crib, his fox-printed pajamas a faint grey shape. She didn’t pause to admire his sleeping face. She scooped him up, blanket and all, tucking him against her chest. He stirred, letting out a soft, questioning grunt. “Shh, shh, sweetheart, it’s okay,” she whispered, the lie sour on her tongue. She grabbed the pre-stocked diaper bag from its hook by the door, slinging it over her shoulder.
Levi was a silhouette against the vast, black glass. He hadn’t moved to a window. He was perfectly still in the center of the room, listening. “The panel behind the water heater,” he said, voice low and absolutely flat. “Code is 0910. His birthday. Don’t turn the light on. Don’t open it for anyone but me or Mikasa.”
“What about Mikasa?” Aria hissed, her arms tightening around Leo, who was now fully awake and starting to squirm.
“I’ll find her. Go.”
The hallway to the utility room felt ten miles long. Leo began to fuss, a low whine building in his throat. “Please, baby, please,” Aria begged, jostling him gently as she ran. She hit the light switch with her elbow, bathing the small, tiled room in harsh fluorescent light. The silver water heater hummed.
She found the nearly invisible seam in the wall paneling. She pressed. A small keypad lit up with a soft blue glow. Her hands were shaking. Leo’s birthday. October ninth. 10-09. Or 09-10? Her mind blanked, terror chewing through her reasoning. October is the tenth month. Nine. Ten. 0910. She stabbed the numbers: 0-9-1-0.
A soft, hydraulic hiss. The panel slid open, revealing a dark, claustrophobic space barely larger than a closet. A single bench, shelves stocked with water, batteries, a first-aid kit. It smelled of cool, stale air and concrete dust.
She stumbled inside, turning to see the main room through the narrowing gap of the door. Levi was gone. Vanished. The vast living space was empty, illuminated only by the moon’s glow on the ocean. Then the panel hissed shut, plunging her and Leo into absolute, soundproofed black.
Leo’s fussing escalated into a full, betrayed cry. The sudden, total darkness was terrifying. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Aria chanted, fumbling for the shelf. Her fingers closed over a soft, familiar shape—a plush whale. She brought it to Leo’s chest. He shoved it away, his cries gaining volume, echoing in the tiny, airtight space.
She found the crank-powered flashlight. A few frantic turns of the handle produced a weak, jumpy light. It was enough to see Leo’s red, angry face. Enough to see the panic clawing up her own throat, constricting it. She could hear her own blood roaring in her ears. Or was that the ocean? Or… something else?
Back in the main room, Levi moved with a predatory silence. The blinking monitor was a declaration of war. Mikasa’s absence was the first casualty. He knew the protocol: if compromised, she would attempt to draw the threat away from the house. The fact that she hadn’t signaled an all-clear meant she couldn’t. Or worse.
He didn’t check the windows. A direct approach was for amateurs. He slid open the hidden panel in the floor near the kitchen island—a bolt-hole he’d installed during construction, leading to a narrow utility tunnel that ran under the house to the garage. The cold, damp earth smell enveloped him.
Above him, through the layers of concrete and flooring, he heard nothing. No forced entry. No footsteps. Just the relentless sigh of the wind. That was wrong. It meant they were good. It meant they were already inside, or waiting for him to make a move.
In the panic room, the air was getting thin and hot. Leo’s cries had subsided into ragged, hiccuping sobs against Aria’s shoulder. She strained to hear anything beyond the whoosh of her own pulse. The silence was worse than noise. It was a vacuum where every horrible possibility grew.
She thought of the pink rug, the half-eaten bowl of oatmeal still on the counter. The stupid, raspberry-colored silicone feeder on Mikasa’s list. The normalcy of it all, five minutes ago. It felt like a memory from someone else’s life. The dark pressed in, solid and suffocating. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. The familiar, metallic taste of a panic attack bloomed on her tongue.
Not now, not now, you stupid bitch, not now. She focused on the feel of Leo’s back expanding under her hand. Breathe with him. Out. But her own rhythm was scrambling, her vision spotting at the edges in the jerky flashlight beam.
Levi emerged from the tunnel into the garage’s shadowy interior. The Hyundai was there. Mikasa’s motorcycle was gone. He scanned the space, using the parked car as cover.
He scanned the space, using the parked car as cover. The damp garage air tasted of motor oil and wet earth. A flicker of movement near the service door—not a shape, just a shift in the darkness where darkness shouldn't move.
Levi didn't fire. He exhaled, soft and controlled, and melted back into the tunnel entrance. Let them come to him. The house was a trap now, and he knew every pressure point.
In the panic room, Aria’s world had narrowed to the frantic thump of Leo’s heart against her chest and the tightening band of her own ribs. Her vision swam at the edges, the weak flashlight beam dancing on the metal door. The metallic taste was back, a penny on her tongue. Not now, please not now. She could feel the pre-seizure fog gathering, a static electricity in her skull.
“Breathe, Leo, come on baby, breathe with me,” she pleaded, but she was the one gasping. She fumbled in the diaper bag, her fingers numb, searching for the small, hard case of emergency Klonopin. Her hand closed around it just as a loud, metallic clang reverberated through the small room, vibrating up through the floor. Someone was in the utility room outside.
Levi heard it too, a solid impact against the metal housing of the water heater. A diversion. He moved, not toward the sound, but parallel to it, staying low behind the concrete foundation wall. His own pulse was a steady, slow drumbeat in his ears. He saw a boot—dark, tactical—step into the edge of his sightline near the main garage door.
They weren’t rushing. They were flushing.
Aria got the pill bottle open. One clattered onto her trembling palm. She dry-swallowed it, the bitter chalkiness making her gag. She crushed Leo closer, his warmth the only tether to reality. The clang came again, closer this time. They were testing the wall, looking for the seam.
“Shhh, shhh,” she whispered into Leo’s fine hair, but the sound was a tremble. She aimed the pistol at the door, her arm shaking so badly the muzzle drew erratic circles in the gloom.
Levi took the shot.
It wasn't at the boot. It was at the garage door's manual release mechanism, three feet to the boot's left. The deafening report was a physical thing in the enclosed space. The mechanism shattered. The heavy door, already unpowered, dropped six inches with a jarring, shuddering boom of finality.
The boot disappeared. Levi was already moving, circling toward the service door, using the car's engine block as a blind. He heard a suppressed cough from outside, followed by the low, urgent mutter of a voice. A radio. They were communicating.
He keyed his own comms, a single, silent burst channel Mikasa had established. A question mark.
Static hissed back for three endless seconds. Then, a strained, wet exhale, and a single word: “Compromised.”
Mikasa’s voice.
Levi’s jaw tightened. He changed his grip on the pistol. The calculus had shifted. The house was a kill box. They needed to be outside.
In the panic room, Aria heard the gunshot muffled through the walls. Her body flinched violently, a full-body spasm. Leo screamed, a raw sound of terror. The pill wasn't working fast enough. The darkness was becoming liquid, pulsing. She felt the familiar, awful slide toward the void. No. No. Not with him. Not now.
She forced her head between her knees, the pistol digging into her thigh, Leo squashed against her. She focused on the smell of him—baby shampoo and milk and his own unique, sweet skin scent. She clawed her way back from the edge, one ragged breath at a time.
Levi reached the service door. He didn't open it. He listened. The wind had picked up, whistling through the pines. Underneath it, a faint, rhythmic scrape. Footsteps on gravel, cautious, approaching from the south side. Two sets. He pictured the layout: the service door opened to a narrow path between the house and the generator shed. A funnel.
He backed away, slipping into the main house through the interior garage door. He needed to draw them in, separate them. He needed to get to the panic room.
Aria heard the new sound. Not the testing clang, but the distinct, quiet scrape of a tool working at the edges of her door. They were here. They knew. Her fear crystallized into something cold and sharp. She laid Leo down gently on the bench, his screams piercing the small space. She picked up the crank flashlight in her left hand, the pistol in her right.
“You don't get him,” she said aloud, her voice suddenly steady. The vibration was gone from her hands.
The door hissed open.
A figure filled the doorway, backlit by the utility room’s fluorescent light—a silhouette in dark gear, holding a compact submachine gun. He took a step in.
Aria switched on the crank flashlight, aiming it directly into his eyes. The sudden, jerky beam wasn't bright, but it was unexpected. He flinched, bringing a hand up.
She didn't hesitate. She squeezed the trigger of the pistol Levi had given her.
The sound in the tiny room was catastrophic. The bullet went wide, sparking off the metal doorframe. The recoil slammed her wrist back into the wall, a bolt of white-hot pain. But the man ducked back, shouting to someone outside.
Levi heard the gunshot from inside the house. Aria's shot. His blood went cold. He abandoned stealth and ran, a silent shadow cutting through the living room toward the hallway.
The man in the utility room regrouped, moving to enter again. This time, he’d be ready.
Aria fumbled with the pistol, her wrist screaming. Leo's cries were a continuous siren. She raised the gun again, her aim wavering.
A different figure exploded into the utility room from the exterior door—a blur of black, trailing the coppery scent of blood. An arm wrapped around the first man's throat from behind. There was a horrible, wet crunch, instantly muffled. The submachine gun clattered to the floor.
The figure let the body drop. She stood panting in the doorway, one arm clamped against her side. Moonlight from the open exterior door caught the stark lines of Mikasa’s face, pale and sheened with sweat.
“Aria,” Mikasa gasped, her voice strained. “Out. Now.”
Aria didn't think. She scooped up Leo, grabbed the bag, and stumbled forward over the threshold, avoiding the dark shape on the floor. Mikasa ushered her out into the cold night air, then turned and fired twice into the panic room’s interior control panel. The door hissed shut, locking. A temporary obstacle.
“Levi’s drawing them to the front,” Mikasa said, her breath coming in short, pained hitches. She was favoring her left side. A dark, glistening patch stained her jacket. “Car. Now.”
They ran, hunched over, toward the garage's exterior side door. The wind bit at Aria’s face, a shocking slap after the sealed room. Leo had gone silent, shocky, his wide eyes taking in the rushing dark.
Levi was at the Hyundai, the driver’s side door open. He had the engine running, a low purr in the night. He saw them coming, saw Mikasa’s stagger. He didn't speak. He simply took Leo from Aria’s arms and placed him in the pre-rigged car seat in the back. His movements were swift, absolute.
“How many?” he asked Mikasa as she slumped into the passenger seat.
“Four. One down.” She grunted, pulling her seatbelt across her body. “One with me. Two flanking the house. They’re professionals.”
Aria scrambled into the backseat beside Leo, her hands finding his straps, clicking them with muscle memory. Her whole body was shaking now, the adrenaline bleeding into shock. “You’re shot,” she said to Mikasa, her voice distant.
“It’s shallow.”
Levi threw the car into reverse. He didn't turn on the headlights. He backed down the crushed-shell driveway by memory and the faint glow of the dashboard, moving fast. The tires spit shells into the night.
They reached the gate. It was still open from Mikasa's return. As they passed through, Levi saw a flicker of movement near the tree line to the right. He slammed the car into drive and punched the accelerator, the Hyundai lurching onto the dark, rural road.
Two hundred yards down, headlights flared to life behind them, cutting through the darkness.
“They had a vehicle,” Levi stated, his eyes flicking to the rearview. His hands were calm on the wheel. He pushed the sedan harder, the engine groaning in protest. The road twisted ahead, a black ribbon between walls of pine.
In the backseat, Aria clutched Leo’s carrier, her forehead pressed against the cool plastic. The pill was finally kicking in, a chemical blanket smothering the panic. In its place, a hollow, ringing clarity took hold. She watched the headlights grow in the side mirror, twin points of pursuit in the vast, uncaring dark.
Levi took a hard left onto a narrower track, the car bouncing over ruts. “Mikasa. The secondary location. Is it compromised?”
Mikasa was breathing through her teeth, applying pressure to her side. “No. They tracked me to the store. Followed me back. They don’t know the network.”
“Good.” He checked the mirror again. The headlights were still there, maintaining distance. They were being herded. “Aria.”
She lifted her head. “Yeah?”
“The bag at your feet. Open it.”
She fumbled with the zipper. Inside, nestled beside diapers and formula, were two pre-paid burner phones, a thick envelope of cash, and three new IDs. A getaway kit. She’d packed it herself weeks ago, a paranoid exercise she’d half-dismissed.
“The green phone,” Levi said. “Speed dial two.”
She powered it on, her fingers clumsy. The screen lit up her face in the dark. She pressed the button.
It rang once. A familiar, calm voice answered. “Armin.”
“It’s Aria,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “We’re blown. We’re mobile.”
A brief pause, then the sound of rapid keyboard clicks. “Understood. Stay on this line. I’m tracking you now.”