The warped: Dark seed saga

Lila woke up gasping.

Not from pain. Not from fear.

But from the weight of something too vast, too impossible to still be inside of her.

The memory clung to her, as real as the air in her lungs. She could still hear the echo of voices—Sylva's final words, the raw desperation in Eri's silence. She could still feel the pull of the Otherworld, a past that had already happened but now felt like it had been rewritten inside of her.

Her fingers twitched. Something was wrong.

Her grip tightened around something solid—metal, cold, and split right down the center.

Rowan's weapon.

Except it wasn't whole anymore.

The spear had snapped at the center, jagged edges still humming faintly with power.

Lila's breath came unsteady. Her heartbeat pounded against her ribs. How the hell—

The dream.

The crack.

Sylva had thrown it.

She wanted her to find it.

"Aiden?," she whispered before she could stop herself.

Lila sat up so fast that her vision swam. Hands—warm, steady—gripped her shoulders, stopping her from pitching forward.

"Lila—"

Aiden's voice.

Frantic. Raw.

She turned her head, and his expression was worse than fear. His hands trembled against her arms. His eyes—wide, bloodshot, searching for something—were locked onto hers like she might disappear if he blinked.

For the first time since waking up, she felt the full weight of what had happened.

She hadn't just passed out.

She had been gone.

And Aiden—her husband—had been here the whole time.

Waiting. Watching. Helpless.

His arms wrapped around her like a vice, his breath uneven against her hair. "God, Lila—don't ever do that again." His voice was raw, barely held together. "You just—just collapsed. I thought—"

His paranoia was surfacing, that familiar undercurrent of fear she had known since the beginning. He had always been waiting for disaster, for the world to fall apart around him. And now, with her unconscious, pregnant, and unreachable—he had been living his worst nightmare.

She squeezed his arm, grounding him. "I'm here. I promise."

"Wait—wait, is that—"

Rowan's voice cut through the tension, sharp and disbelieving.

Lila turned just in time to see Rowan kneel beside her, eyes locked on the broken weapon in her hands. Her fingers twitched at her sides, like she was resisting the urge to grab it.

"Holy shit," Rowan breathed. "I thought this was gone forever."

She reached forward, hesitating just for a second before wrapping her hands around the spear's familiar grip. It felt different—shorter, incomplete—but damn if it didn't feel right in her hands again. The break was jagged, imperfect, but power still thrummed in its core.

Even damaged, even incomplete—it was hers.

"Damn," Rowan exhaled, shaking her head in quiet awe. "Guess it's good to see you again."

Lila let her take it, watching as Rowan turned it over in her hands, testing the weight.

Aiden, still kneeling beside Lila, frowned. "It's broken."

"Yeah, no shit," Rowan muttered. Then, surprisingly, she grinned. "Doesn't matter. I can still use it."

She gripped the spear tight, stance shifting slightly, instinctively feeling for what it could still do.

Lila nodded, swallowing. "She wanted me to find it."

Rowan's grin sharpened. "Then I'd say it still has a job to do."

Aiden sighed, rubbing a hand over his face before turning to Lila again. "What the hell happened?"

Lila exhaled. The words tangled in her mouth, so much bigger than she knew how to say.

"I saw something."

Aiden's grip tightened. "What do you mean?"

Lila exhaled. The words tangled in her mouth, so much bigger than she knew how to say.

"I saw the Otherworld. Before all of this. Before they—"

Before Eri and Mephisto went back in time. Before all of this even started.

Her hands clenched around the broken spear.

"Sylva threw this into the crack," she whispered. "She wanted me to see."

Aiden's breath hitched. "What—what did she show you?"

Lila swallowed, heart hammering.

"That Eri isn't the enemy," she said. "That Sylva is helping her. That—" Her voice faltered.

That Marisol was part of this. That the Core had been preparing for longer than they realized. That everything was so much bigger than they had thought.

And that Sylva's last words to her before the dream ended were not about the past at all.

"Save them."

Lila didn't know who exactly Sylva meant.

But she knew one thing for sure.

Carlos might.

Lila looked down at the other broken weapon piece in her grasp and exhaled. No time to waste.

"We need to go back," she said, her voice rough but firm.

Rowan frowned, arms crossing. "Back where?"

"The apartment," Lila pushed forward, sitting up despite the stiffness in her limbs. "Carlos. He's there, or at least, he was. He might know where Mephisto is."

Garrison stepped into the room just in time to hear her last words, his expression grim. "Then we don't have time to stand around."

Lila turned to him, confused by the edge in his voice. "What is it?"

"I checked in with Shariff while I was outside," Garrison said, adjusting his stance like a soldier readying for war. "Chang is dead. And you were right. Marisol was their real target all along."

A silence hung over the room, heavy and suffocating.

"They took my kid," Garrison continued, voice like iron. "So whatever we're doing, we do it now."

Rowan exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Lila dont push to hard okay."

"We don't have time to hesitate," Lila said, pushing herself up fully now. "Carlos is our only lead. If he knows anything about Mephisto's location, we need to make him talk."

Rowan studied her for a long moment before finally nodding. "Okay if you're sure."

Aiden was already up, grabbing his jacket. "We're wasting time talking about it. Let's go."

The decision was made. No more waiting.

The squad car's doors slammed shut behind them as they pulled out onto the road, the dull hum of the freeway growing louder in the distance. The drive back to Anaheim was silent, heavy with unspoken thoughts.

Aiden, seated in the back, picked up the other half of the weapon—the splintered end now serving as an impromptu bludgeon. He gave it a testing swing, exhaling through his nose. "Guess this'll do for now."

Then garrison turned, staring directly at aiden in the back seat.

"So let's go find the bastards who took her."

Lila exhaled, She wasn't just going back to the apartment to chase ghosts.

She was going back to get answers.

And this time, she wasn't going to let fate pull her under.