Capítulo 6: Gathering of Sinners

The lighthouse on Whakapuaka Island stood like a broken tooth against the Tasman Sea. Colt Rek was first to arrive, his shadow a restless smear on the salt-crusted floor.

He swept the perimeter with a soldier’s paranoia—noting every blind corner, every creaking board, the way the wind howled through bullet holes in the corrugated iron roof. His tactical HUD flickered, feeding him threat assessments.

The others were liabilities. He'd seen their files, decoded from the broadcast.

A patricide. A fraud.

A coward. If they weren't immune, he would have ended them already.

Isolde Gray came next, stepping off a rusted trawler as if it were a Venetian gondola. She wore a waxed canvas coat that cost more than the boat, and her faceless shadow glided behind her, echoing the gait of a dead brother.

She assessed the room with a single, surgical glance—the ex-soldier’s frayed webbing, the twitch in his trigger finger, the micro-expressions he thought he hid. Weaknesses.

All of them. Her lips curved into something that wasn't a smile.

Sera Quinn arrived by helicopter, its rotors chopping the thick air. She burst through the door, eyes wild, her seaweed-wrapped shadow dragging saltwater across the floor.

'So this is the club of the damned,' she spat. 'A killer, a traitor, a thief—and whatever the hell he is.' She jabbed a thumb at Evan Thorne, who had materialised in the corner without a sound, his frost-covered shape a silent accusation.

'Enough.' Colt’s voice was parade-ground flat. 'We have eleven days.

I'm taking point. You follow my orders, or—' 'Or what?' Isolde's question was almost bored.

She pulled a slim device from her coat, its screen reflecting the storm light. 'You'll shoot us?

Your shadow would enjoy that, wouldn't it? Tell me, Colt, how many did you shoot in that village before the mirrors made it official?' Silence.

Even the wind held its breath. Colt’s jaw tightened.

'That's classified.' 'Classified.' Isolde laughed, a cold, musical thing. Her fingers danced across the screen.

'Your tactical network is impressive. Military-grade, of course.

But you left a backdoor open. A little gift from your guilt, perhaps?' A holographic window burst to life above them—grainy bodycam footage from the Nevada desert.

Mud-brick houses. Screaming.

A child in a doorway. The rattle of automatic fire.

The timestamp matched the day Colt’s nightmares began. 'Turn it off,' he growled, his shadow coiling like a snake.

'Twenty-seven,' Isolde said, stepping into the projection’s glow. 'Innocents, you called them.

But they were just collateral to you, weren't they?' Sera recoiled, her own guilt a shard of glass in her throat. 'You hypocrite.

You'd have judged me for my research, but this—' 'Shut up!' Colt swept his arm, but his shadow was faster. It smashed the hologram, sending shards of light across the cracked concrete.

The room plunged into near-darkness, only the lighthouse beam carving a slow, accusing arc. Evan finally spoke, his voice a rusted hinge.

'The mirrors feed on this. The conflict.

We’re doing their work.' But no one listened. Four shadows stretched on the walls now, each a distorted, quivering monument to a sin.

Outside, the storm redoubled, and somewhere in the deep, a transmission began to ping—a signal meant only for the pure. The island was no longer a sanctuary.

It was a trap, and they had walked into it with their eyes wide open and their hearts full of hate.