Chapter 105: Faith Among Ashes

The St. Michael medallion swung between Elena's fingers as she gazed at Carlos's photo.

Two years today. The chapel in the secure sector remained silent except for the soft murmur of her father's prayers in a secluded corner. Here, at least, they could pray without constantly looking over their shoulders.

Elena placed the small paper bag on the makeshift altar. Half an hour until the guards changed shifts, time enough. She inhaled deeply, the scent of incense mixing with the persistent smell of gunpowder that never completely left the air in Costa del Sol, even in this secure sector.

"I need a sign, Carlos," she whispered, caressing her brother's photo. "To know what to do with what I found."

The bag contained what she had discovered that morning: a detailed map of smuggling routes, snatched from the hands of a dying cartel informant at the harbor. Information that could save lives... or cost her own if she handed it to the wrong people.

The creak of the door startled her. Her fingers instinctively found the knife she carried hidden—Carlos's last gift. Only when her eyes adjusted to the dimness did she recognize the figure entering.

Kasper.

Without his combat exoskeleton, dressed in normal clothes—dark pants and a cotton shirt that had seen better days—he almost looked like just another citizen seeking comfort. Almost. The too-calculated movements and the visible scars on his neck betrayed the truth. The scars where enhancement ports had been brutally extracted told his story without words.

Elena quickly slid the bag under the nearest candle. Too late. Kasper's eyes, trained to detect the slightest movement, had already registered the action.

"Elena." His voice sounded different here, less mechanical than during the rescue at the harbor.

"Are you here to pray or to hunt?" The words came out sharper than she intended, surprising even herself.

A shadow crossed Kasper's face as he approached, stopping at a respectful distance. Respecting her space.

"Just to remember."

The silence between them vibrated with unshared secrets. Elena quickly calculated her options. The contents of that bag could help Kasper in his personal war against the cartels, but she could also end up as just another statistic if he worked for the wrong people.

"I've seen you before," Kasper finally said, his gaze briefly shifting to Carlos's photo. "Always in the same pew. Always with the same flowers."

"You're observant for someone who supposedly comes to pray."

A hint of a smile crossed Kasper's face, so fleeting she almost imagined it.

"Observation keeps people alive." His hand unconsciously touched the medallion he wore—identical to the one Elena clutched between her fingers, identical to the one Carlos had worn until his final breath. The medallion her father had given him the night at the harbor. "Your brother."

It wasn't a question.

"Carlos." The name came out like a prayer itself. "Two years ago today."

Kasper nodded, keeping silent. Waiting. Elena recognized the tactic—the empty space that invites filling. Interrogators used it. Confessors too.

"The cartels," she finally added. "For refusing to transport their merchandise on our boat."

Kasper's jaw tensed almost imperceptibly. Elena took the moment to study him better. The rumors at the harbor painted Kasper as an avenging demon, a ghostly figure without emotions who extracted enhancement ports with the same surgical precision that his victims had used on innocent people.

But here, in the light filtered through the stained glass, she saw the deep shadows under his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands when he thought no one was watching. The aftermath of whatever had been done to him.

"Why are you really here, Kasper?" Elena leaned slightly forward. "This place is far from your usual hunting grounds."

A look of surprise crossed his face before he could hide it.

"Have you been following me?"

"Everyone follows the Void Killer." Elena held his gaze. "At least everyone who wants to survive."

Kasper shifted uncomfortably, something he would never have allowed to be noticed in the streets. But here, in this sacred space, his defenses seemed different.

"That name..."

"Suits you," Elena completed. "More than you imagine."

Kasper's eyes narrowed slightly, assessing her. For the first time, the hunter seemed uncertain, as if he couldn't decide whether she represented a threat or something completely different.

"I don't know what stories you've heard—"

"They're not stories." Elena slowly pulled the paper bag from its hiding place. "It's information. About the next shipment. The one containing children."

Kasper's expression changed instantly. The broken man disappeared, replaced by something far more dangerous. His fingers tensed, calculating the distance to her, to the bag.

"Where did you get that?" His voice had dropped an octave.

"The harbor receives more than fish." Elena kept the bag out of his reach. "My question is: are you really helping these people, or just using them for your personal revenge?"

Kasper went still, the accusation hanging between them like a suspended knife. Through the stained glass, the light projected patterns on his face, colored fragments that seemed to reveal the different parts of his being fighting each other.

"You don't know what you're doing," he finally said. "That information will make you a target."

"I already am. I always have been." Elena held the bag like a shield between them. "My brother died for refusing to transport their 'merchandise.' You think I don't know what's at stake?"

Something changed in Kasper's gaze. Not pity—Elena would have despised pity—but recognition.

"That last night," he said slowly, "when you pulled me from the water... Why did you do it?"

The question surprised her. It wasn't the interrogation she expected.

"Because it was the right thing to do." The automatic answer sounded hollow even to her.

"Lie." Kasper took a step toward her. "The truth."

Elena felt something breaking inside her—the carefully constructed facade of two years of pain.

"Because when I saw you..." The words caught. "I saw someone who could do what I can't."

"And what is that?"

"Make them pay." Her voice broke on the last word. "Without losing my soul in the process."

The silence between them took on a new weight. In the distance, her father's prayers continued like an anchor in a stormy sea.

"Your brother..." Kasper looked at Carlos's photograph. "Did he believe? In all this?" His gesture encompassed the chapel.

"Until his last breath." Elena clutched the medallion. "His last words... he said the void would remember their sins. That they couldn't hide forever."

Something ignited in Kasper's eyes—a recognition so deep it almost seemed painful.

"The void remembers," he murmured, the words barely audible.

"What?"

"Nothing." Kasper extended his hand toward the bag, but without trying to snatch it. A request, not a demand. "This information... could save lives."

"Or it could disappear into the corrupt system," Elena countered. "How do I know it will end up in the right hands?"

Kasper seemed to consider the question seriously.

"You don't." His honesty was brutal. "You can't know. That's what faith is."

Elena felt her breath catch. The comparison was almost blasphemous, but also strangely appropriate.

"Carlos always said that faith without action is like a boat without an engine." Her fingers slightly loosened their grip on the bag. "But he also said that action without discernment is like sailing blind during a storm."

"Sounds like a wise man."

"He was." Elena made a sudden decision. "I'll give you this, but with one condition."

Kasper's expression tightened, regaining some of his usual hardness.

"You're not in a position to set conditions."

"On the contrary." Elena held the bag over the flame of a nearby candle, close enough for the paper to begin to char. "I'm the only one in a position to do so."

For an instant, something wild crossed Kasper's eyes—the predator assessing whether he could snatch the bag before she destroyed it. The moment passed, replaced by a new caution.

"What condition?"

"I want to know what really happened. With your team. With your enhancements." Elena kept her voice steady despite the fear that came with challenging someone like him. "And I want to know if what you're doing is justice or just revenge."

The question struck something deep in Kasper. Elena saw the impact in the way his posture changed, how his eyes briefly shifted to the image of St. Michael in one of the stained glass windows—the warrior archangel with his sword raised against the forces of evil.

"There are lines you shouldn't cross, Elena." His voice sounded almost pleading, something she would never have expected from the feared Void Killer.

"I already crossed them the night we pulled you from the water," she replied. "There's no going back for any of us."

Kasper looked at Carlos's photograph, then at the medallion she held, identical to his own. Finally, his gaze swept the chapel, stopping at Miguel, who continued praying in the distance, oblivious to the tension unfolding.

"Justice and revenge..." he began slowly, "sometimes they're the same thing viewed from different angles."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"No, it doesn't." Kasper extended his hand again. "But if you give me that information, I promise you the children will be safe. And afterward... I'll tell you what you need to know."

Elena studied his face, looking for signs of deception. She found pain, determination, contained rage—but also something else. Something that surprisingly resembled hope.

"Why should I trust you?"

"For the same reason you pulled me from the water that night." Kasper touched his own medallion. "Not because you have proof, but because you have faith."

The words resonated in the small chapel with a weight that transcended their simplicity. Elena felt something changing between them—not friendship, not exactly trust, but mutual recognition. Two people marked by the same darkness, struggling not to be consumed by it.

Slowly, she extended the bag toward him.

"Don't make me regret this."

Their fingers brushed during the transfer, the contact brief but loaded with meaning. Elena felt a shiver run through her—the sensation of making an irreversible decision, of entrusting her life and many others to a man most considered more monster than savior.

"The void remembers," Kasper said, the words barely a whisper as he pocketed the bag.

"What does that really mean?" Elena asked.

The morning light suddenly changed, a ray piercing through the stained glass at a precise angle that illuminated Kasper from behind, projecting his extended shadow over the altar—a silhouette that, for an instant, seemed crowned with wings.

"It means some sins can't be hidden." His eyes met hers with an intensity that made Elena understand why cartel operators feared him so much. "Not even in darkness."

He turned to leave, but Elena stopped him with one last question.

"Will you come back? Afterward?"

Kasper paused at the threshold, his silhouette outlined against the exterior light.

"If I survive."

When he disappeared, Elena remained motionless, holding the St. Michael medallion like an anchor to reality. Her father finally approached, his rosary still tangled between his callused fingers.

"What did he want?" he asked, his voice laden with paternal concern.

Elena contemplated Carlos's photograph, feeling that somehow she had just completed a circle that her brother had begun.

"Maybe the same thing we do, Dad." Her eyes turned to the door through which Kasper had disappeared. "A purpose in the chaos."

Miguel followed her gaze, catching something in her expression that made him frown.

"Be careful, mija. Men like him..." He hesitated, searching for the right words. "They walk between two worlds."

"Maybe that's exactly what we need." Elena lit one last candle, watching as the flame came to life. "Someone who can go to places where the light doesn't reach."

Outside, the sound of sirens broke the morning stillness. Costa del Sol awakened to another day of precarious balance between salvation and damnation. But inside the small chapel, between inherited faith and necessary violence, something like hope had found ground to grow.

The void remembers.

And through Kasper, perhaps it also redeems.