Listen, kid. Heal my twins and I'll adopt you." I said it to the barefoot homeless boy as a cruel joke in front of three hundred wealthy guests.

I vaulted through the jagged opening, landing hard on the steel deck of the operating room.

William Vance dropped the surgical needle and reached for a pistol on the instrument tray. I didn't give him the chance. I lunged forward, grabbing his wrist, twisting it until the bone snapped with a sickening pop, and slammed his skull into the metal tray. He collapsed unconscious, surgical instruments clattering around him.

Matteo Rossi backed away into the corner, raising his golden cane to defend himself, his hands trembling with age and terminal terror.

"Richard... wait!" Rossi croaked, his voice cracking. "We can share him! Think of the power! We can conquer the East Coast! We can live forever!"

I didn't waste breath on words.

I drew my combat knife and drove the butt of the hilt squarely into Rossi’s jaw, knocking him to the floor. His golden cane clattered away across the bloody tiles.

"Noah," I breathed, rushing to the surgical gurney.

With three quick slices, I severed the heavy leather restraints holding his arms and legs. I pulled the gag from his mouth and tore the IV needles from his veins.

Noah threw his arms around my neck, sobbing so violently that his small frame shook like an engine. "Dad! Dad! You came! You didn't leave me!"

"I told you," I whispered, holding him against my chest, tears finally breaking through my own eyes. "I keep my word. Always."

Suddenly, the steel door behind me groaned.

Roman Cruz, blood pouring from a shrapnel wound on his forehead, stood in the doorway wielding a tactical shotgun. He had slipped past Victor in the chaos of the lower decks.

"Vale!" Cruz screamed, leveling the barrel directly at my back.

There was no time to raise my weapon. I turned my body, shielding Noah completely with my torso, bracing for the impact of twelve-gauge buckshot.

*BANG.*

The shot echoed deafeningly in the enclosed steel room.

Pain didn't hit me.

I looked up. Cruz was staring down at his own chest with wide, disbelieving eyes. A neat red hole had appeared in the center of his sternum. He dropped the shotgun, fell to his knees, and collapsed forward onto the deck.

Standing behind Cruz, leaning heavily against the doorframe with an empty service pistol, was Marco.

He was pale as a ghost, his tactical vest soaked in blood, having dragged his wounded body all the way from the mansion in the back of the second assault vehicle.

"Nobody... touches the boss's kid," Marco wheezed, before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the floor.

"Marco!" I shouted, lowering Noah gently onto the gurney and sprinting across the room.

Marco was dying. The gunshot wounds from the safe room had torn through his intestines and liver. His pulse was a faint, erratic flutter under my fingers. Blood was pooling beneath him rapidly.

"Stay with me, Marco! Victor! Get the field medics down here now!" I shouted into the corridor.

Noah walked over, stepping barefoot through the scattered surgical tools. His face was pale, his eyes wide as he looked at the dying security chief who had taken a bullet for us.

"Noah, stay back," I ordered. "You're too weak. You can't."

Noah didn't listen.

For the first time, he defied my direct command. He knelt down beside Marco’s bloody torso and placed both of his hands directly over the jagged bullet wounds in the dying man’s abdomen.

"Noah, no!" I grabbed his wrists. "You’ll kill yourself! You're already bleeding!"

"He saved us, Dad," Noah said softly, looking up at me with tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks. "Mom told me... the light isn't ours to keep. It's meant to be given away."

He closed his eyes.

A sudden, blinding pulse of golden-white warmth radiated from Noah’s hands. The air in the surgical bay hummed with a deep, resonant vibration that made the steel walls rattle.

Marco arched his back, gasping for air as torn tissue, severed arteries, and shredded muscle began to stitch themselves together beneath Noah's glowing palms with impossible speed.

But the cost was immediate.

Blood began to pour freely from Noah’s nose, his ears, and the corners of his eyes. His skin turned ghostly translucent, his pulse racing at an alarming, lethal rhythm.

"Noah! Stop! That's enough!" I roared, trying to pull his hands away.

The boy held on for five more seconds, pouring every ounce of his miraculous spirit into the dying soldier.