Frenchie didn’t have a choice, not once Translucent had seen his face, because walking away now didn’t mean safety. It meant waiting for Vought to trace the mess back to his door.
So he went along with it, not out of trust, just because the alternative was worse.
They drove without talking much, Butcher in front, Hughie tense beside him, Frenchie following in his van until they pulled up outside an old, dead place with a faded sign—Tony Cicero’s, shut down long enough that no one would come looking.
Inside, it smelled like dust and neglect, the kind of place you could disappear in if you knew what you were doing, and Butcher wasted no time turning it into exactly that.
Equipment came in first, then the cage, then the foil.
Hughie worked the walls, covering the cellar in layers, hands moving faster than his thoughts could catch up, while Frenchie watched him with a mix of doubt and curiosity.
"That actually blocks the signal?" he asked, tapping the foil lightly.
Hughie didn’t stop. "Yeah. RF shielding. We sell it."
Frenchie raised a brow at that. "You in intelligence or something?"
"Sales," Hughie said. "Installation."
Frenchie let out a small breath that almost sounded like a laugh.
Consciousness came back slow.
Translucent’s eyes opened to metal bars and a tight space, his body already shifting as he tested the limits.
"What the fuck is this..." he muttered, voice low, tension building as he pushed against it again.
"Oi," Butcher said from just outside the bars, calm like he’d been waiting for that exact moment. "Morning, sunshine."
Translucent focused on him, anger snapping into place. "You know who I am?"
Frenchie stepped into view, lighting a cigarette like this was just another job, nothing special.
"Not sure," he said, exhaling slowly. "I know plenty of invisible assholes."
Translucent’s head turned, tracking the only one in the room he recognized.
"You," he said, his voice tightening as the memory snapped into place. "You’re that fucking asshole who challenged us."
Those red beams—he had seen them right before everything went black. That was enough. He didn’t need anything else to figure it out.
Mark didn’t move from where he stood. "Yeah, it’s me. And didn’t I say I would? You’re in a cage like a dog now."
Translucent laughed, sharp and ugly. "I had your guts all over the floor. You should be dead."
Mark smiled, not even bothered. "Yeah? Look who’s about to die now."
Frenchie’s eyes shifted between them, interest cutting through the tension for a second as he tried to place it. The Seven knew this guy. That alone meant something.
He glanced at Butcher, a silent question there.
Butcher barely reacted. "Yeah, he’s somethin’," he said, dismissive. "But that’s not the problem in front of us, is it?"
Translucent slammed into the cage, and the current running through it discharged on contact, shocking him and throwing him back.
"Let me out, you fuckers—!"
Butcher turned away from it like it was background noise.
"Right," he said. "Let’s deal with this invisible cunt proper."
Frenchie took one last look at Mark, then followed Butcher out, the shouting from the cage echoing behind them as the door shut.
Butcher leaned against the wall, eyes on Frenchie. "What do you think, Frenchie?"
Frenchie didn’t even hesitate. "I think you just dropped the Moby fucking Dick of problems on my plate, that’s what I think. The man can re-order the carbon in his skin into metamaterial—hard as diamonds, nearly impossible to penetrate."
"All right," Butcher said, unfazed. "How ’bout we suffocate him?"
Frenchie shook his head immediately. "Dominicans tried that back in ’07."
"And?"
"They’re fucking dead now. That’s what happened."
Butcher clicked his tongue, thinking. "Right then, electrocution. We just crank the amps."
Frenchie pointed back toward the cage. "You already hit him with enough to drop a water buffalo, and he’s still breathing. Knocks him out, sure. Doesn’t kill him."
"We need to pierce the skin somehow."
Mark, who had been quiet up to that point, finally spoke.
"I have an idea."
Butcher glanced over at him, one brow lifting slightly.
"Well," he said, "ideas are always welcome, mate. Especially when we’re fresh out o’ good ones."
"Suffocating him won’t work the normal way," Mark said, "but we don’t need to crush him or cut him open. His skin’s the problem, not what’s inside it."
Frenchie’s attention sharpened.
"Go on."
"Gas," Mark said. "Carbon monoxide, or something worse if you’ve got it. He still breathes. Still needs oxygen."
He tapped the side of his head once.
"CO binds to hemoglobin. Turns it into carboxyhemoglobin. Blood can’t carry oxygen anymore. Brain shuts down, organs follow. He dies the same way anyone else would—just from the inside."
A small pause.
"Under all that diamond skin, he’s still human."
Butcher didn’t say anything right away.
Frenchie stared at him for a second, then let out a quiet breath.
"You study biology?" he asked.
Mark shook his head.
"No," he said. "I write. You pick up some messed-up details doing that."
*****
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