Page 30

Danny

Standing under the hot shower, something was wrong.

I knew it.

A gnawing unease, like a toothache that refused to be ignored, settled deep in my gut. It wasn’t just a forgotten detail. It was a damn chasm of forgotten faces. Someone I vowed to protect... or had vowed to protect. My oath felt brittle, as it crumbled under the weight of... what? Was it guilt? Regret? Faces blurred, a kaleidoscope of anxious eyes and pleading hands, none fully formed, yet each screaming its silent agony at me to remember.

Someone important... but who else had I failed?

Had I made a choice, a terrible, compromising choice to save myself, leaving another to suffer? The thought was like a poison that twisted in my stomach. No matter what I did, fear permeated my body, damn near choking me in its grip. But worse than the fear was the self-loathing because I fucking knew I had failed someone.

Someone I vowed to protect.

“Danny?” I heard Dante and closed my eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just enjoying the hot shower,” I lied when I heard the shower curtain move as he slipped in behind me.

The water cascaded over my body, but I barely felt its warmth. Dante’s presence offered no comfort, and the sound of his voice only added to my turmoil.

I clenched my jaw, fighting the rising panic.

Who was it?

A face flashed in my mind, pale and frightened, but it slipped away before I could grasp it.

I balled my hands into fists, willing my memory to cooperate.

“Danny, talk to me,” Dante said, his voice gentle but insistent. “You’ve been in here a while. You’re not okay, are you?”

I wanted to tell him, to unburden myself, but the words stuck in my throat, choked by my shame. How could I admit that I, Sypher, the keeper of fucking secrets, had forgotten someone? Forgotten my promise to protect them. The weight of my failure pressed down on me and threatened to crush me beneath its guilt.

Turning me toward him, Dante grabbed my head and whispered, “Danny?”

The instant my eyes locked with his chilling, obsidian orbs, a tidal wave of memory crashed over me. The acrid tang of blood filled my nostrils, as the phantom taste of copper and terror coated my tongue. The insidious rasp of her sadistic voice, amplified a thousandfold, echoed in my skull, a symphony of dread. My world dissolved into a vortex of suffocating fear, and the air itself seized in my throat, a vise around my lungs, stealing the very breath from my body.

This wasn’t just a memory. It was a visceral, agonizing re-enactment, almost like the phantom limb pain of the soul. Dante’s eyes, usually my refuge, now felt like an anchor that dragged me deeper into the abyss.

I wanted to look away, but I was transfixed, drowning in my failure.

The memory, now unleashed, consumed me.

Her face, once vague, sharpened into focus.

A face I had sworn to protect.

Moira. And I sacrificed her to save my life. I had made a choice, a choice that condemned her to a fate I couldn’t bear to think about.

The shower’s steam enveloped me, a physical manifestation of the guilt clouding my mind. I barely felt Dante’s hands on my shoulders, his touch a lifeline back to reality. But I didn’t want reality. I wanted oblivion. I wanted to erase the memory of my shame as I turned my back on her, leaving her to face a horror I had promised to shield her from.

The water ran cold, a stark contrast to the burning shame that engulfed me.

Dante’s voice, now urgent, broke through my tormented silence. “Talk to me, Danny. What happened?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

How could I explain the unforgivable?

“Shit,” he cursed, leaving me in the shower to drown in my guilt as I crumpled to the floor, the icy tiles biting into my skin. My head throbbed, a relentless hammer against the inside of my skull, each blow echoing the brutal symphony of memories. Her face—that vile cunt’s face, sharp and cruel, etched with a chilling satisfaction—swam before my eyes. The acrid tang of fear, the metallic taste of blood, the phantom press of her fingers on my throat... it all flooded back in a nauseating tide of torment. The guttural rasp of her sadistic laughter, the sickening crack of bone, the chilling whisper of her veiled threats—they weren’t just sounds, they were physical sensations, branding themselves into my soul. Each agonizing detail, each unspeakable act, replayed in excruciating clarity, a grotesque film loop stuck on repeat within the confines of my shattered mind.

Then, a scream tore from me, raw and ragged, a desperate, animalistic cry that clawed its way out from the deepest, darkest recesses of my being. It was a scream born of suppressed agony, a scream that begged for release, a scream that echoed the hollow emptiness left behind by her depravity.

“Get here as fast as you can, Haizley, and bring Bane. Make sure Nav is with you and tell him to bring a fucking computer. Yes, I know, but he’s going to need it!”

As I cradled my head in my hands, the shower now a freezing torrent, I felt Dante’s arms wrap around me, his embrace a feeble attempt to offer solace. The scream still echoed in my mind, a raw, exposed nerve that throbbed with each beat of my heart. I knew I had to tell him to unburden myself of the weight that was crushing me.

With a shaking voice, I whispered, “I chose my life over hers.”

Dante’s arms tightened around me, his breath warm on my ear as he murmured, “We’ll fix this, Danny. We’ll find her and make it right.”

But as I stood there, shivering, the image of her terrified face haunted me, and I knew it was already too late.

The choice I had made, the bargain I had struck, had sealed her fate.

The only question now was, could I live with the consequences?

I didn’t know how long I sat on the couch, holding my head as I waited, going over everything as my mind swirled with what I had done. Why did I ever think I could beat her? I should have known she was smarter, stronger, viler than anything I’d ever known.

And God help me, she showed me exactly what she could do.

She was the most sinister, vindictive, hateful woman on the fucking planet.

Dante paced the room, every few seconds looking out the window.

They couldn’t help. No one could.

I did this. It was my fault; all because I wanted to end this stupid fucking war. All because some bitch had a fucking axe to grind over something that happened long before she was even born. The rage I witnessed in her soulless, fathomless eyes was disturbing. It was as if the woman didn’t even have a fucking soul. And her laughter.

Oh God, her laughter could make the hardest of men cower in fear.

Gravel crunched, a death rattle in the suffocating stillness, and Dante was a blur, throwing the door open with a violence that splintered the already fragile frame. The air was heavy and suffocating, thick with the cloying smell of dust and a palpable sense of fear. The screech of tires, a banshee wail, followed by the metallic clang of slamming car doors, ripped through the silence.

“He’s in here,” Dante hissed, his voice a low growl as he lurched aside.

Haizley, Bane and Nav—a trio of familiar faces etched in the fading light—poured into the claustrophobic farmhouse, their boots thudding like war drums on the aged floorboards.

Haizley, her face a mask of desperate hope and chilling dread, dropped her bag with a sickening thud, the leather whispering against the worn wood. She kneeled before me, her breath catching in her throat. “Danny,” she whispered, my name a raw wound.

I couldn’t meet her gaze. My own eyes burned with unshed tears. The taste of ash filled my mouth. “I need a computer,” I choked out, my voice a ragged whisper, a tremor running through me.

“Tell me what’s happening first,” Haizley demanded, her voice edged with steel.

“I remembered,” I rasped as my gaze locked onto Nav, the icy dread clinging to him like a second skin. “She knows where she is.”

My betrayal was sickening.

The man I’d trusted. His carefully constructed facade shattered like cheap glass as his body went rigid. His face drained of color, leaving behind only a canvas of stark terror. He bolted from the room, his phone a frantic extension of his clawing panic.

Bane, a granite statue of controlled fury. His eyes burned with an unsettling intensity, shoved a flashlight in my face, the harsh beam sliced through the darkness, searing my retinas. “Sypher,” his voice boomed, a thunderclap that shook me to my core, “look at me, kid.”

My body convulsed, a rack of uncontrollable tremors.

I couldn’t meet his gaze, couldn’t bear the weight of his judgment, the raw, unfiltered power radiating from him. The air crackled around me with unspoken threats.

“What happened?!” Haizley’s voice sharp as she cut through the suffocating silence. The metallic tang of blood filled my nostrils, a phantom scent clinging to the air even after Bane had retreated. I spun, my gaze locking onto Dante’s pale face, the flickering light of the room catching the beads of sweat on his brow.

“He was showering,” Dante rasped, his voice a strangled whisper. “I went to check on him... One look at me and he clutched his head. I don’t know what triggered it. One minute, he was there, the next... a primal scream ripped through the house, then I called you.”

Bane, a hulking shadow, loomed over me and attached a blood pressure cuff. The cold rubber against my skin felt alien, insignificant compared to the icy dread gripping my heart. “His pressure is off the charts,” Bane growled, his voice a low rumble of impending doom. “He’s having a full-blown manic episode. I need to sedate him.”

“NO!” The scream tore from my throat, raw and desperate.

I scrambled back, away from the looming figure of Bane, the plush velvet of the couch digging into my skin. The air tasted metallic, thick with the scent of fear. “I need a computer! I have to know she’s safe!”

My plea was lost in the storm raging within me.

My despair, a tangible thing, washed over me, but I couldn’t let it drown me.

Not yet.

“Danny, please,” Dante choked out, reaching for me, his eyes filled with a desperate plea that mirrored my own. “You need help.”

I shook my head, my vision blurring with unshed tears.

To Haizley, I croaked, my voice a desperate rasp, “Please... don’t let him. I just need to know... she’s safe.” Haizley’s touch was feather-light, yet firm.

“Danny,” she said, her voice a silken thread against the harshness of everything else, “You need to calm down. Let us help you.”

Then Nav burst through the door, a whirlwind of frantic energy, his breath ragged, his face etched with relief. “She’s safe!” he shouted, the words a life raft in a sea of terror. “She’s safe, brother. I swear it.”

Before the relief could fully wash over me, a sharp, searing pain pierced my arm. The needle, a tiny sliver of cold steel, plunged into my flesh.

My world tilted.

Haizley and Dante’s hands guided me gently but forcefully onto the plush depths of the couch. As darkness threatened to claim me, my words were barely audible, a mere fragile whisper against the overwhelming tide of fear and exhaustion, as I murmured, “She’s... safe...”