Page 32

“Knew him?” A ghost of a smile crossed Hawk's face. “Richard Cross was the finest man I ever met. And Elizabeth... your mother had a fire in her that could light up a room.” His eyes grew distant with memory. “I was devastated when they died. We all were.”

I felt a strange disconnect—these were my parents he was talking about, but the emotion I should have felt remained stubbornly out of reach, locked behind the void where my soul should be.

“Your father left something with me,” Hawk continued, reaching into his jacket. “Made me promise I'd give it to you when the time was right.” He pulled out a weathered envelope, yellowed with age. “I think that time is now.”

The paper felt fragile between my fingers, my father's handwriting instantly recognizable across the front: “For Cade.”

“I'll give you some space,” Hawk said, moving toward the door.

When I was alone, I broke the seal and unfolded the letter, something cold and distant inside me acknowledging that this should feel more significant than it did.

My son,

If you're reading this, then I'm gone, and the life your mother and I worked so hard to give you has changed in ways we never wanted. I hope Hawk found you well. I hope you've grown into the man we always believed you would be.

There are truths I need to tell you—truths I should have shared in person.

Your mother and I tried for years to have a child.

The doctors said it was impossible. In our desperation, I made a choice I've questioned every day since.

I made a deal with a being that promised us a child—you.

The price was steep: eight years of joy before payment came due.

The demon gave us you, and then it took us away. I don't regret the deal, Cade. Not for a moment. Eight years of watching you grow, of holding you, of being your father—I would make the same choice again.

Whatever happens, whatever you discover about yourself or your path forward, know this: your mother and I loved you more than anything in this world or any other. You were worth everything to us.

Always and forever,

Dad

I refolded the letter carefully, my hands steady despite the revelations.

There was a tightness in my chest—not quite grief, not quite anger, but something.

A flicker where there should have been a flame.

The emptiness inside me couldn't fully process what I should be feeling, but somewhere, in whatever fragment of humanity remained, I felt the ghost of what might have been love.

When I stepped outside, Sean was waiting, leaning against the wall with an unreadable expression. His eyes tracked my movements, searching my face.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, his usual gruffness tempered with something like concern.

“Fine,” I replied automatically.

Sean's eyes narrowed slightly. “What did Hawk want?”

I hesitated, the letter heavy in my pocket. A normal person would share this, would need the comfort of another human being after learning such a truth. But the hollow space inside me made it difficult to understand why that would matter.

“He knew my parents,” I said finally. “Gave me a letter from my father.”

Sean straightened, surprise flashing across his face. “A letter? After all this time?”

“My father made a deal with a demon,” I continued, my voice flat even to my own ears. “That's how I was born. The demon gave them eight years with me before it came to collect.”

I watched Sean's face cycle through shock, anger, and then something softer—pain on my behalf that I couldn't fully feel myself.

“Jaysus, Cade,” he said quietly. “That's...” He trailed off, searching for words.

“It's fine,” I said, already turning away. “Let's get back to work. We have a mission to plan.”

Sean caught my arm, his grip firm but gentle.

For a moment, we just stood there, his eyes searching mine for some emotion I couldn't give him.

He knew—he'd known since I came back from Hell—that something fundamental was missing in me.

But sometimes, like now, I could see how much he wanted to find some trace of the old me.

“It's not fine,” he said finally, his voice rough. “But we'll deal with it. Together.”

The word hung between us—together—and for the briefest moment, I felt something stir in that empty space. Not enough to fill it, but enough to acknowledge it was there.

“Together,” I repeated, the word feeling strange on my tongue.

Sean nodded once, then released my arm. We walked back to join the others in silence, but something had shifted. A promise made, even if I wasn't sure I could keep it.

The road was dark, headlights cutting through the night in twin beams that seemed to disappear into the endless black ahead.

Rain pattered against the windshield in an irregular rhythm, the wipers squeaking slightly with each pass.

The Impala's engine hummed with its familiar bass note, the sound normally comforting but now merely a backdrop to the suffocating silence within.

I stared out the passenger window, watching raindrops race each other down the glass.

The shapes of trees and buildings blurred past, indistinct shadows against the deeper shadow of night.

The hollowness inside me seemed to expand in the quiet, a void that should be filled with emotion—guilt, anxiety, determination—but instead remained empty.

Sean hadn't spoken since we left Hawk's compound twenty minutes ago.

The tension radiated from him in almost physical waves, his presence beside me both familiar and strangely distant.

Six months apart, and now this unbridgeable gulf between us.

I wondered if it would have been better if I'd stayed dead.

At least then Sean could have grieved and moved on, rather than dealing with this hollow facsimile of the man he'd known.

Sean gripped the wheel tightly, fingers flexing, releasing, then flexing again in a cycle of contained agitation.

His jaw worked silently, teeth clenching and unclenching beneath the stubble that had grown darker over the course of the long day.

A muscle jumped in his temple with each grind of his molars.

His entire body hummed with tension, shoulders hunched slightly forward, back rigid against the seat.

The silence was suffocating, heavy with unspoken accusations and questions. Even before hell, before the mark, we hadn't been great at discussing our feelings. Hunters rarely were.

Finally, Sean broke the silence, unable to contain it any longer. “You gonna tell me what the hell is going on with you?” The question cut through the rain-filled silence, sharp and unavoidable.

I stared out the window, watching the blurred trees pass. Water streaked across the glass, distorting the world outside. “You heard Asmodeus. I don't even know.” The hollow answer tasted stale on my tongue, a deflection I knew Sean wouldn't accept.

Sean shot me a glance, disbelief evident in the tightness around his eyes. “Bullshit. You know something. And even if you don't—” His knuckles whitened as his grip on the steering wheel tightened. “You know that what you did back there wasn't normal.”

The accusation hung between us, impossible to ignore. I had killed those possessed civilians without hesitation, without remorse. Not even attempting to save the humans trapped inside the demonic meat suits. Just clean, practical elimination.

Sean scoffed, a sound of pure frustration. “The Cade I knew would have tried to save them. Would have used the exorcism. Would have at least hesitated.”

The reminder of who I used to be—of who I should be—settled uncomfortably in my chest. But the hollow space where my soul should be offered no emotional response, just intellectual acknowledgment.

My fingers curled into fists, a physical response to a conversation my body knew was significant even if my emotions couldn't engage. “...You think I don't know that?” The words emerged quieter than intended, an admission that cost something even in my diminished state.

The car slowed as Sean pulled onto the shoulder, putting the Impala in park. This wasn't a conversation to have while driving. He turned to face me fully, rain drumming on the roof above us.

“Then tell me what's going on.” Sean's voice was both demand and plea, the words of a man desperate for answers, for reassurance, for any sign that the person he loved still existed somewhere within the shell that had returned.

Lightning flashed, momentarily illuminating the car's interior in stark white. In that flash, I saw the raw fear in Sean's eyes—not fear of me, but fear for me. For what I was becoming. Or perhaps, for what I already was.

I didn't answer right away. I stared at my hands, remembering how they'd felt around the grip of my gun, how easy it had been to pull the trigger. No hesitation. No remorse. No internal struggle whatsoever.

When I finally spoke, my voice was quiet but steady. “I didn't feel anything, Sean.”

Sean's grip tightened on the wheel. “...What?” The question emerged strangled, as if he already understood but needed to hear it explicitly.

Thunder rolled overhead, distant but approaching. The storm was moving closer, mirroring the one brewing between us.

I turned to him, expression unreadable. “I didn't hesitate. I didn't second-guess. I didn't feel remorse. I just killed them. And I didn't care.” The clinical assessment of my own actions emerged without emotional inflection, which only made the words more chilling.

Sean flinched as if I had struck him. The raw honesty was both exactly what he'd asked for and everything he'd feared hearing.