Page 12 of Fractured Loyalties (Tainted Souls #2)

Time doesn’t move the same after a decision is made. After someone says, tonight , the hours swell with too much meaning. They grow teeth.

I haven’t changed out of the same clothes from yesterday. I haven’t eaten. I don’t even think I’ve blinked in the last five minutes. The house feels quieter now, like even the shadows know something is coming.

Elias hasn’t said another word since closing the console.

He’s sitting in the same chair I notice he always claims since I got here, back rigid, gaze fixed ahead—like it’s where he goes to disappear without leaving the room.

He sits with one leg bent, fingers steepled under his mouth, eyes somewhere far past the walls.

I could stand naked in front of him, and I’m not sure he’d notice.

And that might terrify me more than if he did.

I cross the room and lean against the table. My arms are crossed, not out of defiance, but because if I don’t hold myself together, I might splinter.

“You’re different now,” I say, quietly.

He blinks. Looks up. “How so?”

“You’re not trying to convince me anymore. Not trying to make me stay. You’re waiting for something. Something worse.”

He leans back slowly. “I don’t need to convince you anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because you already know what I am.”

He says it without malice. But it lands hard.

I stare at him. “And what is that, Elias? What are you?”

He stands.

Just that.

The act of rising from that chair sends a ripple of cold across my back. Not because he moves like a predator, or even a man with a purpose. He moves like someone walking into a fire they helped set.

He steps toward me, stops short. Just far enough not to touch.

“I’m the consequence,” he says. “The thing men like Caleb never think is real.”

I swallow. Hard.

He doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t offer comfort.

And still, I feel steadier with him this close.

“Are you going to do it alone?” I ask.

“I always do.”

I nod slowly. “You don’t have to.”

He tilts his head slightly, like that’s something he can’t compute.

I clarify. “Not that I’m offering to help kill him. But...you don’t have to carry it all like this.”

“I do.”

The finality in his voice is a door slamming.

“I want to come with you,” I say before I can stop myself.

His eyes sharpen. “No.”

“You said I’m the reason he’ll get careless. What if I can help you corner him?”

“You help me by staying alive.”

His voice is harsh, clipped. It’s the first time I’ve seen the temper behind the stillness.

“I’ve already been dying by degrees,” I snap. “You said you weren’t doing this halfway.”

Silence.

Then he exhales sharply. Turns away.

“Mara,” he says, without turning back. “If you come, there’s no guarantee what you’ll see. And I won’t be able to stop. Not once it starts.”

A cold chill rips through me.

And still, I say, “I need to know who you are. All of it.”

The day has stretched thin—quiet meals, unspoken plans, long silences broken only by the occasional glance across the room.

And now, as late afternoon settles in, the sun sinks lower, casting molten gold through the living room windows.

It’s too beautiful for what’s coming. The house looks painted, like a still from a life that doesn’t belong to me.

Elias is in the next room, talking quietly on the phone. His voice is low, precise. I can’t make out what he’s saying. Probably on purpose.

I sit on the edge of the couch, hands clasped between my knees. I haven’t told anyone where I am. Not Celeste. Not Alec. No one.

I should feel isolated.

I feel...awake.

My body hums like it’s tuned to the same frequency as the man that's probably pacing behind that wall. Everything in me wants to follow him, even though I know where he’s going.

Even though I know what he’ll do.

When he returns, he doesn't speak right away. Just tosses his phone onto the counter, eyes locked on mine.

“Backup’s in place,” he says.

I nod. I don't ask who or what that means. He won’t tell me, and I think I’d rather not know.

“Come with me,” he adds.

I blink. “What?”

He takes two slow steps closer. “Not to the confrontation. But before. There’s something I need to do.”

“Where?”

He doesn’t answer. Just holds out his hand.

And I take it.

The drive is short. Twenty minutes, maybe. But the road feels longer, carved through thick woods and deep curves. The kind of stretch that swallows sound.

Elias doesn’t speak, but the tension in his jaw says everything. I steal glances at him as the trees blur past. He’s locked in, like a weapon being drawn slow.

We pull up to a clearing, where a cabin squats low against the earth, built of old wood and newer steel reinforcements. It looks temporary. Functional.

I follow him inside.

The interior is cold. Spartan. A table. Two chairs. One cot. A black duffel bag rests on the floor, half-zipped. Inside, I glimpse the edge of a holster, a burner phone, rolls of tape, a flask.

My stomach knots.

Elias crouches beside the bag and starts packing deliberately.

“I used to come here to disappear,” he says without looking up. “Before I stopped pretending that I could.”

I lean against the wall. I point at the duffel, voice quieter now. “You’ve been planning this all along, haven’t you?”

Elias doesn’t flinch. “Since before you ever saw me.”

The admission hits harder than I expect.

“And you didn’t think I deserved to know?”

“I told you what mattered,” he says evenly. “And I never lied.”

He zips the bag closed. Stands. Meets my eyes.

“I needed to know who you were before I stepped into your world. And who he was to you.”

I should feel violated. I should feel tricked. But all I feel is exposed.

“And now?” I ask.

“Now I don’t care what you were to him. I only care what he tried to take.”

The weight of that sentence drops like a stone between us.

I follow him out, my steps quieter than my pulse. The door clicks shut behind us with the finality of something more than wood.

Outside, the forest is starting to dim. The sky, layered in amber and slate, filters through the branches overhead. I watch the light leave his face as we move toward the car. It’s like watching the last warmth bleed from a wound.

He tosses the duffel into the trunk with practiced economy. I notice the license plate on this car isn’t the same as before. I don’t ask.

He doesn’t speak until we’re back on the road.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says without looking at me.

I say nothing.

“You still want to come with me.”

It’s not a question. And I don’t need to answer.

He exhales through his nose, quiet, like he’s bracing himself for something more painful than the night ahead.

“There’s no clean version of this,” he says. “What happens tonight doesn’t get rewritten. It doesn’t soften in hindsight. You’ll see something you’ll want to forget, and you won’t be able to.”

I turn to him. “Then I’ll remember. That’s better than pretending.”

The car takes a corner too tight. I feel the tires bite gravel. He eases off the gas.

“You keep surprising me.”

“Good.”

“No. It’s dangerous.”

I fold my arms, press my back into the seat. “So is everything else I’ve survived.”

That gets him quiet.

We drive in silence for a while. The town recedes behind us, replaced by an emptier stretch of highway. The trees grow taller. The road narrows. We’re moving toward something inevitable. I feel it in my blood.

Eventually, he pulls off onto a narrow dirt path that disappears behind a thicket. He kills the headlights but doesn’t stop the engine.

“This is where I leave you,” he says.

I blink. “You said I could come.”

“You did. And now you’re here.” He nods toward the ridge. “There’s a blind spot just over that hill. You’ll be safe there. You’ll see everything. But you won’t be in the line.”

“The line?”

“Where it breaks. Where it ends.”

I stare at him. “You really think I’ll be safe?”

He looks over at me then. Full on. Eyes so dark they seem hollow.

“No. But I’ll try like hell to make sure of it.”

I should get out. I don’t.

He leans in slightly. Close enough for breath. “Stay low. Don’t run toward me. Don’t call my name. No matter what you hear.”

I nod. My mouth is too dry to speak.

He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear—light as fog—and steps out into the night.

I follow a moment later, slipping out into the cold. The air bites harder now, thick with tension. He’s already moving toward the trees, but I keep my distance, trailing him until the path veers and he disappears behind a rise.

The hill crests higher than it looked from the car. I keep low, my fingers gripping tufts of damp grass as I crawl the last few feet. When I settle behind the rise, the whole clearing stretches out before me.

There’s a small shack just beyond the treeline. Run-down. Unremarkable. The kind of place you pass on the side of a road and never look at twice. But something in my bones knows it’s where Caleb is. And where this ends.

Elias steps into the open from the opposite side—shadow made flesh. I suck in a breath without meaning to. He doesn’t look like himself. Not the version I’ve seen. There’s no softness in his face. No trace of the man who handed me a mug of coffee this morning.

He moves like he’s done this a hundred times.

Because he has.

A black car pulls up slow, crunching gravel under the tires. Headlights cut through the growing dark. The vehicle stops twenty feet from the shack.

Two men step out.

One is Caleb.

Even from here, I recognize his gait. The false casual way he walks, like he owns the dirt he steps on. Like the world should flinch around him.

My breath goes sharp.

Elias doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

The second man circles behind Caleb, keeping close. He’s bigger, bulkier. Muscle. Insurance.

They don’t see Elias. Not yet.

I dig my nails into the soft earth beneath me, every instinct screaming to move, to call out. To run.

Then Elias steps forward.

Deliberate. Controlled. And suddenly very, very visible.

Caleb stops short.