Page 36 of Intense (Beneath The Blaze #3)

FINN

Song- Snake Oil, Foals.

B efore I even reach my private torture chamber, disguised as a sterile medical suite tucked inside my own mansion, I stop outside her door.

And I smile.

The soft creak of the hinges as I open it feels almost ceremonial. I cross the threshold and lift the hatch on her enclosure. Then I wait.

She’ll sense me soon. She always does.

Eight years I’ve loved her.

From the moment I found her, half-dead, bleeding, and limp from the hands of her abuser, I knew she was mine. She was small then. Frail. But still coiled in defiance. A force even in pain.

And now?

Now she is death incarnate.

A ripple of black scales emerges from the shadows. I don’t flinch. Instead, I lift my bare arm and wait as she glides up it, her weight a relief.

Nyx.

She curls around me, claiming nearly every inch of exposed skin from forearm to shoulder, until she settles in her favorite place.

Around my throat.

A warning and a promise.

They say you can’t train a snake. That they act on instinct alone.

That might be true.

But Nyx…

Nyx is different.

She doesn’t follow orders. This isn’t anything that’s spoken between us—it’s more.

She reads me. Reacts to my heart rate, my body temperature, the current that pulses just beneath the surface of my skin.

It’s not obedience.

It’s something deeper.

Bonded in silence, she is the living embodiment of everything they fear in me.

I stroke the top of her head with two fingers.

“You ready to have some fun, girl?” I murmur.

When I’m calm, she’s calm. When I strike, she coils tighter.

I don’t think she’d ever hurt me, unless I deserved it.

And I would accept that, too.

She’s not a pet. She’s a reflection. A part of me that crawled out of trauma and learned to kill.

And still, I can’t stop thinking about Stephanie’s tattoo.

A serpent, etched over her skin beautifully.

Does she see what I see in these creatures?

Or is she another Nyx?

Beautiful and deadly.

I exhale slowly and turn from the tank, stepping into the corridor that leads to the room holding Troy Barnes. Who we know now as the logistics coordinator for The Preacher.

The creep from the strip club. Which, potentially, could be where he was getting girls from in our state.

But he is the man who may hold the answers to the questions burning holes in my fucking skull.

What the fuck does his cult want with me?

And how the hell are they trafficking women across state lines without a trace?

I reach the reinforced door and key in the code. The mechanical lock disengages with a hiss.

As I open it, the stench of sweat and piss hits me first. Then the fear.

Troy's chained to the surgical table in the center of the room. Limbs spread, heart pounding so loud I can hear it from here.

Good.

I step inside, letting the door click shut behind me.

“Hello, Troy,” I greet him, full of cheer.

A surgeon’s smile cuts across my face as our eyes lock.

I flick the overhead light on, and the white walls glow like an operating room.

Nyx shifts around my throat like she can sense the tension bleeding through me.

She always knows. She’s part of me, born from the same quiet rage.

I stop in front of Troy and crouch down, my hands hanging loosely between my knees.

“You know,” I murmur, “you logistics boys are the real problem. You’re not the preachers. Not the pimps. But you make everything run. The girls, the money. The drugs. You grease the wheels of hell and convince yourselves you’re not burning.”

He tries to smirk. It doesn’t quite land.

“Don’t think your silence makes you noble,” I continue, slowly standing. “It makes you complicit. You let your hands stay clean while the girls bled. But that is about to change.”

I circle him. My fingers trail across the tray of tools, not picking one up yet, just letting the sound of metal taunt him.

“You tried to frame me.” My voice drops. “A fellow doctor. A healer.”

He says nothing. But I can hear his breathing get louder.

I stop behind him, leaning close. “Why me, Barnes?”

Silence.

“Where did you even get my name from?”

Still nothing.

So I let Nyx slither down my arm.

He jerks when he sees her.

“Are you going to ask the name of my snake? It’s rude to be so uninterested, Troy.”

He shakes his head and I roll my eyes.

“Meet Julius Squeezer,” I say with a grin.

He’s shaking, and I can’t help but laugh as I approach him.

“Not even going to laugh at my jokes? This is disappointing on so many levels.”

He opens his mouth but doesn’t say a word. I think Nyx has frightened the words right out of his body.

“Her name is Nyx,” I say flatly.

“So many men are afraid of her; I can’t work out why,”

Nyx curls across my wrist like a ribbon of shadow, her tongue flicking toward him as she tastes his sweat. I lean in.

“She was tortured once, you know. Starved. Pinned to walls for entertainment. And now?” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Now she chooses who gets to die.”

He pulls against the restraints, but they hold.

“You really want to die for The Preacher?” I ask, softer now, almost intimate. “Do you really believe in his cause? Enough to bleed for him?”

Troy finally speaks, voice hoarse.

“I’d die loyal. They saved me. Just get this over with.”

They. Perhaps The Preacher isn’t simply one man. I let the words hang between us. I look him dead in the eyes and stare. Seeing what I can read. He doesn’t look away.

He isn’t bluffing.

He isn’t going to give me the answers. It’s a shame I can’t crack open his skull and get to his brain that way.

Then I reach down and roll up his sleeve. The tattoo’s there, the PR that Abigail had, inked into his inner forearm. Poorly done. Rushed. Like a brand, not a choice.

“Pity,” I whisper, tracing the edge of it with my scalpel, just enough pressure to make him sweat, not scream. “You didn’t even get a good artist.”

I use some pressure, enough to break the skin.

“I have a very steady hand; I’ll do a better job.”

He cries out as I slice around the mark, all the way around, and then cut it clean off and dangle it in front of him.

His face turns grey.

“There. Your alignment has gone. You’re a free man, no brand. Now tell me what I want to know.”

“Fuck. You. Dr. Quinn.”

I let out a dark chuckle.

“Fair enough.” I shrug.

Running my palm along Nyx’s smooth scales, I give her the permission I know she’s been waiting for. “Go on, girl.”

Nyx slowly winds her way down his shoulder, across his chest. Her black eyes meet his.

And he cracks, just a little.

“Preacher... said you were too close. Too curious,” Troy pants, voice breaking. “Said you needed to be stopped in your tracks. It was meant to be a warning shot, not a war. We didn’t know you’d fight back.”

I stare at him. “You should have.”

Nyx curls tighter around him, squeezing just enough for him to gasp. I don’t stop her. She never goes further than I want her to. That’s our agreement. Our bond.

“How did you frame me? Who hacked my hospital systems?” I press.

My anger starts to rise, and Nyx curls tighter.

When I finally step back, he’s trembling.

“That is all I will tell you. My loyalty earns my place in heaven. I can’t.”

I let out a laugh deep from my belly.

They really do brainwash these people.

“Loyal even in death?” I echo.

Troy nods.

So I look him in the eye and deliver my final diagnosis. I have his cell to hack. I have confirmation it was them after me specifically.

And I know a war is coming, but they didn’t expect us to have a force.

And they haven’t even seen half of our reach across the world yet.

“Then die for him,” I whisper.

And I step back.

Nyx obeys.

Her body coils. Her muscles flex. And his breath leaves his lungs in a silent, gurgled prayer to a god that isn’t listening.

Troy Barnes dies for the cause that will never remember his name.

And I leave the room with blood on my hands, a snake on my throat, and war pounding in my chest.