The docks are crowded despite there being a shooting down the street two hours ago. Once the police left, the shops reopened and tourists flooded in like flies, crowding any evidence of the bodies that were picked up. Baron isn’t convinced even with the crowds filled with tourists, he walks me along the walls of the shops, keeping at the far edge of the crowds with his eyes carefully trained on the crowds and his fingers brushing against the knife strapped to his hip. I pull my hat down, but it does little to hide the tension in my body as we move along with the crowd.

The docks come into view up ahead, a sprawling labyrinth of stacked cargo and abandoned buildings, with the occasional patrolling officer that forces us to melt into the crowd and pretend we’re nothing more than a couple of bystanders.

Just a couple of tourists with assault rifles and bullet proof armor hidden under their jackets.

More police officers appear ahead of us—the same two we’d run into earlier—but this time they’re mixed in with a large group, speaking amongst themselves while pointing at several people within the crowds. One of them pulls a blonde woman from the crowd, who starts screaming frantically at them in Italian, before being hauled away by two other police officers.

Panic pulses in my blood and I tuck my braid inside my hat. They’re looking for us. They’re looking for me. Alastor must’ve known we’d try to track him down. The police are a wall, and everyone trying to pass through the docks is being stopped.

One of the officers glances in our direction and my hand raises to my Hallow, flicking off the safety. Baron’s hand is on mine instantly, slipping into my jacket and forcing my fingers to lace with his.

“Easy, doll.” He gives me a warm smile, but his voice is a sharp warning. “They’re picking up on your body language.”

I still under his touch, feeling the warmth and the pulse beneath his skin, a quiet strength I hadn’t anticipated. It feels strangely normal, and I try to focus on that warmth until my shoulders sink and that weight in my chest lifts to a tolerable level.

Baron smiles. “Attagirl. Just relax and keep moving. You’re just a tourist on vacation with your sexy boyfriends.”

My head whips to his, a brow lifting. “Boyfriend?”

He doesn’t answer, only squeezing my hand and pulling me close to him until our bodies are pressed together. The unmistakable warmth of a blush creeps up my neck, but before I can comment, he lets go, giving me a boyish grin.

“See?” he says, nodding behind us.

I look back and see the police have already moved on, stopping another group of teenagers near the water. Ahead of us are the empty docks, free of tourists and police. They didn’t even pay us a glance. They just let us right through.

I’d thank Baron if he hadn’t flashed me that cocky grin, and he laughs when he sees me frown in return.

“Come on.” He nudges me outward to the docks.

They’re all abandoned. Empty mooring lines lay on the piers and four small warehouses sit next to them, vacant and silent. The area isn’t nearly as clear as the street. Streaks of blood are visible through the wood planks as we clear the outside of the docks and chunks of the wood have been blasted through by gunfire, revealing the rotting wood underneath. But no Alastor.

I strip off my jacket and swing my Hallow around. Baron moves in swiftly, his gun poised stiffly for any movement. I keep to the walls, listening for anything—breaths or the shuffling of feet. I sweep another room, but it’s empty. Baron nearly shoots when I trip over a pile of plywood, giving me an exasperated look before shaking his head and moving to another room.

“I don’t like this,” he huffs.

I glance back out the door, watching the movement of the police, but they haven’t strayed from their self-made wall. “Maybe Castor will have better luck.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Baron moves swiftly to the other warehouse, easily keeping to the shadows so the police don’t spot us. I follow, though I’m not nearly as even-tempered. He breaks through locks and security systems like it’s nothing; I suppose it isn’t with how long they’ve been fighting Acacia.

I clear through the outer rooms while Baron moves interior, each of us moving silently through the area. He keeps his gun high, his shoulders steady as he clears each room without so much as a hint of hesitation in his eyes.

I watch him, almost entranced when he scans the area, my eyes drifting over his gloved hands, the armor stuck to his body and those same blue eyes that I thought would cut me deeper than his knife, but there’s something different in them. Something softer. But maybe it’s just me, and his eyes haven’t changed at all.

His eyes meet mine, and I look away when I catch myself staring.

He lowers his gun, sighing. “I hate when you look at me like that?”

My brows push together. “Like what?”

“Like I matter.”

I don’t say anything at first. He says it so easily, like it’s a fact that he should be hated. I suppose it’s not wrong. Isn’t Death always hated?

But Arik isn’t Death, and he does matter to me.

That feeling sits hard in my throat, the words desperate to come out but unable to. I care about Arik. Fuck, I actually care about him and Silas. And the harder that rock sits in my chest, the more I realize it might be much much worse than that.

And I have no fucking idea what to do about that.

It takes me a moment to realize that he’s still staring at me, and part of me is terrified if he and Silas can actually read my mind with the way they look at each other.

“Why do you get so edgy when you and Castor split up?”

Arik stiffens, his body going rigid. “There’s things better left as secrets, doll.”

I wait, leaving my question in the air. Maybe it was a bad way to change the subject, but I hop to fuck he’ll talk about something other than feelings.

Thankfully, he takes it, turning back to the window and peering out to the street barricaded by a wall of policemen.

“I joined Acacia when I was seventeen. Ten years, and all I did was murder anyone they ordered me to, no questions asked.” He sighs and his head falls between his shoulders as he grips the window pane. “I didn’t give a damn about any of it until I met Silas.”

He’s tense, rigid like stone, with his shoulders drawn up so high they nearly cover his ears. The small white scar on his neck peeks through his overcoat, only to disappear the second he catches my stare.

In an instant, that vulnerability disappears when he whips around. He’s back to his old self—or the ghost he portrays himself as—leaning one shoulder against the window with that cocky smile that doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes.

“He watched my back, even before we escaped.” He shrugs. “Figured I owed him, and maybe having someone to clock you when you needed it isn’t such a bad idea. Working alone is a stupid idea.”

“But you’re not alone anymore,” I try to reason. My hand reaches out to his and he flinches almost when my fingers graze his forearm. He watches me with a dark glance, his eyes trained on the place where my hand hovers, like it was an insult to touch him. But I don’t miss that look in his eyes—the one he gave me when I woke up in the school, angry and sad and helpless all at once.

I swallow down whatever fear is stuck in my throat and let my hand rest on his arm, and instantly, that mask is ripped from him. His eyes soften and his chest sinks as he huffs out a breath.

“You have me and Fury now,” I tell him. “We can look out for each other.”

He shakes his head and pries my hand off him. “It’s not the same. You didn’t see what Bane did to him in there. Castor is important to me.” He slides away from the window, checking through each room one last time before peering out the window. The police are fighting with the tourists now, several of them shouting and pointing to the docks before the police haul them away. More arrive, pushing away at the enraged tourists and locals, trying to keep them at bay.

Arik slings his rifle over his back before waving me forward. We move along the water’s edge to the next warehouse, and I jump when a shrill scream pierces the air, only to be followed by angry shouting and more police arresting people. Arik motions towards the back of the warehouse and finally, the wall of police disappears fully from our sight.

He removes his rifle, setting it against the metal door. “I kept him off Bane’s radar and he got me out. That was our deal, and that’s the way it’ll stay until Acacia is dead.”

So that’s why they’re so close. He feels like he owes Silas. All the times I’ve seen them together, they were practically joined at the hip, and their silent conversations are still a little unnerving, but they’ve known each other a lot longer than I’ve known Samara, and I’d already proven the stupid decisions I’d make for her in the field, and that’s without the trauma Arik almost killed me over.

I rest against the metal door next to him, watching the waves lick at the shoreline while the sun starts to dip.

“What about after?”

He turns to me. The wind blows at the strands of hair skating across his eyes, but they give them a golden hue, like the ocean is reflected in them, but warmer. Kinder.

“After?” he repeats quietly.

He pauses, picking at the frayed leather of his gloves. “I always thought I was going to die with a knife in my hand. This…I never thought about this. Winning. Going home. Living a domestic life, sitting on some wooden deck with my wife while my kids run around in the woods.” He laughs like the thought itself is ridiculous.

I try to imagine him and Silas after Acacia is gone—Arik wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, running after three small kids while Silas watches from the deck with a skin tight black shirt, trying not to smile like I know he wants to.

“Is that what you want?” I ask.

He pulls his cheek in between his teeth, chewing on the thought like stale tobacco that makes his face curl up.

“As long as Silas and Samara have their peace at the end of this,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“Why?”

He scoffs. “Do you think you’d be able to live that kind of life after this?”

He really is a ghost, when that look crosses his face, his eyes turn from that warm ocean to a pale soulless white. Anyone can see through him because he doesn’t want to be seen, not when anyone asks him to do anything other than kill. I saw that in the bunker, in the mountains, in the mines. After every torture he inflicted on me, he turned to Silas and became a ghost, afraid of his own sanity.

I allow a smile to slip through, and when I touch him this time, he doesn’t flinch. “Not by myself.”

His gaze shifts to my gun, a ghost of a grin tugging at his mouth. “Hallow,” he says, nodding at it. “It suits you.”

I glance down at my weapon, my brows pushing together. “The gun?”

“The name,” he says with a shrug. “It suits you.”

Hallow. My name. I’d never seen a reason to have one like the others. Samara had hers to keep her status in Acacia. Silas and Arik earned theirs through their own means, fighting. Nicknames and callsigns aren’t chosen. They’re given when they’re earned.

Holding my gun tighter, I smile back at him, feeling a beam of pride spreading like heat on my cheeks, that is caught in Arik’s eyes. They’re back to those oceans again, even when he doesn’t smile.

He doesn’t look away at first when his phone vibrates in that rhythmic tone, but a second later, it happens again, and he finally breaks off, whipping his phone out. The screen illuminates his face in white and he laughs.

“We got him,” he snickers. “We got him. Fucker already surrendered.” He doesn’t waste any time, moving away from the metal door and slipping down to an alley parallel to the wall of police blocking the street.

He double takes when I don’t immediately follow after him, motioning for me to follow. “Come on, doll, don’t drag your feet.”

Unease claws at my throat, wrapping around it like a cold gust of wind that I can’t shake off of my nape. “Maybe we should finish clearing the docks.” I look in through the dirty windows of the warehouse I’m hiding behind, and I can hear Arik’s frustrated sigh.

He creeps over to me, eyeing the police that are starting to thin out slowly. “Doll, they have Alastor. This was a decoy, like you said. Come on.”

He pulls at my hand, only managing to tug me a few feet from the wall before I force my hand from his grip. Something isn’t right and I can feel it.

“Why would Alastor wait for Castor to find him after trying to lure us here?” I press.

“Because Alastor’s intelligence died when his brother’s head exploded.” He glances back at the barricade. “He wasn’t expecting us to follow him there. Samara is already on the way, we shouldn’t keep them separated for long.”

Frustration bubbles in my chest, and I frown at his seemingly complete disregard of the situation. “Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious for Alastor to light a literal fire if he wanted to keep a low profile?”

“I really don’t give a fuck what’s here and what’s not!” He shouts, pointing out towards the woods. “Alastor is there, not here. We can’t waste any more time.” He steps back, taking in my hurt expression, sighing. “We’re only supposed to be gone an hour, and Samara can’t get through the barricade. We need to regroup and then all four of us can come back and clear the docks.”

I shake my head. Something’s not right. Looking at the two warehouses feels like a rock sitting low in my stomach. It’s taunting me. There’s something in them, and if we leave, whatever it is, the police might find it first.

“Arik,” I plead, finding his eyes. “Please…”

His eyes soften, his forehead creasing with concern. He holds up the phone, dialing for Samara but he’s only met with a dial tone. No signal.

“Fuck,” he whispers. He tries again, holding it high in the air but each time is met with that dull tone. He glances back at the wall of police, then to me.

“Thirty minutes,” he warns. “I mean it, Helena. You clear the docks in thirty minutes, or I’m coming after you.”

I nod, relieved, but he grabs my arm before I can move.

“Be careful,” he says.

“I will,” I promise. I hesitate for a moment, but I finally pull him into a hug. He doesn’t fight me, wrapping his arms loosely around my armor.

“I’ll see you soon,” he whispers.

Then, he’s gone, disappearing down the alley with his coat flaring behind him like a cloak.

I push through the metal door, my gun trained at each corner and wall. They’re all identical—unfinished, white walls and broken wooden floors. Drywall patches and spackle litter each wall and the smell of dust and rot mixes in a horrible odor. But there’s nothing here. Nothing besides boxes of nails and sawdust lining the floor.

I quickly push onto the next warehouse. I’ve moved far away enough that the voices of the police are completely gone, and even as I strain to hear something through the deafening silence, there’s nothing—not a voice, an animal or any kind of ticking that would indicate some trap I’d assumed Alastor had left for us. Just empty warehouses in the middle of a crime scene that we supposedly caused.

I should’ve left with Arik.

The warehouses are empty, and I’m sure the thirty minutes are well past gone. I need to get back to the villa.

I sling my Hallow over my shoulder, weaving back through the back rooms into the main area when a flash of white blinds me and a bang sends me flying against the wall.

Ringing flashes in my ears, and my vision blurs, swaying back and forth like the rocking of a boat. I can only barely see the black boots when they come into the parts of my vision that still work and the muddy scraping in the vibrations of the ground. The house is rocking, or maybe it’s the soft laughter of Arik as he stands above me.

But when I look up at his face, I don’t see his blue eyes staring back. They’re a soft amber, a fire blazing down on me. His lips are scarred, quirked up in a smile as he runs his hand through his tufted brown hair.

“Bane?”

He smiles at me, and when my vision finally clears, I find myself staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Hello, Helena.”

The gun fires.