I slam the pedal to the floor as we speed back to Venice. Bane’s piece of shit car won’t push past 120mph, and every time it shudders from the force, I grip the steering wheel tighter. I don’t give a fuck if it can take the speed. I’ll make it.

Helena is in the back, wrapping Samara’s shoulder that was evidently hit from flying debris during the explosion. Whatever. Not my problem. I can barely stomach the way Helena looks at me with those pitiful eyes when I slam my hand against the steering wheel. I don’t want pity. I want blood.

“I told you we needed to stick together,” I growl. “This is exactly what they fucking wanted.” I hit the steering wheel again. They wanted to separate us. They wanted to separate me, make me choose…and I chose her over my best friend. I chose love over family.

“Arik,” Samara cuts in. “No one knew Bane was still alive. It’s not your fault.”

No. It’s yours. You left Silas by himself. What kind of friend does that? I could’ve found Helena by myself.

Those thoughts anchor in my chest. I hate them as much as I hate myself for not standing my ground. All I wanted to do when I saw Helena was tell her I love her, and now, Silas might have to pay for it.

“How?” Helena asks. “I saw him die. It looked exactly like him. There’s no way he could’ve survived.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him to make his contractors look like him. That fucking psychopath knew we’d be looking for him.” I tighten my grip until my fingers blanch white. “I knew it was too easy. Alastor would never have surrendered like that.”

“We caught him by surprise,” Samara insists.

“No, you don’t get it!” I sneer. “They fucking planned this. They’re playing us like dogs chasing their tails while they take my best friend!” The rage slips and I hit the dashboard with a shout, cracking the glass under my hand. “This is why I wanted to stay together!! You left him there! You left him like you did in DC!”

Venice isn’t close enough. It’s visible in the distance, but that’s not enough and every bone in my body is shaking. I want him dead. I want everyone dead for taking the people I care about. The people I love.

A soft hand curls around my bicep. Helena pulls my fist away from the dash, closing it in both her hands. She looks at me with those soft worried eyes—that sweet green and brown that begged for me.

“We’ll find him,” she assures me.

It makes my muscles loosen and the rage soften. No. I don’t want that. I don’t want to calm down. I want Silas. I want everyone safe. Together.

Silas can handle himself.

Those memories rip through me. The last time I’d heard that was from me, to Ari’s mother. I said that right before he was left to die in that house. I won’t subject him to that again. I promised him I’d keep him safe. That was our deal.

“You don’t know what he went through,” I tell her. Silas never spoke about it, but I saw the marks on his neck. I saw the chains and barbed sticks covered in his blood. In his brother’s blood. And I made sure they paid for it. Everyone in that room is dead now, except Bane. I won’t let them kill him.

“We’ll find him,” Helena insists. “Alastor is just a man.”

My hand curls around the steering wheel, the leather groaning under my grip. Just a man. They’re fucking pests. They don’t deserve to live. Any shred of mercy I had was shattered the moment they tried to take Helena from me. I won’t let them even touch Silas.

I don’t care if I have to burn this city to the ground. No one touches him.

The car screeches to a halt in the construction zone. Dirt and dust kicks up the car like a cloud, but I’m already out, grabbing my gun and charging for the buildings.

“Stay close,” I order. “Find him.”

I don’t wait for their answers. Silas is here.

It’s desolate—a deserted plot of half-finished buildings that are decorated with blood and the bodies of contractors. Limbs are blown off, hanging off the remains of several buildings and I can’t even tell it belonged to a body from their contorted state.

“Castor!” Nothing answers but my echo off the concrete. I sprint through the buildings, kicking the dead bodies from my path. “Silas! Talk to me, buddy!”

My eyes catch on Helena and Samara moving from room to room, scanning each contractor as they sweep the area. Each second I don’t see him, my chest gets tighter. There’s nothing. No signal from his phone, no body, no note. Nothing.

I move through another door, the room taken apart by a bulldozer resting in the center of it. Inside is another slew of limbs—legs and arms and fingers scattered about and a single dead contractor in the machine.

Where are you buddy? Help me out here.

Finally, I see movement, and a flash of red wrapped around his neck.

“Silas!” I sprint towards him, my eyes lifting with the desperate need to have the three of us together. Me and Silas and Helena and Samara. I’ll tell all three of them that I love them, that we will stick together and kill Bane as a team. No more separating.

My feet slide across the dirt and halt to a stop when I see the man slumped against the bulldozer.

That’s not Silas.

The man’s eyes land on me and he scrambles back, huffing and puffing in distress.

My eyes narrow. I would’ve left him to get my best friend back, but then I see that flash of red in his hand—a burgundy scarf frayed from fire and tinged with blood.

Silas’s scarf.

It’s cold, the feeling that comes over me. Everything quietens in my head and I take a single step towards him that makes him scream in fear, crying for a help that won’t come.

They abandoned you. I won’t abandon Silas.

I snatch the scarf from his hands. It’s his—a deep burgundy that was intricately designed, machine-made stitches burnt off by a fire. Silas never takes off his scarf. He’d sooner have it severed at the neck than part with it.

My hands tremble as I turn it over, and then I jump back as a mass of flesh falls from the fabric. It’s a part of a hand. Pieces of bone and skin jut out, and at the very edge of it is the beginning of a tattoo—a chain link.

I drop it in a panic and it falls, limp, like a death sentence.

Samara gasps behind me and Helena covers her mouth, eyes wide and wet with shock.

“Arik...his scarf.” Samara points at the fabric.

“No,” I grit out. “They’ve done this before. It’s a fucking setup.” I glance around the room, the bulldozer, the dead men inside, but when I look again, when I really look, the body parts scattered haphazardly—two arms. Two legs…

The contractor’s pained groan snaps me back before I have a chance to vomit.

“Where is he?” I say through gritted teeth.

The contractor doesn’t acknowledge me, too concerned with trying to reattach his arm to his body.

“WHERE IS HE?!” I slam his head against the metal. “Where is my best friend?!”

The contractor sputters, blood dribbling down his chin. “Gone…”

That word freezes me in place, and that sick feeling is back.

I look behind me, but every time I look at the scattered body parts, it formulates into my friend’s limbs, his arms, his legs.

“Where’s Alastor?” I whip around, gripping his collar tightly. “What did he do to Castor?”

The contractor’s head lolls forward and I shake him, slamming his head against the metal as I scream again.

“WHERE IS MY BEST FRIEND?!”

I hit him again and again until his eyes stop opening. My restraint dies with him and I keep shaking him, asking him that question over and over again until Helena and Samara pry me off him.

“Arik, stop!” Helena grabs my fist, clasping a hand over it. “He’s dead.”

No. No he’s not fucking dead. He’s alive. They did this to us before, back in DC.

I fly to my feet, his scarf in my hands, and charge out the door with the two of them calling after me.

“Silas!” I scream throughout the plot. “Silas, where are you, buddy?”

I circle through each building once, twice, three times and I don’t stop. I won’t stop until I find him.

Helena grabs my arm as I circle again, pulling me to a halt. “Arik, stop, please.”

“No!” I shout through my short breaths. “I told him I was going to look after him! I told him this wouldn’t happen again! He has to be here!” My words die, choking on my tongue.

A sob tears me away from the haze of anger and panic, and when I look up, I see Helena clutching a broken piece of Silas’s scarf, burying her face into the fabric as she collapses into Samara’s arms, sobbing.

I swore I’d keep him safe. That was our deal.

The scarf wraps around my hands, choking me with the one promise I couldn’t break.

My best friend…

I fall to my knees, gripping his scarf in my hands as I sob into it. It burns, stinging my eyes, my throat and my chest is collapsing in on itself. My best friend is gone. He’s lost and I couldn’t find him.

Helena’s teary eyes find mine, and she can’t speak even as her mouth opens. Her lip quivers with silent tears creating rivers down her cheeks and I pull her into me, forcing another chorus of sobs to wrack my body. I can smell him on her. Pine, like the cologne he used to wear when we’d go to those socialized events in high-end hotels that I hated so much, speaking to haughty guests and politicians. I told him I hated him for making me do that.

I’d do it again if it meant he’d appear in the doorway, if he told me it was a sick joke or a way to hide until Alastor gave up. Anything but this.

Sirens blare in the distance, muffled over the sounds of the woods nearby or the sobs as mine turn to angry screams.

Samara’s hand touches my shoulder. “We need to go.”

“No.”

“They’re coming. We can’t stay here.”

“I’m not leaving him!” I shout. “I need to find him.”

“Silas doesn’t take off his scarf,” Samara answers. She glances at the bone fragments at her feet, the same that fell from his scarf. She doesn’t say it but I know she wants to. That it’s his tattoo. That he’s gone and I chose wrong.

I bury the scarf into my chest to stop the tears. The smell is gone. It doesn’t smell like pine anymore. It smells like blood and dirt and nothing like Silas.

“No,” I say.

They both pause, only Helena’s voice picking up. “What?”

“I said no.” I stand abruptly, wrapping the scarf around my neck. It feels wrong, like a badge I didn’t earn, a piece I stole. This is Silas’s mark, not mine. “Silas isn’t gone. I would know if he was.”

Helena swaps her gaze from me to Samara, conflict etched across her face that she can’t admit to. She won’t.

Samara gives me a sad look that festers the anger in my chest and I want more of it. More to fuel that fire I need to find him.

“Don’t fucking say it,” I growl.

“But the body—”

“Then say it!” I scream at Samara. “Tell me my best friend is dead!”

I walk away without another word, slinging my rifle over my shoulder and bounding towards the woods even as Helena’s light footsteps trail rapidly behind me.

“You can’t leave. We need to figure out what to do.” She tells me.

I side step and keep moving. “I already know what to do. I’m going to find Silas.”

She’s back again and I flinch when she grabs my hand, when she speaks to me in that soft voice like I’m human. I’m not human. I am death. I’m an omen, like she said, and I am nothing without Silas.

But she still tugs at my hand, standing in front of me and blocking my way.

“Do not stand in my way, Helena,” I warn her.

“I’m not,” she insists. “We need to come up with a plan—”

“Fuck the plan! I’m doing this my way!” I snap. “All we’ve ever done is run after them, playing their games and I’m not going to follow their rules anymore. Not while they have Silas.”

Her eyes soften with hurt and it rocks that anchor in my chest. Damn her.

“Silas is the only reason I’m alive,” I tell her. “The Codex wouldn’t exist without him. I’m nothing without him. I need him, Helena. I can’t do this without him.” I move past her, trudging up through the dirt until I reach the main road, where the sirens are growing.

Then I hear soft scuffling behind me as Helena follows.

“I’m coming with you,” she says.

“No!” My volume makes her flinch and I curse at myself for doing that again. It fucking breaks me when I see her hurt. The only pain I wanted to cause her was for her benefit, not mine. I can’t put her through this, not for me.

For seven years, I did whatever the hell I wanted. I only cared about my satisfaction, my pleasure, my best friend. I did things because I wanted to and I didn’t give a damn about anyone else. Helena fucked that up. She changed something in me, made me care, and for the first time since I left Acacia, I lost. I lost my best friend because I chose her. Because I didn’t want to lose her. If I choose Silas, if I take her with me, I might lose her too.

She’s going to hate me for this, but she was right. I’m nothing without him. I can’t watch out for her. I never could. I’m not smart. I’m not cunning and I’m not good enough to keep her safe without Silas to help me. She almost died once because of me. I can’t do that again, not to her.

“This was a mistake. We never should’ve involved you. Either of you.” Her hand finds my face but I don’t let her look at me. If I see those tears in her eyes, I’ll change my mind. I’ll break for her the way she broke for me. “You should go home, Helena. Go home and forget about me.”

“I’m not leaving,” she says in that defiant tone that I love about her. “You said we needed to stick together.”

Her words are steady, final, commanding. God I love it so much. Why does she have to make this so hard?

I force my face curl into a sneer and I snap. “I’m not asking, Helena. Go home! Both of you!” She doesn’t move, and I know she’s waiting for me. She doesn’t leave even when I shout. She waits because she knows me and that was another mistake. Attachments are a weakness, and I thought she was an exception to that rule.

My voice tenses as her thumb runs over my cheek. “It’s over, doll. Acacia won.”

“That’s not true,” she fights back. “We’re the Codex. We can do this. You said so yourself.”

“There is no Codex. Not without Silas.” I finally let myself look at her. I let myself watch those gorgeous hazel eyes well with tears that I caused and that ache in my chest bleeding out until it fills my chest with pain. I caused this. Her. Silas. The Codex. They made me choose and I chose wrong. I chose love when I didn’t deserve it.

“I need you to go home, doll.” My hand reaches out, covering hers as she caresses my cheek. “Live, for me. Forget. For me.”

I pull her into me, pressing my lips against hers. A hot tear slides down her cheek, mixing with mine as I fight back a sob. Helena Kinsley. The pain in my ass that even I couldn’t break. I’m death. I gave her hell and in return, she gave me sunlight.

“I love you,” I whisper against her lips.

She doesn’t say it back, and that’s okay. I don’t deserve it. Maybe one day, I can earn it—beg for her forgiveness—but not today. All I can do is give her back the light I stole from her.

I pull her hand in mine, pressing my ring into her hand. Her brows push together before she sees what I placed in her palm, and a soft sob breaks free.

“Arik?” She reaches out to me, but I take a step back, shaking my head.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

Then, I take off into the woods and away from the sirens.

I can hear her cries as they fade into the trees. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. It darkens whatever part of me she’d mended. That light is gone now. I’m walking straight into hell, and I won’t leave until Silas is with me.