Page 29 of Stream & Scream

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Jaxen

Sunday night

T ara’s heartbeat thrums steady on the monitor strapped to my wrist. Steady but far.

She’s fast, too fast for someone with no chance of making it out.

She runs like prey that already feels teeth scraping against her spine.

And all it does is piss me off. Because every second I spend tracking her is another second Liv’s alone and vulnerable in that cabin.

My jaw tightens until it aches. My rifle strap grinds into my shoulder as I cut through the woods, the forest choking the path with wet roots.

The air stinks of rot, rain-swelled leaves, and the copper tang of my own fucking rage.

I duck under a trunk split years ago by lightning, clear a ridge in two strides, and land hard in the mud without a sound wasted.

My body thrums with adrenaline and bloodlust, but it doesn’t feel clean, not like it usually does.

Because this isn’t a hunt I’m enjoying. This one’s a fucking leash, dragging me away from the only thing I want.

The only thing I need . Liv. Every second I spend chasing Tara is a second I’m not at that cabin guarding what’s mine.

But the predator in me won’t walk away leaving one alive.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how I work.

Leaving prey on the board makes me look weak.

Makes me look sloppy. And weakness is blood in the water.

One more. One last fucking contestant. Then I’m free to go back to her.

And for once, there’s no thrill in this fucking hunt.

No dragging it out, making every second count.

Not this time. Because I know Milo, and I know his pathetic ass has already given the green light.

My replacement has already been dropped into my woods, with orders in his ear, and his trigger finger itching to prove he’s the new dog on their leash.

Sent not just to clean me up for going rogue but to hunt her too.

So I finish this. I clear the board. And then I go back to her. Nothing else fucking matters.

Back to Liv. Back to my fucking girl.

“I swear if he touches her, if one goddamn hand so much as grazes her skin, I’ll make this forest choke on the bodies it’s already holding, stack fresh corpses on the old ones until the ground splits under the weight.”

I’ll stack their precious cameras and their replacement hunter right on top of the bodies, salt the earth with their screams until there’s nothing left but ash.

I slow when the ping shifts east. Creekside.

Smart move. Water hides scent. Fucks with the thermal.

It’s exactly the kind of trick someone would try if they thought the rules of nature applied to me.

They don’t. I’ve killed better prey for less.

I adjust course, flanking the hill that runs parallel to the creek’s spine.

Each step is deliberate. My heartbeat drops low, slow, efficient.

I’m the blade that cuts without hesitation.

And yet the thought still slices through my skull—every second with her out of my sight is a fucking risk.

I scale a tree like it owes me the view, bark biting my palms, rifle clanging once against my spine before I pin it tight.

Twenty feet. Twenty-five. My thighs burn, but I don’t stop until I’m crouched on a branch thick enough to hold my weight.

The forest rolls beneath me, a black ocean frozen in place.

Rifle unslung. Scope on. Safety off.

I flick the thermal into place and the world shifts to gray and white, life pulsing against the void.

My breath slows to a crawl as I scan the tree line.

A bird flares bright in the canopy, wings twitching before it darts away.

A raccoon waddles fat through a brush nest, glowing faint.

A deer ghosts across a clearing, white-hot legs flashing as it bounds. Background noise. All of it noise.

Then, southwest quadrant. Thin frame. Heat pulsing with panic. Moving fast, cutting sloppy.

Tara.

I center the crosshairs. My lungs lock steady. Finger tightens on the trigger. She’s pumping her arms, sprinting like she can outrun what’s coming. She can’t. She’s already finished. All it takes is me pulling once.

I wait until the wind dies. Until the trees hold their breath. Until the moment feels like it was always meant to happen.

Three.

Two.

One.

Bang.

The recoil punches my shoulder, a clean break of silence that echoes sharp through the canopy. Her body folds before the sound fades—knees gone, spine gone, a puppet with cut strings. She drops heavy into the mud, motionless. Dead before the dirt even embraces her.

And it should feel good. It should feel like a release. But it doesn’t.

Because the second I lower the scope, the sky splits open.

A flare.

Red, bright, obscene against the black. It arcs from the cabin. My cabin. The one I left her in. The one where I told her to stay the fuck put.

“Fuck,” I snarl, the word tearing raw from my throat.

The rifle slams back across my spine. I leap from the branch without thinking, hit the ground hard enough that pain screams up my ankle.

Something cracks, but it doesn’t fucking matter.

I bite down and run anyway. Every step is goddamn agony, and I welcome it.

Because it’s better to hurt than to stop.

Branches whip my arms tearing at my inked skin sending warm blood trickling down my forearm.

My chest heaves, each breath sounding too much like a growl.

The flare’s already gone, the smoke curling like a taunt in the distance, but the meaning is carved deep—someone’s there.

Or she thinks someone is and she’s afraid. Panicked.

And that word fucking guts me.

Panic.

I told her to trust me. I gave her my word, my command, and my goddamn fucking promise. Did she think I’d leave her? Did she think I’d use her and vanish like the rest of these disposable meat-suits? That’s what they don’t get. That’s what she needs to understand.

She’s not disposable.

She’s mine.

And if their secondary hunter is anywhere near her, I’ll gut him slow. Split him stem to stern, peel him like fucking fruit, and feed his screams into every drone lens left creeping around in the dark so the suits choke on the reminder that I don’t fucking share.

The cabin is still miles off, but I see it in my head, dark, rotting, lantern glow leaking across her swollen lips. My mark on her throat. The thought of anyone else near her, any hand on her skin but mine, floods my vision black, and drags me backward.

Heat like hellfire, the stinking rot of sandbags soaked in piss and diesel.

A night op meant to be quick—breach, sweep, extract.

My squad was ahead, boots crunching glass inside a crumbling compound, walls chewed open by decades of bullets.

Comms hissed static into my ear, then screams. Gunfire.

One of my guys shouting my name before it cut off in a wet choke.

I was two clicks out. Running flat out. Rifle slamming my spine with every stride, lungs clawing for air, gravel tearing skin through my pants. But it didn’t matter. I was too fucking far. Too fucking late.

By the time I hit the door, it was a charnel house.

Blood slick across busted tiles. My guy—Collins—sprawled on his back, throat cut so deep it looked like his head was half-severed.

His eyes were still wide, shocked, like maybe he was waiting for me to get there.

Like maybe if I had, he wouldn’t be staring at nothing.

The smell struck me—burnt powder. Copper. Death cooked into the walls. And the worst part wasn’t the carnage. It was knowing I should’ve been faster. That I could’ve been. That if I had pushed harder, ignored the fire in my legs, maybe Collins would’ve walked out with me instead of zipped in a bag.

I was too fucking late.

After that day, I swore I’d never be too late again.

Not with anyone.

Especially not with Olivia.

I don’t make promises. Not to anyone. Not in this line of work, not in this fucking life. Words are cheap and breaking them is easier than breathing. But I sure as fuck don’t make promises I can’t keep.

And I promised her. With my hands on her skin, with my breath in her ear, with blood already staining me, I promised her that I’d come back. That she was mine.

If I don’t keep that? Then I’m not a hunter. I’m not even a man. I’m just another corpse waiting to be buried under someone else’s story.

The forest tries to hold me back. Roots snarl underfoot, teeth waiting to trip me, to slow me. I don’t give them the satisfaction. I rip through all of it—faster, harder, ankle screaming, lungs burning like a furnace.

The air tastes like rot and iron. Cold wind carries pine sap sharp as knives, the damp earth steaming under my boots. The trees loom tall, black ribs spearing the night, closing in like the whole forest wants to swallow me. Doesn’t matter. I chew through it. I don’t stop.

Every ridge is an enemy. Every shadow a mouth. Every breath is another second she could be screaming without me there to shut it down.

I wonder if they cut the feed before they dropped the secondary into my woods.

If the viewers saw the switch, or if the signal went dark.

Maybe they’re panicking in the chat right now, wondering if the show’s real.

Wondering if their neat little bloodbath turned into something worse. Something they can’t control.

Doesn’t matter.

I’ll make them believe.

I’ll paint the woods red if I have to. Burn their empire down. Salt the ground until nothing grows.

Because she’s mine.

And I’ll tear the whole fucking world apart before I’m too late again.

The cabin waits somewhere ahead, crouched in the trees like a secret. Lantern light flickering inside. Maybe her shadow still moving against the wall. Maybe not.

My knife is slick in my hand. My rifle rides my back like a promise.

And I’m coming for it all like a fucking storm.