Page 14

fourteen

Rowan

S he’s not here.

I’ve shot and opened every goddamn cage in my path. I’ve called out for her from the bottom of my lungs. And I’ve slaughtered anyone who came near and interrupted my hunt. She’s not here. And there’s only one fucking explanation for it: Mason Fletcher lied .

Motherfucker!

My team has alerted me that a total massacre is happening above ground. The EFW knows we’re here now. I can only assume they’re already taking Dove away from this town. My heartbeat grows quicker, and a sharp pain bolts through my chest. I crouch down for just a second, breathing heavily through the skull mask. A sheer layer of sweat covers my skin, and for the first time in twenty-something years, panic whips against my body, leaving deep marks.

Everything stops. The tunnel ahead starts spinning. My mind is a vacuum of nothingness and… and this pain I’m feeling… it’s unlike anything else I’ve felt before.

Hawke is saying something to me, his combat boots stopping nearby. I can’t hear him over the high-pitched ringing blasting through my eardrums. I blink fast, forcing myself to come back, but the panic keeps pressing down on me. And I feel like I’m going to lose my fucking mind.

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

“Sir.” Hawke touches my shoulder. I snap toward him like a rabid dog.

My rifle scratches the concrete as I drag it up and stand, looking at the ceiling with my eyes closed and my chest heaving.

“Rowan—”

And then… I hear it.

Cough.

Cough. Cough.

My eyes go wide in shock when, out of fucking nowhere, a small, almost inaudible cough breaks through my daze, bringing me back.

“Shut up,” I tell Hawke.

“Okay, listen, I know Fletcher screwed us up with his intel, but…”

I walk past him, accidentally bumping into his shoulder on my way back to the crypt.

Who the fuck was that?

I walk a few steps toward what I heard, then stop, hoping to hear it again. But I don’t.

Instead… a different faint sound echoes somewhere in the distance. Footsteps?

I freeze, straining to listen, but they fade into silence.

“What?” Hawke says. “What did you hear?”

Dove

Darkness presses down on me as I cling to the cracked walls, trudging forward. I stopped running, but only for a quick moment to catch my breath.

Thud.

Thud. Thud.

The sound of heavy footsteps spears through my web of anxious thoughts. My eyes snap toward it, holding my breath and covering my mouth with both hands, my muffled whimpers dying into the cushion of my palms.

It’s not him , my logic tells me. Rowan brought an entire army with him. It makes no sense that he would be here by himself. Which means… which means it has to be someone from the EFW, and I can’t let myself get caught. I can’t .

Stay calm, I tell myself. They don’t know you’re here.

But my heart thrashes in my chest, loud and desperate to find a safe place.

I slide out of the way, pressing my back to the wall and hide.

Rowan

The sound I’m chasing quiets down. Whoever this is, they don’t want to be found.

Attuning myself to the forced silence, I pick up a subtle movement as my prey shifts to the right.

It’s quiet, and it almost went unnoticed, which only tells me they’re trying really hard.

Cute.

I inch closer just to see what they do, if they move with me or not.

My lips twitch upward behind my mask when I register another sound.

I tighten my grip on my knife, ready to draw blood.

Dove

My hunter draws closer, and I retreat farther against the wall, danger crawling down my spine in cold shivers.

I fill my lungs with more air, knowing I’m going to have to move fast.

Three.

Two.

One.

I detach myself from the wall, my lungs burning from the strain of my effort. But I run—I run as fast as my legs will take me and don’t look back. I make it to the next corner, my eyes already narrowing on another one. Nothing moves behind me. Maybe I’ve lost them.

But the skull mask coming into view in the darkness ahead of me tells me otherwise, and the knife pointed at my neck makes every atom in my body stop. I stare into a pair of two soulless eyes, an arm tightening around my upper body, pulling me close.

“There you are.”

Rowan

Warm, pulsing skin rests against the tip of my knife. My grip on the handle tightens and loosens up as I take in the face before me—one I thought I’d never see again . “No,” I say, staring into a pair of eyes I know too well. “This isn’t possible…” The words die on my tongue, taking him in, regret swimming in his eyes as he says—

“Easy, Rowan, easy .”

I grip Cole’s collar with my free hand and flick my eyes down, noticing the patch of blood drenching the side of his abdomen. He’s been shot, or stabbed… it’s hard to tell.

“Rowan,” he echoes cautiously.

Slowly, he tilts his knife so the handle faces me. My eyes snap to the motion instantly, my grip tightening. Stunned and barely able to form words, I ask, “How?”

How is he still alive?

He doesn’t flinch. Instead, he opens his palm, letting his knife clatter to the ground. “I…” His voice cracks, and he dips his head, breaking eye contact. “It’s a story for another time.”

I see red, wrath and betrayal and hurt and sadness and despair flashing through me all at the same time. All these years, all I did was hate my existence when I knew it should’ve been me instead of him who died. And he was here all along and never reached out. It doesn’t make any fucking sense why he wouldn’t do that.

I exhale slowly, trying to reel back my control—and failing—as I stare at him through my skull mask. I push him into the wall with everything I’ve got, making the air in his lungs come gusting out. His lips curl into a bittersweet smile. He doesn’t try to explain, doesn’t try to justify. He just nods, like he’s been carrying the same weight all this time.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

But sorry doesn’t cut it. Sorry doesn’t erase the years I’ve spent clawing my way through hell, believing he was gone. God fucking dammit! As much as I want to keep tearing into him, the thought of Dove— my Dove—out there, waiting for me, cuts through the haze.

“Where is she?” I ask, without loosening my grip on him.

“I got her out of where they had her locked in, then sent her here to find you when I got ambushed and fought them off.”

“Fought them off,” I echo, trying to piece things together.

“You have no reason to trust me, I know that. But your coming here helped me start a rebellion on the inside. My men are out there, fighting the same enemy yours are.”

I search his face, looking for a lie, but all I see is the same man I once knew—older, broken, but still him. My heart wants answers, but my head pushes them aside for now.

Hawke’s voice crackles in my earpiece, cutting through the chaos in my head.

I look to the side, focusing on his words.

And upon registering them, my entire body sags, and I almost drop to my knees.

“I’ve got her, sir. I found Dove, and she’s here with me right now.”