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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ONYX

S elene is quiet as we race down the streets, heading to our hunting grounds. It is time for us to draw our stalker out of the shadows and take care of this problem once and for all. We both crave the normalcy of how our lives once were—the fucked-up routines we were caught up in before. And now, it is time to eradicate the headache that threatens to ruin everything that we have built.

I drive my car down the dark roads, deeper into the woods where street lamps don’t exist. My mind knows the layout like the back of my hand, and I cut the headlights as we edge closer to the abandoned garage. My eyes catch sight of the small break in the trees, and I drive through it.

Selene climbs out of the car and pushes open the garage door for me as I pull inside. She pulls it back down, plunging me into darkness as I kill the engine. I move carefully to ensure that I’m quiet as I leave the vehicle and slip out of the small building through the broken side door.

I find Selene standing with her arms crossed over her chest as she shifts her weight on her feet, waiting for me. “You ready, baby?” I ask her as I reach out for her.

Selene drops her arms away from her chest, her hand finding mine. “I’m ready for this to be fucking over.”

“Me too, baby,” I murmur, squeezing her hand as I lead her through the opening in the trees.

We head across the empty street and dip into the woods that surround us on either side. There isn’t a defined trail leading to the asylum, but we’ve made this trek so many times we don’t need one. We just head in the general direction, carefully making our way through the wilderness until we find another break in the trees.

“You didn’t see the car following us or anything?” Selene asks as we step closer to the massive building. “How are they going to know where to find us?”

My hand slips into my pocket, finding the small device I found on the undercarriage of my car. I pull it out, showing the tracker to Selene. “They will know exactly where to find us.”

Under the moonlight, I don’t miss the way Selene’s eyes widen as she desperately searches mine before narrowing them. “How the fuck did you get that?”

“I found it under my car before we left the house. I don’t know how or when it was placed there, but I figured we could use it to our advantage instead of him thinking that he would be one step ahead of us.”

“Good,” Selene nods, her footsteps growing more urgent as she strides toward the door, pulling me inside the asylum. “Let’s get this mother fucker.”

She pulls me through the darkness, until we slip into one of the rooms. It’s a different room than we were in the last time we were here, but it’s one that has all the supplies we need. As much as both of us would like to enjoy this, this needs to go smoothly and quickly.

We need to handle this shit and get the fuck out of here. I don’t know if this person is working alone or if there’s anyone else we need to be worried about. For all we know, the cops could be involved, but I think the chances of that are slim. The tracking device wasn’t police-grade, but it was definitely high-tech, most likely from the black market.

Selene walks over to a stretcher, similar to the one we use for transport down to the incinerator. “So, are we just going to sit here and wait for him to show up?”

I watch her as she circles around it, her fingers dragging through the thin layer of dust. “Do you have a better idea?”

Selene pauses, her head lifting as her eyes meet mine. “Actually, I do have an idea. I don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but it might be better than us just lingering around here. Plus, we don’t know anything about our enemy, so how are we supposed to know he doesn’t have a different plan? I know we think we’re always one step ahead, but what if we’re wrong?”

“So, what are you suggesting then?” I ask her as she walks over to me, her toes meeting mine as she stops in front of me. Her hand darts out, reaching into my pocket as she wraps her fingertips around the tracking device.

“What if we leave the tracker here in this room, but we don’t stay here? He’s obviously going to follow the device, but what if it leads him to a dead end? We can wait somewhere else for him, draw him in with the tracking device, and then we would have him cornered.”

I watch her, carefully chewing the inside of my cheek as she flips the device over in her hand. A small red dot blinks. Whoever is following us is tracking us now. The damn thing is probably pinging our location. Selene’s plan could work, though. If it ends up being a trap, at least we wouldn’t be the ones cornered in this room. If shit goes south and we can’t handle it the way we need to, we could easily escape instead of being caught.

“That could work. Where are we going to wait?”

Selene takes a step away from me, spinning on her heel as she strides back over to the stretcher. She tucks the small tracking device under the thick pad on the gurney and turns back to me. “I think that we should split up?—”

“Fuck that,” I growl, ultimately shutting it down before she can elaborate on the plan. If there’s one thing that I disagree with, this is it. Nothing good can ever come from splitting up and that is always the place Selene’s mind goes to first.

“It worked last time,” she snaps, reminding me of when Ian showed up and Selene was the one who caught him after she blatantly disobeyed me. “It could work this time.”

“And what if it doesn’t?”

Selene turns to face me, shrugging. “Then we will deal with it if it comes to that.”

“What did I tell you about being impulsive?” I ask her, my hands rolling into clenched fists as anger runs rampant through my bloodstream. “This is a precarious fucking situation, Selene. We need to have an actual plan and not be stupid.”

“It is a plan.” She tilts her head at me, her manic eyes burning holes through mine with her crazed stare. “We will stay close, but far enough away that we can cover more ground separately if we have to. It will work. I promise you. It worked with Ian, just fucking trust me on this, okay?”

I shake my head. No fucking way. I don’t fucking trust her on anything when it comes to something like this. Selene isn’t calculated; she’s as unhinged as they come. But, like the facade of control I give her when I'm burying my cock inside her, I’ll let her have it now too. “Fine. We stay close. And if shit goes south, we go back to my plan.”

Selene smiles, her lips revealing her bright white teeth. “I’m going to hide out in the room two doors down to the left. You want to go to the right?”

My nostrils flare as I sigh. “Fine. But you stay by the doorway where I can see you. Got it?”

Selene rolls her eyes, shaking her head dramatically. “Fine.”

Neither of us says another word as we slip back out into the abandoned hallway and take our positions in the different rooms. There are three rooms separating us, and I don’t fucking like it. I don’t know how to explain it, but something feels completely fucking off about this.

I can see a fraction of Selene’s form lurking in the doorway. She slips deeper into the room, only the top of her head visible from where I’m standing. Straining my ears against the silence, I listen, waiting and hoping that this fucking plan works. Selene shifts her weight impatiently as she stands down the hall.

My body stiffens as a smell touches my nostrils. I inhale deeply, my brow furrowing as I take in a deep breath filled with smoke. In the darkness, it’s hard to see if there is any, but the air around me is growing thicker. I can’t see a fire anywhere, but something is fucking burning in here, and the smoke threatens to swallow us whole.

An ominous sound begins to vibrate through the building— a set of alarms, almost like a siren, but it doesn’t make sense. There’s no fucking alarm system in this building that works anymore. It has to be coming from a speaker somewhere… but we don't have any speakers here.

The smoke spreads quickly, the hallway becoming less visible as it grows thicker. My heart pounds in my chest as I begin to lose sight of Selene. We’re not alone anymore. I don’t fucking like it. I need to get to her now. Whoever followed us here has their own plan and we need to get the fuck out of here.

“Selene.” I call into the darkness. I wait for a moment, stepping out into the hallway thick with smoke when I realize I can’t see her anywhere. “Selene!” I yell, my voice echoing down the hallway as I call out for her, but all I get is fucking silence.

The smoke burns my eyes, filling my lungs as I walk down the hallway. It’s harsh, causing me to take a deep breath and exhale around a violent cough. As I reach the room where Selene was hiding, my stomach fucking sinks. She’s not here.

We thought that we had the upper hand—that we were in control—but we were fucking wrong.

He was one step ahead of us.

And now he has Selene.