Page 16

The look on James’s face is ice cold. He turns to where he saw me looking. His gaze fixes on where she stands. I swear there’s a sudden drop in air pressure.

"You did this?” he asks, his tone low. “You made a judgment? You messed with his head? You made a vampire hunt other vampires?"

Ophelia stiffens, hands clenched. For a second, I don’t think she can speak, she’s so paralyzed with fear. But finally, her lips part just slightly. "I didn’t want to be afraid of living in New York anymore. Because as long as there are vampires, I’m not safe. Lana wasn’t safe.”

"He would never hurt her!" James snarls.

“Just knowing him got her fucking kidnapped!” Ophelia snaps, and oh, she is so stupid.

James steps forward, a deadly look in his eyes. But Sysco steps between him and Ophelia, looking down at him with serious, fixed eyes. “Take a breath, bro.”

James looks around the room like it’s suddenly filled with strangers. The calm, composed assistant is gone. What remains is something lean and volatile. His breath is too fast. His hands tremble. When he speaks again, it's lower, guttural.

"You broke him."

"I… I honestly didn’t know it would go this far," Ophelia says, voice cracking.

Ares screams again. He’s clawing at the vault door now, skin tearing open in long, red streaks. He’s frantic. Rabid.

James seethes.

Everyone else exchanges wary glances. Neither Harry nor Sysco knows James well. He’s always just been Ares’ assistant that they’d see or hear from in passing. Roman is watching James with wary eyes, evaluating his every move.

I look at James differently now. There's something off about him. Something I’ve never seen in him until now. Not just anger. Not just grief. Something deeper. Twisted. And I don't know what it means.

The tension in the vault is a noose, tightening with every breath. Ares bellows again from behind the enforced door, pacing like an apex predator locked in too small a cage. Blood drips down his hands, his knuckles raw from pounding the walls in a frenzy.

Juliet looks up at Ophelia again, her blue eyes narrowing. "It didn’t work," she says evenly, as if trying to smooth out the tension of the past few minutes. "The hold is still there."

James snaps. "Then we kill her. That’ll end it."

I turn, stunned. "What?"

"If it cuts the threads, it’s what we have to do. She deserves nothing less," James growls. His calm, collected demeanor is gone—shredded. What remains is something wild, feral. "You kill the source."

Juliet rises, sharp. "I know from experience that killing a person doesn’t guarantee their ties end with them. Trust me. Do you really want to run that risk?"

Ophelia is trembling now, her shoulders rigid with fear, but her lip curls in defiance. "You think I wanted this ? You think I wanted him like that ?"

It takes everything I have in me not to strike her. She wanted him dead. She told him to kill himself. And now, she finally sees the reality of what she did, and it frightens her.

"Tell us the truth, Ophelia," I say, my words shaking with my restraint. "You said you did this—but not alone. Who helped you?"

Ophelia’s eyes flick between us, cornered. Her voice breaks. "I don’t know."

"Bullshit," James growls.

Ophelia clutches her side, breathing fast. "It was a woman. A therapist. She had a very specific specialty. Helping people who had been hurt by vampires.”

“Holy shit,” Sysco mutters. “That’s a thing?”

Dammit. I had never really thought about it. That there were enough people out there who had been victimized by vampires that there would be a fucking therapist who specialized in helping the survivors.

No wonder Ophelia hates vampires so much. She’s seen proof that there are others out there that are hurting as much as she is.

“She helped me after Augustus,” Ophelia continues. “She made me feel… seen. Like I wasn’t crazy. She understood. But she hates vampires, too. She said… she said we could reshape things."

Juliet’s expression hardens. "What was her name?"

Ophelia’s head shakes violently. "I don’t know. I swear—I don’t remember what she looks like, or where we met. She changed it every time."

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sysco says, annoyed.

Ophelia’s eyes rip to meet his. “I know. It was pretty fucking trippy. I can’t even remember how I tracked her down. It’s like she can pluck the details from your brain in real time. Her name, her face, where she’s going to be. She scrubs it as she goes.”

My stomach turns. "So how do we track down someone we can’t even name?"

Silence.

Roman turns toward Ophelia, his vivid blue eyes fixed intensely. "You need to try again. Harder. Push deeper. If we can’t find this woman to help you undo this, it has to be you. Find another path."

I glance back at the monitor. Ares is still pacing, more erratic now. Blood smears the ground at his feet.

Ophelia swallows hard and nods. She keeps a wary eye on every one of us as she steps forward. I almost feel bad for her. She’s the only human in this space. She’s surrounded by six vampires, plus the one locked up. But she’s fucked up enough, I can’t summon the sympathy.

She walks up to the door of the vault and lays her hands against it. “Ares,” she calls softly.

On the monitor, I see his head jerks toward her voice. With a roar, he slams his entire body against the door. It rattles, makes a horrendous ruckus, but it holds.

“Ares, you have to stop this,” Ophelia says.

I notice the air feels colder. Sharper.

“These are your friends,” she says, and the sound of her voice is a little different. Something prickles on my skin. “You don’t want to kill them. You don’t need to kill them. And I need you to stop hurting yourself.”

On the screen, Ares stills in the middle of the vault. He’s breathing hard, deep, ragged. He does not look calm or himself. But he is still, at least.

I look back at the others. Sysco looks so damn hopeful that he’s about to get his best friend back. Harry is cool and observant. Juliet bites at her thumbnail nervously. But Roman’s eyes flick over to James. James stares at Ophelia with so much hatred it chills me.

What the hell is going on?

“Keep going, you selfish bitch,” James snarls, his tone low.

Every vampire in the room looks back at him.

“Keep. Going,” James says again.

Ophelia squeezes her eyes closed and swallows hard.

I want to yank James’s throat out and throttle him. I think it’s working, but he’s just threatening her. What fucking good does that do right now?

“Ares,” Ophelia says once more, flattening her palms against the hard surface of the door. “It’s over. You have to stop. Let what I told you to do go.”

The temperature of the room drops further. Something prickles along the back of my neck.

On the monitor, I see Ares close his eyes.

Holy shit. I think it’s working. I want to encourage Ophelia, to tell her to keep going, but I don’t dare break her concentration.

“You’re free, Ares,” Ophelia says, and her voice sounds different. It resonates, almost like a bell. It pierces my ears. I feel it down to my core. “Do what you will.”

Something pulses through the air, and on the monitor, I see Ares drop to his hands and knees. I’m holding my breath as I watch him, as I search him for any signs of a change. He just stays there for several long moments, taking in a slow, ragged breaths, and then another, smoother one.

And finally, he lifts his head.

His eyes are no longer glowing brilliant red. They’re him. His beautiful, comforting hazel. He blinks, and his eyes flicker—as if surfacing from drowning.

“Lana?” he calls out, his words haggard and confused. “Sysco?”

I feel it in my bones. “It’s done. You did it, Ophelia.”

But we don’t get two seconds to celebrate, to take it in, to process. Because there is a feral snarl. I don’t even see it when James darts forward, only when he suddenly slams into Ophelia from behind.

“You should be worshiping us on our knees, and you make us kill each other?” he snarls next to her ear. I’m not even sure I heard him right. But the next second, he’s grabbed her by the back of her shirt. He yanks her back, flinging her across the warehouse like she’s nothing but a ragdoll.

She hits the edge of the stairs with her ribs first, and then her head makes a sickening crack sound as it hits next.

There’s a blur of motion that bullets for the door in the same breath that Ophelia falls to the floor.

What the hell just happened? I stand rooted for a second, trying to process Ophelia’s unconscious form lying on the ground and the empty space beside me where James was just a few seconds ago.

“The hell?” Roman snarls as he crosses the warehouse, looking out the door.

But James is gone .

“Holy shit,” Juliet breathes as she rushes forward. With careful hands, she straightens Ophelia’s limp form. There’s blood smeared on the ground beneath her head.

“She needs a hospital,” Juliet says as she checks her pulse. “She’s definitely got some broken ribs. There’s the risk of a punctured lung, her breathing doesn’t sound right. And she probably has a cranial fracture.”

Her eyes snap up to mine. “If we don’t move now, she might not make it. Roman, help me.”

I stand frozen. Torn.

Ares is still in the vault, dazed, barely upright. His eyes dart, lost. I want to run to him—but Ophelia…

Roman lifts Ophelia gently. Juliet’s hands are already covered in blood, but her voice is cool, sharp. "Look, Lana, I’m an ER doctor. I’ll keep her alive. But we have to go right now."

I blink five times, stunned, confused. "Thank you."

And just like that, they vanish into the corridor.

I turn back to the monitor. Ares sits on the floor, bloodied and broken, but… here.

He lifts his gaze to the camera.

Recognition flickers.

My heart stutters.

He’s back.

“Holy fuck, what the hell just happened?” Sysco blurts, vocalizing the chaos we’re all still a little stunned by.

“Ares?” I say, pressing the button on the control to activate the voice com.

“Lana?” I hear him, my name coming out breathy and anxious. “Where the fuck am I? What… What is going on?”

Instantly, my eyes sting. Shit, this is going to be so hard.

“How are you feeling, Ares?” I ask. My voice cracks.

I see Ares shake his head as he kneels on the concrete. “Foggy,” he says honestly. “A little fucking dazed. Vengeance, what’s wrong?”

And here is why I would go to the ends of the earth for this man. His head is scrambled right now. He has no fucking idea what’s going on. But he hears the emotion in my voice, and it’s me he’s worried about.

“You don’t…” I hesitate, unsure what to ask or how to ask it. I have to be so damn careful from here on out. “Are you bothered by Harry or Sysco right now?”

He takes a moment to answer, confused by my question. “I… Sorry, Vengeance, but what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

My eyes flick over to Sysco first and then Harry. They’re both taking my lead right now.

“If I open this door, are you going to do something violent?” My voice breaks on the words again.

Ares is quiet for a moment again. On the monitor, I see his eyes shift to the door. He takes in the streaks of dried and fresh blood there. He looks at his split knuckles. He rotates his shoulder, wincing. He’s healing already, his vampire blood fixing what he broke.

But I see it, as he takes in the violence around him.

He goes paler.

“What the hell did I do?” he finally asks, his voice hoarse. “Lana, why can’t I remember how I got here?”

I glance at Sysco. I see it in his eyes. He doesn’t want Ares to know either. He knows how much this is going to hurt him. The guilt he’s going to carry. But there’s no avoiding it.

Sysco nods his head. Harry crosses to the scanner and places his palm on it.

There’s a loud clicking sound as the lock disengages.

The door swings open.

And thank the dark, Ares does not rush at Sysco or Harry. He stays kneeling on the floor of that prison cell, looking up at the three of us with a look of anticipation and absolute dread.