“NO!” I bellow.
Bridger falls and my heart stops cold in my chest.
I don’t even think. Irun. I charge. A white-hot rage swallows everything. My name. My thoughts. My fucking soul.
The gun fires again.
Something explodes in my shoulder—hot and tearing. The world lurches. My whole arm goes numb, like lightning just struck straight through the bone. Pain blooms like wildfire, burning through muscle, through every nerve ending—but I don’t stop. I don’t slow. Ibarrel into him.
We crash to the ground. The gun clatters away, skittering across the floor—and then vanishes. It hits the rotted edge of theold stage and slips through a collapsed section, there’s a pause, then a distant clink, metal hitting concrete far below. A long, echoing drop that tells me just how deep that pit goes. I don’t have time to dwell on it—just a fleeting thought of how far it must have fallen—beforeClay grunts as I slam into him, but his hands are already up. Blocking. Striking. He’s fast—stillfucking fast—and built like he never stopped training. All that prison time? He must’ve spent it in a weight room, thinking of how he’d take us all back piece by piece.
He throws a fist, catches my jaw. Stars explode behind my eyes, but I look back at him and laugh. I rear back and hammer into his face. Once. Twice. A third time. Blood sprays. His or mine—I don’t know, and I really don’t care. I want to crack through his bones, peel him open and show him the fucking rot inside.
“I snapped Zero’s neck,” I snarl, voice shredded. “Like a little twig. Joel’s too.”
He snarls, blood slicking his teeth. “How’s your pretty baker? Is she well done after that fire?”
My fists answer before my mouth does—brutal, blistering blows, every one of them a scream of vengeance for her. For Bridger. Cody. Mom. Laura.
He kicks, twisting under me, and we roll. His elbow drives into my ribs. My shoulder is bleedingbadly,wet warmth soaking my shirt, but I dig my fingers into his throat and squeeze.
We slam into the scaffolding. Wood cracks. Dust fills my nose and throat, choking out breath.
Out of the corner of my eye—I see Bridger. He hasn’t moved.
Fuck.
Cody is crawling, blood smearing behind him as he drags himself toward Bridger, his face twisted in agony. He’s trying.God, he’s trying.
I slam my head forward, straight into Clay’s face.
His nose crunches.
“That’s for Bridger.” I hit him again. “That’s for Cody.” Another. “That’s for Mom.”
Clay spits blood. His eyes are wild, unfocused rage burning in the slick whites. He sidesteps, off balance, and stumbles into Vick—his shoulder hitting into him.
Vick jerks like he’s been jolted back to life. The chains clank hard as he starts thrashing, panic cutting through the haze in his bloodied face. His arms strain against the restraints, metal scraping raw against skin, wrists already torn up from trying to get free.
"Don’t touch me—don’t fucking touch me!" Vick cries out, twisting hard, his body swinging back until the chains snap his forward again. He’s up on his toes, skidding in the slick mess of his own blood, slipping with every frantic shift.
Clay growls something low and guttural, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his wrist. Vick is still panicking, struggling to get as far from him as the chain will allow, and then he cries out, “Damian, please.Please. Help me.Help me!Marlowe! Marlowe!”
My heart almost stops. I flinch at the name.Hername—he only calls her Lucky. She’s safe. Far the fuck away from here. Soon I’ll be near her again. Inside her again, on a beach, wrapped around her soft, smooth body. Clay stumbles again, he lunges for the crowbar, but I hit him again. The swing is powerless though, my arm too on fire to pull any strength.
Clay staggers back then pauses mid-step. A shadow of something crosses his face—not confusion. Recognition.
And from behind me, I hear it. A small gasp. And fuck, I know the way that woman gasps. Everything goes still in my chest. The kind of still that happens before the blood starts pouring. I whip around, and time fractures around the edgeswhen I see her—Lo, wild-eyed and pale, standing just inside the auditorium doors with Neve beside her.
She came.
And in that split second of stunned disbelief—when every instinct in me screams to get to her, to throw my body between hers and the horror in this room?—
Clay charges.
Slams into me from behind.
I barely register the force before the rotted edge of the hole in the stage yawns open beneath me.
