My brow lifts, sharp disbelief stabbing through me. But the longer I watch his eyes and see the new, triumphant glint there, the more everything clicks into place with brutal clarity, like the sky split open after a storm.
“It was you,” I whisper. “You sent them after Estella. You got rid of Cane.”
He rolls his lips inward, neither denying nor confirming—and that tiny, deliberate nothingness is all it takes for the rage to surge up and swallow me whole.
“The Order will drown in chaos,” he says, pride dripping from every syllable. “It’s only a matter of time before they teareach other apart once they find Theodore’s body. They’ll die like flies in the giant heap of shit they created.”
In the middle of the storm tearing through my mind, Estella’s face flickers into existence. My thoughts spiral, splintering into every possible outcome, each worse than the last. The buzzing under my skin intensifies until it feels like my fingertips are vibrating with the threat of something catastrophic.
Jason may have struck the match, but he has no idea how big the explosion will be. He thinks he can manage it, contain it, but he can’t. Once it goes off, it’ll take the whole fucking world with it—swallowed by the black fire roaring inside me.
He shifts to the side, and my attention snaps toward him like a triggered trap, another picture slamming into my mind—my hands rising, gripping the sides of his skull, squeezing until the bones give and split like a cracked shell.
“She awaits you downstairs,” he says, sweeping the violent vision out of my head in one breath. A cold wave rolls through me, sweat breaking across my spine and forehead. “One day you’ll understand that what we did was the better choice. And maybe you’ll forgive me.”
Panic tears through me, shredding the rage, freezing my blood into shards.
They couldn’t have reached her so quickly.
Or… could they?
Thoughts slam into each other, piling into a suffocating heap, trapping me. Tears burn hot in my eyes, dragging the world into a muddled blur. A vicious headache pulses in my temples, spreading a high-pitched ringing as though someone is slowly pushing my head underwater.
If something happened to her… Fuck, I wouldn’t survive it. I couldn’t. I lived before her, sure, but she’s the one who brought color to the wasteland I used to call a life.
Fire and ice collide inside me, and my body moves before my mind can catch up. I push past Jason, my shoulder crashing into his, and sprint toward the stairs.
Fuck him. I’ll deal with him later.
I nearly lose my footing as I fly down, the staircase quivering beneath each frantic step. Breath ripping from me, lungs burning, I reach the bottom and slam my hand against the switch.
The lights blaze to life, flooding the room, and my gaze locks on the empty space waiting in front of me.
“Estella?” I call out, the word scraping from my throat. I hesitate for half a heartbeat before wrenching the doors open and stepping inside, my gaze sweeping over the cage for… something. Anything.
But there is nothing.
Panic claws through my chest, rising sharp and fast the longer I search and find nothing. I squeeze my eyes shut as the pieces begin to snap together.
They planned the attack on Estella. They got rid of Cane. They pushed us toward killing Theodore, not to save anyone, but to paint targets on our backs. Jason and Lucia have puppeteered every single fucking thing.
“Think, think, fucking think,” I mutter, slapping the side of my face as the anger pulses like electricity under my skin.
I need a plan.
Jason sent me down here. He wanted me to come. But there’s nothing—no clue, no message, no sign of Estella. Just a hollow, suffocating emptiness.
My hands tremble violently as I stare down at them, my palms damp, shining with sweat. Every etched line glistens like thin rivers of panic.
I should’ve killed Jason. I should’ve crushed his skull between my hands before I came down here. Instead, like a desperate fool under the weight of my emotions, I took his bait.
He needed time. But time for what?
I shove past the cage, sprinting toward the stairs, my eyes darting wildly over every corner, every shadow, searching for something I missed, but there’s nothing. Not a scrap. Not a whisper.
I’ll deal with him. I’ll tear him apart piece by fucking piece.
But first, I need to get out of here. I need to find her.
