It takes me a beat to catch up and realize what she’s even talking about. They don’t know the truth about Scott. The story I spun for them is clean and neat: he told me everything I needed to know, so I took pity and promised to let him go. I opened the safe, pulled out cash, handed him a new identity, and watched him disappear without a stain.
The real version sits in the dark, where no one bothers to look. I did open the safe, yes, but the money wasn’t for him.
I’m keeping it for something else.
“God knows how many like him are working for them,” Jason says, his voice weaving disgust and pity together as he shakes his head, trying to dislodge the thought. “They prey on desperate people and use them up for their work.”
“Giving at least one man a second chance is still something,” Lucia says, and there’s this strange, hopeful light in her tone, like she believes words can stitch the world back together. “A drop in a sea, but the one that shatters the water and sends a ripple through. A tiny crack in the system.”
I smile because the motion is expected, because it keeps the lie whole, and because their belief feeds them. It doesn’t reach my eyes, but nobody notices it. “Of course. Makes me feel better, knowing he’s in a warm place with people around him, starting over.”
The corners of my mouth quiver, muscles taut and straining like frayed wires ready to snap. Heat blooms in my chest, a thread of raw annoyance twisting through my ribs. Every second stretches longer, heavier, until I feel like I might explode. One more minute of this and I’ll have to go outside and shoot something just to uncoil, to release the tension wound so tight inside me.
I can’t even remember the moment I became this impatient, the exact point when restraint slipped from my hands and left me simmering in need.
“Let’s hope he didn’t put more people on our tail,” Jason mutters, and finally, my smile falls away. The irritation ebbs as I unclench my jaw, peeling off the stupid mask I’ve been wearing. “And for now, lay low, just like I said. We’ll see how long. Dante, nothing changes—your mission stays as planned.”
I nod, a small smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth, and it tastes sharper than any of their hollow consolations. This outcome fits me better than anything they could offer.
The world narrows, my focus sharpening to a single point, and finally, I can turn toward what I truly want. Their hope, their pity, their second chances—they can clutch their fragile light and keep it.
I have other shadows to chase, and I am ready to follow my urge.
A few hourshave passed since Jason and Lucia left. The room still hums with their absence, the air thick with a lingering scent—bitter coffee and smoke—clinging like a confession that refuses to fade. It does little to keep me awake.
Because something else occupies that space, and it does the job far more efficiently than caffeine or alcohol ever could.
Estella.
Or rather,Iris McKale.
That single drop of information Owen handed me cracked everything open. With it, I started my own investigation—one I’ve kept buried from Jason and Lucia. I told them I’d be going through our old data, hoping to uncover new leads, a harmless enough excuse that none of them bothered to question. Theydon’t know what I’m really chasing, or who. And I prefer it that way.
This needs to stay private.
Because digging into her past feels intimate, like trespassing somewhere sacred. I don’t want anyone else’s eyes on her file, anyone else reading the fragments of a life she fought to bury.
She’d kill me if she knew I was doing it.
But that’s the risk I choose, because it’s the only thing that scratches the itch beneath my skin—the relentless hum gnawing at the back of my skull. Curiosity doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’ve known curiosity before—brief, hollow sparks that vanish the moment they’re fed.
This isn’t that.
This is anobsession. Sharp, invasive, alive. Threading through every nerve and bone. Impossible to ignore.
The Order did a good job of erasing her, I’ll give them that much. They scrubbed her history clean, tore her name from every record, scattered the remnants across continents like ashes in the wind. But they missed pieces. They weren’t thorough enough. Not for me. My skill, my relentless focus, and my unhealthy interest filled in the blanks they had tried so hard to hide.
My eyes sting, the edges of my vision blurring, and I press the heels of my palms against them until black dots swarm and jitter across the dark. For a fleeting moment, I catch glimpses of color—chaotic, swirling forms that shimmer and flicker, a fragile illusion of rest I can almost reach but never quite touch.
Sleep would be mercy. But I can’t give myself that.
I’ve been awake for more than twenty-four hours, but how the fuck am I supposed to close my eyes when she’s right here, her past sprawled open before me, waiting to be understood?
My finger quivers slightly as I click on the right window. The screen glows weakly under the desk lamp, casting a pale lightacross the surface, and her real name appears again, impossible to ignore.
I blink rapidly, dragging the blurred words into focus. The letters snap sharp and precise, and the story starts to unfold before me. I can almost feel her presence hovering across the desk, a ghost daring me to keep looking, daring me to know more. A jolt of fear and anticipation coils in my chest as I trace the lines of her prison file, its dates stretching back years, each word a whisper from the past.
Died at age nineteen at the Gravemoor Asylum.
