It’s me.
The ringing isme.
Screaming.
Loud and raw and endless. The sound ripping out of my throat, trying to take everything with it.
And it does.
My body convulses.
Every part of me is gone. Every wall I ever built, every mask, every trick I used to survive—obliterated. I scream until my throat gives out. Until all that’s left of me is broken breath and the shake of Arsen’s hands as he holds me tighter.
We’re parked on the side of the road, somewhere on the outskirts of hell. His hoodie is soaked in blood and tears. He keeps whispering something I can’t hear.
I bury my face in his chest and let everything swallow me.
Because I have nothing left to give. Not even the strength to want to live.
Every time I set foot in another Sovereign Section, I’m reminded how fucking weak the South is.
Rotten from the top down.
Sterling’s made us a goddamn joke.
I spit out my gum and shove another piece between my teeth. My boots hit the floor harder with every step as I stalk the Vault halls. I’m supposed to be prepping for a mission—East Coast Section again. The only place that still knows how to bleed right.
Then Sterling got desperate. Called the High Chancellor of the East himself just to drag me back. That’s how far he had to go to reach me.
I’d turned off my phone. Disappeared off the fucking map. Didn’t want to hear his voice, this place, any of it.
I wasn’t coming back.
Not until he forced my hand and pulled rank.
And now I’m here—storming these weak-ass halls again. Chewing through fucking gum is the only thing keeping me from putting a bullet in my goddamn skull.
I’ve been stacking kill orders like I’m starving.
Because I am.
Starving for silence. For anything that keeps me from thinking about?—
No.
Don’t fucking go there.
I round the corner and slam open the Command Center doors hard enough to make the walls shake. Every head turns. Stillness snaps through the room.
Dalton and Alistair are mid-sentence, their mouths still open as they see me. Raze shifts near the monitors. Sterling stands dead center, surrounded by Sovereigns.
I stop short.
The silence isn’t silence…something's wrong.
“What the fuck’s going on?” I bark.
No one answers. Not at first.
