By the time I reach the clearing, the skyline is untouched by urban lights, the stars carved into a black canvas.
For the first time since I began the hunt, I accept I have no control. My arrival at the dark-sky preserve of Blue Hills is as inevitable as every annihilation. With the approach of each cosmic event, more of my willpower erodes.
I roll to a stop along a stretch of thin pines, muscles stiff as I drop my feet and cut the engine. Silence rings in my muffled ears, the isolation as stark as the unfiltered view.
Right on time, a twig snaps.
My blood rushes hot in my veins as I remove my helmet and meet his eyes. He stands frozen, shovel halted mid-dig, the blade buried in the earth.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands, his grip on the handle bleaching his knuckles beneath the pale starlight.
I dismount my bike, boots crunching dead leaves. I don’t bother with an explanation, having already tried that before. It only causes more panic, more confusion and pleading.
And it changes nothing.
Instead, I sling my pack off the bike and slip the astrolabe from the inner pocket of my leather jacket. Like muscle memory, my gloved thumb sweeps the ecliptic plate, tracing the empty space where the rule should lie like a phantom limb.
Without that one piece, I can’t accurately sight the position.
I tap a thirteen-beat count against the brass, the golden sequence triggering a memory of those golden stars in her eyes, and it quiets the roar inside my skull.
I huff out a resigned breath and lift my gaze skyward, finding the hunter’s belt. There’s a twinge beneath my ribs, something residual left over. Sprawled broken on the asphalt, scraped raw. The wisp of a memory that slips away before I can fully grasp it, a wave of anger rising in its void.
Letting it smolder to ash, I shift my gaze. Between Castor and Pollux, the twin stars of Gemini, a comet burns faint green—a pale halo fanning across the night.
“Beautiful,” I whisper, breath fogging the chilly air. “Some of the most impressive spectral emissions I’ve observed, but—” I push the star-taker into my pocket, eyes narrowing lethally on Cassian Bevins. “You didn’t come here to gaze at a comet.”
“I asked you who the fuck?—”
The dart in his thigh cuts him short. His body jolts in shock, the shovel slips from his grip as he stumbles back. The dual-chamber dart first releases a small dose of sedative before the paralytic kicks in.
He collapses to the forest floor.
I drop the tranq pistol back into my pack, rolling my shoulders to further work out the stiffness. For one brief second, I catch a trace of her scent—sweet, floral, maddening—and my throat constricts at the memory of her pressed against me on the bike. Her soft breath warming my neck.
The climbing, Euclidean rhythm of her pulse as I counted every heartbeat as she fell apart above me.
I came so close to touching her. Aching to link my fingers through hers, hold on tight. Willing to endure the violent loss of control that comes from a bare touch at the boundary.
Yet the instant her skin met mine, the void would open its jaws, ravenous to consume.
And I’d be powerless to stop it.
Just as I am right now, moving toward Annihilation Twelve.
To test my resistance, I tap my gloved fingers to the lingering echo of her hypnotic tune, desperate to be lost in her blink pattern, the rising cadence of her pulse. I picture her beautiful smile, her softly escaping moans, as her notes reverberate through my mind.
Yet it’s not enough to calm the vicious stirring, to dull the relentless pounding against my temples. The impending moment buzzes in my blood, vessels hot and constricting with the rush of adrenaline.
The dark waters churn and thrash.
My fingers seek the scar along my forehead as something acidic scorches my veins, the familiar pain compelling my steps forward until the roar quiets to a whisper and then?—
She’s gone.
I drop my pack to the ground, sparing a glance at the discarded body near the shallow hole dug for a grave.
I cock an eyebrow in amusement. “You could’ve at least sealed Julian in plastic. Do you know how many animals will dig your brother up out here?” I tilt my head. “I have to assume you wanted to get caught, Cassian.”
