Alaric’s smile vanished, now replaced with a sharp and hungry look. The shift was instant. His hand shot out, clamping down around my throat. He slammed me back into the wall hard enough to rattle the picture frames above me. My ears rang from the impact. I clawed at his wrist, my breath catching as his grip tightened, cutting off air.
“You should have stayed dead,” Alaric snarled, the elder’s calm demeanor cracking into rage. “Because the second your father’s enemies find out?—”
I didn’t let him finish his sentence, my knee coming up hard and slamming into his ribs. The blow stole his breath, and he loosened his grip just enough for me to wrench free. I crawled toward the kitchen. My legs felt wobbly as I stood on them, using the counter to balance as I rounded it. I went for the drawer by the stove without thinking. My fingers closed around the black handle of a chef’s knife that was kept in there. The steel gleamed under the yellow light.
Alaric lunged, catching a fistful of my hair and yanking my head back so hard white dots began to dance in my vision. Pain flared sharply across my scalp, but I spun with the pull, shoving the knife upward with both hands.
The blade landed home beneath Alaric’s ribs. A sharp intake of breath, and his eyes went wide—not with fear but with shock. It was as if he hadn’t considered I’d fight like this. His body jerked against mine. Hot blood welled around the knife, running over my fingers in a thick, sticky stream.
I yanked the blade free, and the wet sucking sound it made turned my stomach. Alaric staggered back, one hand pressing against the wound, crimson running between his fingers and onto his white shirt in seconds. He tried to speak, but the words were caught in his throat, breaking apart in a wet cough.
After a moment, he went down, hitting the tile floor hard, legs curling in on himself before going still. The smell of iron was sudden, overwhelming, clinging to the back of my throat until I thought I would choke on it.
I didn’t move for a long time. My breath came in short, ragged pulls as my hands trembled in front of me. The knife clattered against the tile when I finally let go. My palms were slick with Alaric’s blood.
I turned back to the motionless man in front of me. Alaric Camberly, Vince’s father, was dead on my kitchen floor.
The home was silent except for the faint hum of the refrigerator. The smoke from the bonfire was still in my hair, but now there was something else clinging to me, heavier and far more permanent.
CHAPTER FORTY
kaius
The bonfire wasnothing but smoldering ash by the time we arrived back at the old air hangar. The wind was pushing the smoke into thin, broken wisps that disappeared into the night. Nolan, Vince, and I now stood in the same sand where laughter and music had carried only hours. Now it was silent. Dead quiet, except for the restless hiss of the wind crawling over the sand dunes.
And at the center of it, carved deep into the earth like a scar, was the spade.
The fire’s glow hadn’t done it justice. Seeing it now, without any distractions, it was impossible to ignore how deliberate it was. Blackened sand formed the sharp, cruel lines of the symbol, standing out against the pale landscape.
I crouched low, running a hand over the hardened surface. It was still warm beneath my palm. Whoever did this hadn’t beengone long, and they had known we were out here tonight of all nights.
Nolan came to stand beside me, his shadow cutting across the symbol. His face was grim, mouth set in a tight line. He matched my position, studying the burn like it might speak if he stared long enough.
“This wasn’t some stupid kids,” he finally said, voice flat. “This was precise. Whoever set this wanted us to get the message.”
“Accelerant,” I muttered, already cataloging the details in my mind.
The scorch pattern was too clean, the black edges uniform. Someone had poured fuel with purpose across the dune. Someone who knew what they were doing.
Vince paced just beyond us, his boots dragging through the sand, restless energy radiating off him like heat waves. His eyes flickered between the symbol and the rising dunes behind it. Vince was sharp and unsettled tonight, something both Nolan and I knew was a recipe for disaster. Vince finally turned his attention toward us. “Are you saying this was staged before we even arrived here tonight?”
“We would have noticed someone pouring gas through the sand.” I stood, brushing dirt from my hands. The desert stretched out endlessly around us, moonlight catching the shifting sand, and yet the symbol seemed to pull all the light into itself, dark and heavy.
Nolan’s wary gaze met mine. “Then the question isn’t how. It’s who.”
Vince gave a sharp, bitter laugh, raking both hands through his hair. “We already know who. You think anyone but the Death Dealers would use that mark?”
The name hung heavy between us. I felt it in my chest, that old, familiar weight pressing down. The Death Dealers weregone. Broken. Buried with the Spade family massacre. And yet here we were, staring at proof that ghosts don’t stay in their graves in our world.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I warned, though my jaw was tight. “We don’t know anything yet.”
Vince turned on me, eyes flashing, grief and fury tangled in every word. “Don’t act like I am just making up wild theories here, Kaius. That symbol doesn’t show up out of nowhere. Whoever put it here wanted us to see it. Wanted us to know they’re still out there.”
“Or someone wanted us to think they are,” Nolan countered, his voice calm, measured, but I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands curled into fists at his sides. His eyes were slightly glazed over, and I knew from years of watching him decode our problems that he was trying to pinpoint the exact moment someone slipped up tonight. A simple lie, a strange twitch in their body language, anything that could tell him who had done this.
The three of us stood there, the wind pulling at our clothes, the charred spade like a wound at our feet.
My gaze snagged on the faintest detail—tiny footprints along the edge of the dune, almost lost to the shifting sand. Smaller. Lighter. My chest went tight. Acelynn had been out here tonight, right in the heart of this chaos, her energy off as she watched the fun filtering around the bonfire. I had thought it was the anxiety of being so exposed to our antics, but could it have been nerves for what was to come?
