Somewhere between the rot and the heat and the cruel press of Noah’s hand on my back, I realise I’m not just thinking about Kai.
I’m waiting for him. I’m begging for him to come and destroy us both.
The road turns to dirt without warning.
One moment we’re still skirting the edges of civilisation—cracked pavement, the occasional rusted sign—and the next the tires crunch over gravel and mud, the jungle swallowing us whole. The trees lean in closer here, thick and tangled, leaves slick and oversized like they’re hoarding water and secrets. Sunlight barely reaches the ground, fractured into thin, jaundiced blades that don’t warm anything they touch. It looks like light filtered through a bruise.
Noah drives like he knows exactly where he’s going. Like he’s driven this path to a burial a thousand times before.
That scares me more than if he didn’t.
My fingers twist together in my lap, digging into my own skin until I draw blood. I don’t realise I’m holding my breath until mychest starts to ache, my lungs screaming for air that feels like wet wool.
“Relax,” he says, not looking at me. His voice is a flatline. “You trust me.”
It isn’t a question. It’s a command to surrender.
The car slows near a clearing carved out of the jungle, crude and uneven, like someone forced the land to make room rather than asking. A handful of stone steps lead upward, half-consumed by moss. At the top sits a structure that doesn’t belong to the island’s glossy brochures—old stone, darkened with age and humidity, vines creeping over the walls like veins on a dying man.
“What is this?” I ask, my voice trembling.
Noah cuts the engine. The silence that follows is deafening, filled only by the ticking of the cooling metal.
“History,” he replies. “The kind they don’t put in the fucking brochures.”
He gets out first, rounding the car to open my door. His hand closes around my wrist before I can step away on my own, fingers firm, grounding, unmistakably possessive. He isn’t holding me; he’s shackling me. The jungle hums around us—low, constant, like a warning I don’t know how to interpret.
Inside, the air is cooler.
Thick.
Heavy with incense, damp stone, and the unmistakable, iron-sweet smell of old blood.
The structure is some kind of old chapel—or temple. It’s hard to tell. The roof arches overhead, cracked but intact, sunlight spilling through narrow slits high above like glowing ribs. Symbols are carved into the walls, worn smooth by time and hands and desperate belief. Some look religious. Some look… violent. Some look like they were carved by people who had forgotten what mercy was.
I swallow, my throat feeling like it’s lined with sandpaper.
“People used to come here to make promises,” Noah says, guiding me forward. His voice echoes, bouncing off the stone like a ghost. “Vows. Deals. Sacrifices.”
I stiffen, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“What kind of sacrifices?”
His thumb presses into my wrist, right over the pulse, just enough to remind me he’s there. Just enough to feel my life jumping under his skin.
“Depends what they wanted badly enough. Usually, it required something that couldn’t be taken back. Something that bled.”
The words curl around my spine like smoke.
I try not to think about Kai. I fail. I fail so fucking hard.
This place feels like him—old, dangerous, steeped in something feral that doesn’t care about legality or ceremony. I can almost see him standing in the shadows, his hands in his pockets, his mouth curved in that knowing, lethal half-smile, watching Noah walk me deeper inside like he’s already decided how many pieces he’s going to cut my fiancé into.
Noah stops in front of a stone altar.
It’s stained.
Not freshly. Not obviously.
