I told you there would be a price for sticking your nose where it shouldn’t have been.
Stupid games call for stupid prizes. Guess that lynching didn’t teach you your lesson.
I’m coming for her next.
– A.S.
The alley tilts. My fingers shake so violently the sketchbook rustles like wings.
I lift my head and meet Ares’s eyes. There’s melancholy there, dark and bottomless, as if he already knows how all of this ends.
“What am I to you?” My voice breaks, but I don’t back away from the question.
His head shakes. “I don’t know,” he says, voice unraveling. “He won’t let me tell you. It’s all part of his game.”
“What game? We only met days ago-”
A laugh slips out of him, sharp and wounded. “Do you really believe that?”
Something inside me caves. I want to ask more, but the words refuse to shape themselves. My mind feels blank, scrubbed clean of logic by the force of everything he isn’t saying.
A shadow shifts over us, slicing the dim alley light, pulling both our gazes upward. A figure approaches, slow steps echoing off the stone. For a heartbeat my chest lightens.
“Liam?” I call, stepping forward instinctively.
His pace stops dead.
The way he stands, too still, too rigid, tugs at something primal in me. I take another step, clutching the sketchbook against my chest. Before I reach him, Ares’s hand clampsonto my shoulder.
His body shifts, shielding mine with his own, breath sharp as he reaches toward the knife hidden at his waistband. His stance is lethal, bracing for violence.
“What-”
“Don’t,” he growls, eyes never leaving Liam’s silhouette. “Not one step.”
“Ares, what is happening?”
His chest rises and falls in harsh, disciplined breaths. “We need to run.”
“Why?” My voice trembles. “Ares, why?”
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t soften.
“Because that’s not your brother.”
Every drop of warmth drains from my bones.
And the alley suddenly feels too small for the thing standing in front of us.
44
HARPER
Liam’s silhouette advances with a strange, mechanical insistence, his boots clipping against the stone as if he’s learned the rhythm of walking but not the meaning of it. Ares keeps one arm braced in front of me, the other pressed to the hilt of his knife. Each step Liam takes forces Ares to maneuver us backward, guiding me behind him even as his own uncertainty begins to radiate off him in sharp, uneven breaths.
Liam stops several feet away, lifting his wand almost thoughtfully, as if testing its weight. His expression shifts, something like recognition melting across his features.
“Harper?” he asks, tilting his head. His voice softens into something familiar, something safe, something I've trusted my entire life.
