Bateman glared.“Fuck off, Dev.”
Kael almost smiled.“He said there’s danger coming.Something big.He wouldn’t tell me what.Just that if he didn’t get out of where we put him and go back, people die.”
Dev’s smirk faded, replaced by something colder.“Did he give you a timeline?”
Kael shook his head.“No.Just urgency.Like he was racing a clock I couldn’t see.”
Bateman leaned closer, voice steady.“If Wraith’s down deep, and he’s talking about something that could take out civilians, we can’t ignore that.I’ll get Marsh on it—see if he can trace what Drew’s been embedded in these last six years.”
“Thanks, brother,” Kael said quietly.
Dev lifted his mug in salute.“You ever think maybe fate’s got a sick sense of humor?The man you thought was dead comes back from the grave, drops a doomsday warning, and leaves you staring after him like a kicked puppy.”
“Go to hell, Dev,” Kael muttered, but there was no real heat in it.
Bateman chuckled.“He’s not wrong, though, and yes that hurt like fuck to admit.”Then he sobered.“I’ll contact you in a few hours.We’ll dig into this, see what Marsh turns up.If it’s tied to the Bratya, or worse, we’ll mobilize.”
Kael nodded, jaw tight.“Appreciate it.Hold off on the mobilization piece though.Let’s just see what this is.”
The call ended, and the holo-screen faded to black.The warehouse was silent again, save for the steady rain outside.
Kael sat there for a long time, staring at the empty screen.The ghosts had started to stir again—and this time, one of them had a heartbeat.
He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes.For the first time in years, the darkness behind them wasn’t empty.It was filled with Drew’s voice.
Out of everyone in this world, you’re the only one who ever had the right to claim me.
And damn it all, Kael wished he still had.
****
The night swallowedDrew’s car whole as he sped away from the warehouse, the echoes of Kael’s voice still burning through him.His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, the city’s neon bleeding past in streaks of color that barely registered.He could still feel Kael’s stare on his skin—the shock, the fury, the ache of recognition that cut deeper than any wound.
He should’ve kept driving.He should’ve put a hundred miles between himself and Kael’s world.For Kael’s benefit and his own.Instead, his hands turned on autopilot, steering him back toward the shitty studio apartment that passed for home these days.
The drive blurred, but Kael’s face stayed sharp in his mind—those steady, ocean-dark eyes that had once looked at him like he was the only person left alive worth believing in.Drew swallowed hard, jaw tightening.Six years and it still hit like a punch.
Flashes came unbidden—Kael laughing in the half-light of a broken-down safehouse, his voice low and rough when he’d whispered Drew’s name for the first time.Forty-eight hours, that was all they’d had.Two nights that had burned so bright it left nothing but shadows behind.
“Stupid bastard,” Drew muttered, not sure if he meant Kael or himself.Probably both.
He pulled into the cracked asphalt lot behind the faded sign that said Seaview Apartments—which was ironic, considering there was no ocean within miles.The place reeked of mildew and bad decisions.The main door to the apartment building hung slightly off its hinges, the paint peeling like scabs.Home sweet hellhole.
He locked the keys in the car and left, walking toward the apartment.The air was heavy, the kind that made his skin prickle.He should’ve noticed that.Should’ve felt it—the shift.But Kael was still in his head, dragging ghosts through his bloodstream.
He didn’t see the shadow move until a gloved hand slammed a weighted sap—a small, leather-covered club filled with lead shot, built to stun with a single blow—into the back of his skull and the world folded up into white noise.
The van came out of nowhere.Tires screeched, door sliding open before his instincts could even catch up.Hands—too many—grabbed him.He fought, snarling, twisting, managing to land a solid hit before that sap hit him a second time, slamming into the side of his skull.His knees buckled, the world tilting.
Someone jabbed a needle into his neck.A cold burn spread fast.
“Oh, come on,” Drew slurred, breath catching.“Kidnapped off the street and thrown into a white panel van and drug cliché?Are we really doing that?Feels very...2000s spy movie.”
A voice near his ear chuckled, low and humorless.“You have a sarcastic mouth on you.”
He tried to smirk, but his tongue was heavy.“Yeah, and apparently you have a dramatic flair for overkill.What’s next, chloroform and an evil laugh?”
The needle hit harder now, the drug mixing with the pounding in his skull.He blinked, trying to focus.The men around him weren’t amateurs.Same combat boots, matching gear.No insignia.Just like the ghosts he’d been hunting.
