A soft groan pulls my attention toward the louder captive. His head lifts a fraction as he tries to track my footsteps, eyes glazed with exhaustion. I crouch in front of him, watching the way fear scrapes awake in his expression. It is almost peaceful, the honesty of fear. Humans mask everything except that. No matter how hard they try, fear always reveals them.
“Are they coming?” he whispers, his voice shredded and uneven. “Are they really coming?”
My chest tightens, knowing my little game is coming to an end sooner rather than later. The pair of them are stronger and more confident together. I know everything there is to knowabout these two, but I didn’t put together just how powerful their joining would be, how much it would derail all my fucking plans! My plans were perfect, and I hate that I was so close to having everything, just for it to crumble around me as the truth comes out. I can only hope my plan stays true—true and clear like I placed into fruition years ago.
My smile feels wrong on my face, too tight at the corners and too sharp to belong to something human. “Of course, they are. I’ve sent them on a little goose chase first.”
His breath catches, and he looks away. The quiet one shifts slightly, eyelids fluttering open, their gaze steady and full of anger they do not bother hiding anymore. The fury is almost soothing. Pure emotion always is. It reminds me that they are still mine to manage—still within the lines I have drawn.
I rise and turn toward the metal table, the tools laid out in perfect order. Their presence steadies something inside me. The cool steel quiets the restless noise in my head and anchors me, if only for a moment. I run my fingertip along a handle and breathe in the cold. It helps me focus. Focus is becoming difficult these days while thinking of the past, who I was, what I lost, and who I had to become.
The light flickers again—harder this time—and the hum beneath the concrete deepens in pitch. My control wavers at the edges, something sharp and unstable whispering beneath the surface. Hazel and Zack are getting closer. I feel the air tightening around their names, and I can’t pinpoint why that bothers me more than I want to admit. They are variables I did not plan for, threads pulling at seams I stitched carefully.
The captives behind me shift, their movements soft and weak. Their presence keeps me tethered but also frays the line of my sanity. There is only so long I can hold everything in place. Only so long before the crack opens wider.
Hazel and Zack are getting close. I fucking hate that they are, but it’s inevitable at this point. The room hums again, low and growing.
And for the first time in a long while, I am not entirely certain what will happen when they do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DEVIL IN DISGUISE
ZACK
The ride to the breakfast place feels longer than it should, even though my motorcycle eats up the miles easily. She’s fast and beautiful, just like the radiant sunshine that is grasping onto me for dear life. I love that my guys know to have a bike ready for me at every safe house, cause truly were up to me a bike would be my only form of transportation. Hazel sits pressed against my back, her arms tight around my waist and her grip firmer than usual. I can feel her tension in the way she holds on, in the stiffness of her posture, and the way she keeps her head slightly down—as if bracing against more than just the wind. The morning air is chilly—sharp enough to sting—and each time I feel her exhale against my shoulder blade, I am reminded of the weight I put on her by pulling her into all of this.
Is this somehow my fault?
The guilt settles deeper with every mile. I try to focus on the road, on the neat rhythm of lines flashing beneath us, butLincoln’s message from last night pushes through every thought. The patterns he found, the movements of The Whispering Killer, and the inconsistencies in behavior. The warning threaded through it all…it sits in my chest like a stone.
Hazel taps lightly against my ribs once as we slow down at a light, a small gesture to check if I am okay. I want to tell her she should not worry about me, that she should be worrying about herself, but the engine revs as the light turns green, and I take the turn instead.
We pull into the diner ten minutes later. It is small and tucked between a repair shop and a hardware store, the kind of place that serves breakfast all day and has not changed the decor since the nineties. Hazel swings a leg off the bike and pulls off her helmet, her hair falling loose and wind-blown. She looks at the building, takes in the flickering neon sign, and raises an eyebrow.
She lets out a soft laugh, the first real sound she has made since we left the house. It is faint and tired, but it helps settle something rough in my chest. We head inside, choosing a booth in the back corner, both of us automatically sitting where we can watch the entrance. The instinct is mutual now, and that scares me more than I want to admit.
The waitress comes by, and I order a black coffee. Hazel picks something warm and sugary. When the waitress leaves, I reach into my backpack for my laptop. I hesitate with my hand on the lid. Hazel notices, because of course she does—she’s so damn observant. Her expression shifts, softening around the edges
“This is where you take someone when you want to make them question your taste in food,” she says, with a half-smile.
“It’s quiet,” I defend. “That is what matters.” The look I give her is complicated but the one she gives me is deceptively easy. I never quite understood how there could be people who seem inherently good and somehow people who are inherently bad.Me? I’m the worst possible person to be here with her, but this is where she either decides to run for the hills or that she’s fully in this now.
“Are you okay?” Hazel’s voice is so soft, so kind and caring, and my broken soul somehow preens at the slight chance of someone caring about me.No, Zack. People like you don’t get this life. They don’t get good people or good things that happen to them.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just thought about something and it—never mind, it’s not important.” My voice is probably the furthest thing from believable, and I know she sees right damn through me. It’s only fair I ruin it by opening my damn mouth. “I recommend the cinnamon pancakes.”
I could see the words passing over her face. I watched an entire movie and a lifetime pass behind her and she smiles—a beaming smile, almost childish in nature, but so soft and caring and it almost makes me feel alive. “I’m allergic to cinnamon, but I was thinking chocolate chip.”
My face falls, and I almost feel guilty for not asking the damn girl if she had any allergies. “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday when I was cooking dinner that you have allergies?” I didn’t really need to have this conversation now, but for some fucking reason I feel the need to say this shit instead of opening the laptop.
“You are stalling,” she says, simply.
I exhale and open the laptop. The screen lights up, the encrypted folder waiting like a threat. Hazel leans closer, her shoulder brushing mine, her presence steady and grounding. I open the folder and pull up the files Lincoln sent. The first few are familiar—the usual shit—reports, timelines, digital trails from The Whispering Killer. Things changed, though, and it all kind of starts to make sense. Around sixteen years ago, when Cameron’s dad stopped being The Whispering Killer, the motivechanged. Things stopped adding up, but The Whispering Killer continued.
But the real problem lies deeper. It's starting to become more clear and prevalent, and it hits me like a damn truck off the tracks.
“This is not about the pattern we already knew,” I tell her, quietly. “It’s about something older. Like before we thought all this shit had started.”
