And I love it.
That's when I see them. The tattoos. Not just random ink, butart. Real art. Stories written on skin. Dragons coiling around forearms. Roses blooming across shoulders. Words etched into ribs, hidden and sacred.
And I think:That's it.
That's what I want to do.
Not just create art that hangs on a wall. But art that moves. Art that breathes. Art that lives on bodies, walking through the world, telling stories no one else can see unless you get close enough.
That night changed everything.
That night, I found myself.
But the dream is fading now.
The music distorts, slowing down, warping into something unrecognizable. The faces around me blur and melt like wax. The black chandeliers flicker and die.
And then the pain starts.
My head.
God, my head.
It's pounding, a relentless drumbeat that makes my skull feel like it's splitting open. My stomach churns, nausearising in waves, and I can feel my heart hammering in my throat, too fast, too hard.
The dream is gone.
I'm not at Coney Island. I'm not at the zoo. I'm not in that club with the music and the ink and the freedom.
I'm somewhere else.
Somewhere dark.
Somewhere wrong.
I try to open my eyes, but they're so heavy. My eyelids flutter, and I catch glimpses—blurred shapes, dim light, movement.
My mouth tastes like copper and chemicals.
My body feels like it's made of lead.
I'm coming to.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
And I don't want to.
Because I know—somewhere deep in the fog of my mind—that whatever's waiting for me on the other side of this darkness is worse than any nightmare I could dream.
SILAS
Five hours.
Five fucking hours since Lionetti snatched them, and we've got nothing.
I'm standing in the middle of Becca's basement, surrounded by screens and files and maps, and every single one of them is useless. Jace is at his station, fingers flying across the keyboard, pulling up property records, surveillance feeds, anything that might give us a lead. But it's all dead ends.
