“You ready to show them the girl they sold?” I ask her, my thumb dragging across her lower lip. “You ready to show them that the girl on the gurney grew teeth?”
Hallow doesn’t flinch. She leans into my hand, her eyes burning with a kinetic, terrifying light. “I don’t want to show them, Ryker. I want to make them feel it. I want to hear them make the same sounds Dad made in the dark.”
“That’s my girl,” I murmur.
I pull a heavy, black serrated blade from the sheath at my thigh and press the hilt into her hand. Her fingers close around it with a natural, deadly grace.
“The bridge is the last gate,” I say, looking at Jex. “Once we cross it, Oakhaven belongs to the Choir. No more clinics. No more sales. Just us.”
The sub lurches as it docks against the pier, the wood groaning under the weight of the metal. I lead the way onto the salt-crusted wood, the heat from the city hitting us like a physical blow. The sky is raining ash, soft and grey like snow, coating my shoulders and Hallow’s hair in a shroud of the dead.
In the distance, the sirens are screaming, but they sound like music. The Choir is waiting in the shadows of the warehouses, their masks gleaming in the firelight, their rifles levelled at the bridge where the last of the “pure” world is waiting to die.
“Let’s go,” I snap, the adrenaline finally catching fire in my blood. “I want to see the look on their faces when they realise the monsters didn’t just escape. We came back to rule.”
Jex pulls his sidearm, the slide racking with a heavy, final clack. Hallow balances the blade in her hand, her silhouette framed by the burning Cathedral.
The city is screaming. And for the first time in my life, I’m the one holding the knife.
The bridge is a choked throat of wrought iron and burning vehicles, a barricade of “civilisation” trying to hold back the tide of the abyss. The Council’s private guard—the pampered dogs in tactical silk—are huddled behind their armoured SUVs, their spotlights cutting through the falling ash in frantic, sweeping arcs.
I lead the way, my silhouette a jagged shadow against the orange inferno of the docks. Jex is a half-step behind me, a wall of muscle and suppressed rage, his eyes scanning the Ridgeline for snipers. And Hallow… Hallow walks between us like a ghost of the fire itself. She’s wrapped in the black coat, the serrated blade I gave her held tight against her thigh, her bare feet silent on the soot-covered asphalt.
“Target at ten o’clock!” a voice screams from the barricade. “Open fire!”
The air erupts. The staccato rhythm of assault rifles tears the silence of the harbour to shreds.
I dive behind a rusted shipping container, pulling Hallow with me. Jex drops into a low crouch, his own rifle barking back—a heavy, rhythmic thunder that silences the first line of shooters. The sparks from the bullets hitting our cover spray over us like burning stars.
“They’re terrified,” Hallow whispers. She isn’t cowering. She’s leaning against the cold corrugated steel, her head tilted, listening to the screams of the men on thebridge. “I can smell it. It’s the same smell as the clinic. The smell of things that know they’re about to be opened up.”
“Stay low,” I command, checking my magazine. “Jex, left flank. Take the officers. I want the men in the centre alive for a minute. I want them to see her.”
Jex nods, a feral grin breaking across his gore-streaked face. He vanishes into the smoke and the shadows of the pier like a predator into tall grass.
I turn to Hallow. I grab the front of her coat, pulling her flush against my chest. The heat from her skin is the only thing warmer than the fire around us. I reach up and unlatch my mask, letting the heavy silver plate fall and clang onto the ground. I want the cold Oakhaven air on my face. I want to breathe the ash of my enemies.
“Look at me,” I rasp, my fingers digging into her hair. “This is the moment they realise the debt is due. You aren’t Hallow the victim anymore. You’re the reckoning. Go through the smoke. Let them see the girl they thought they broke.”
She looks at me, and for a second, the girl I knew—the one who used to hide in the shadows of the nursery—is gone. In her place is a hollowed-out god of vengeance. She leans in, pressing her blood-stained lips to mine in a kiss that tastes like salt and metal, then pulls away.
“Watch me, Ryker,” she breathes.
She steps out from behind the container.
She doesn’t run. She doesn’t hide. She walks into the centre of the bridge, her white skin glowing like a beacon through the haze of grey ash. The guards freeze. The spotlights lock onto her—a lone, blood-paintedgirl in a man’s heavy coat, holding a serrated blade that catches the firelight.
“Cease fire!” an officer bellows, his voice cracking with confusion. “Is that… is that the Governor’s daughter?”
Hallow stops ten feet from the first line of armoured cars. She raises the blade, the tip pointing directly at the man’s throat. The silence that follows is heavier than the explosions rocking the city.
“My father is in the water,” she shouts, her voice carrying over the roar of the flames with a terrifying, crystalline clarity. “And Oakhaven is in the dirt. I’m just here to collect the interest.”
From the shadows of the bridge rafters, Jex’s rifle speaks again. Three guards drop, their blood spraying across the pristine white hoods of their SUVs.
“Now!” I scream, vaulting over the container.
The Choir rises from the dark like a nightmare. A dozen silver masks emerge from the smoke, blades drawn, the sound of their unified war cry drowning out the sirens. We hit the barricade like a hammer, a blur of black tactical gear and flashing steel.
