The connection widens and I can feel everything at once. Not just the tar under the warehouse, the tar under the whole fucking city. I can feel the veins of it stretching for miles, a network of black shit under every street, every building. It’s endless.
I can feel its hunger. A deep, gnawing ache that makes my own stomach clench. I see flashes in my head—streets collapsing, buildings sagging as the pit tries to drag it all down to me. There’s no stopping it.
Sisk is still hanging there, the tar stretched tight between us. The strain is burning through my arms, my chest, every fucking inch of my body.All I see is her. All of her.The first time I kissed her, the taste of her on my lips, the way my world fucking stopped. The last time I touched her, the feel of her skin on mine. Every smile she ever gave me, every stupid fight we ever had. It all crashes into me at once. And then I’m there again, standing with her, her hand on mine, pulling it down to rest on her stomach. I can feel the warmth of her skin. I can hear her voice, soft and certain, saying the words that rewired my entire soul. “You’re going to be a daddy.”
A St. Clair heir. The one thing The Pit was supposed to protect. And then… I hear them. The St. Clairs, all the ones who came before me. Their fucking bargains are still echoing down there, buried under years of blood and this endless hunger. I push deeper, digging through the darkness until I find the first one, the source.
I hear it, clear as day: “Let this city prosper and we will always answer to you.”The original deal.
I tighten my grip on the tar and shove my mind deeper into the veins. I show it, I force it to see the streets above: the alleys; the losses; the broken-down shops with boarded-up windows; the families starving while the city rots around them. I show it the poor and the desperate. All the dying neighborhoods The Pithas been feeding on for years. This isn’t prosperity. This isn’t the deal. The first vow was simple, and Tar City is falling apart.The deal has already been broken.I shove that truth right into the tar itself, making it see what it’s become.
For a beat… the hunger stops, the movement under the city dies and the tar goes still. In that one moment of silence, I move. My eyes snap open and I raise my hands. The tar holding Sisk obeys. The black liquid retracts, folding in on itself as I lift her away from the edge and set her down on solid ground.
Matt and Viper rush forward. He sinks beside her while Viper grabs her face. “Sisk! Stay with me!”
The tar beneath the warehouse churns violently now, a black, frothing sea sensing what I’ve done. The silence is over.
GIVE US THE HEIR OR ALL OF YOU DIE. AND WE BEGIN AGAIN.
Outside, the ground groans as another section of the city collapses inward.
Now I can see the truth, and I understand it all. The whole network, the source of the hunger, the center of the sickness. I understand with perfect clarity:the only way to stop it—is at the core.
I step toward the edge of the pit.
“Jax?” Matt calls, his voice tight with fear and confusion.
I glance back once.
“Take care of them,” I tell him.
I take one more step forward, then I jump.
Seventy-Six
THEN | SISK
“Can I take this thing off now?”
“Not yet,” Jax says, his hands steadying me as I swing my leg off the bike.
“I can’t see anything.”
“That’s the point of a blindfold, smartass.”
His hand finds mine, his grip firm. “Hold my hand,” he says. “I got you.”
I barely hear him because of all the barking, a chorus of panicked yelps and deep angry growls. When I hear the rattle of a chain-link fence, I rip the blindfold off.
“No way,” I breathe. I turn to Jax, my eyes wide, searching his face for some kind of joke.
The yard stretches out in rows of cages, dogs everywhere: some pacing in frantic circles, others pressed silently against the fence, a few barking like they’ve forgotten how to stop. Most are too thin, some with patches of missing fur. I notice a tiny terrier mix limping while the pit bull next to it has an eye clouded over like spoiled milk.
A faded sign on the gate reads: City Animal Holding.
“This is a shelter?” I ask.
“More like the waiting room before the end.”
