I step closer, peering through the warped glass, and she’s there, the woman, my target, asleep in a rocking chair. The room tells me everything: an old crib with mismatched legs, a stack of baby clothes folded like treasure, and a mobile made by hand. There are paper stars swaying above a pillow someone probably saved for weeks to buy. Poor, yes, but nothing here is neglected, love is everywhere, and it hits me harder than the hunger: I am the monster who breaks into places like this, I am the thing that comes for innocence.
I press my palm to the window, and the glass trembles as part of me wants to apologize, part of me just wants to get it over with, and part of me knows I should end myself right here. Unfortunately for everyone, even that choice isn’t mine anymore. The tar doesn’t let me choose death—I tried—it needs me alive, it needs me moving, it needs me useful.
I can still feel myself in here, trapped behind bone and muscle and tar, watching my body prepare to end a life that never deserved to cross my path.
The rocking chair creaks and the woman moves her hand to rest protectively over the swell of her stomach. I take a breath I don’t want. My pulse syncs with the magic’s rhythm on a countdown I didn’t start and can’t stop.
A woman’s scream cuts through the frenzy and my head snaps toward it. Across the street, some asshole shoves a woman against the alley wall, her voice fracturing into pleading and panicked sounds while he hits her. By the time he thinks about shoving her again I’m already running.
He turns, seeing me coming. “What's it to you, motherfuck—” The word dies in his throat as my hand closes around it. I don't squeeze right away, I let him feel the weight of my grip and his eyes widen. He kicks out, his feet scraping uselessly against the ground as I begin to lift, his struggles becoming more desperate. I can feel the frantic pulse beating against my palm, the fear. As his air runs out, the kicking slows. His struggles cease as his eyes go wide and bulging, veins popping in his neck.
The woman behind me chokes as she cries, clutching her ripped bag, frozen somewhere between terror and awe.
I drop him, and he hits the pavement with a thud, not breathing. I wait for it—the sickness, the oh-shit-what-did-I-do feeling—but there’s nothing. I didn’t save him, I didn’t save her, I didn’t save anyone. All I can do is hope I’ll satisfy a need that was never mine.
My hands shake—not from the kill, but from how fucking easy it was. The hunger is still there, agitated and pissed off. He wasn’t the one I was after, and the tar knows it. But flesh is flesh, bone is bone—it should be enough to shut the thing up for a while.
I look back at the apartment window where the rocking chair shifts, the woman inside still asleep.
I don’t let myself think past that as I hook my fingers under the man’s arm and drag him into the alley.
The tunnel entrance is three blocks over. I’ve been here before. Years ago, when Sisk and I were just figuring out what this place was. I can almost feel her hand in mine—small, trembling, hopeful.She didn't deserve any of this. I should have been better, I should have done more, I should have seen it coming and stopped it.
I wedge my fingers under the grate and shove the body through the gap. He bounces down the stairs, one loud thud after another. I drag him the last fifty yards and by the time we reach The Pit, sweat is stinging my eye.Tar City’s rotten heart. I can feel it, how fucking happy it is to see me.I don’t look at his face, just shove him in, and the Pit swallows him whole, leaving nothing behind but a few bubbles bursting on the surface.
I stand there, breathing hard, waiting for the consequences but they never come. So I do the only thing I’ve ever done here that mattered. I make my wish. The same one I made the night everything went to shit. “Save her.”
Fourteen
THEN | SISK
Ispot Lou leaning against the wall near the water cooler, one hand braced like he needs it to stay upright. His hair is damp at the temples, his tank clinging to his back.
I walk over, trying to read his face before I say anything. “How was it?”
He lets out a panicky breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “Oh, you know. Nailed it.”
I look at him with my heart shattered in half.
He shakes his head, pushing off the wall. “Kidding. I rushed the combination, came out of the second turn early and couldn’t catch up.”
My stomach hardens. “Lou…”
“It’s fine,” he says quickly, already waving it off. “I kept going like nothing happened. I’m sure they loved that.” He gives me a smile, but it’s too tight, too fast to be real. “I felt it as soon as the music started,” he adds, quieter now. “Like I was already behind.”
I hate how familiar that feels.
I glance toward the stage doors.
“It’s the nerves. Your timing is solid.”
“Yeah,” he says, not really agreeing. “It got away from me.”
“I’m sorry, Lou.”
“Hey,” he adds, forcing it lighter, “one of us had to go in there and lower the expectations. I did you a favor.”
I huff a small breath. “That was very selfless of you.”
