Catching Pretty (Lovely Broken Doll #2)

15. The Shadow

THE SHADOW

I sped down the dirt road, the Darkmoor forest blurring around me, branches whipping at the car as if trying to slow me down. The tires kicked up clouds of dust, the engine roaring louder than my thoughts, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about the noise.

I couldn’t think about strategy, couldn’t think about anything except her .

Ava.

My heart pounded in my chest like it was going to burst, each beat a painful reminder of how fragile time was. If I was too late—

Don’t think it.

I slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt in front of the crumbling, abandoned building.

I couldn’t afford to waste a second. I threw the door open and sprinted through the pouring rain toward the entrance, my breath ragged, prayers slipping through clenched teeth.

Please let her be alive .

I shoved through the broken wooden door, the hinges creaking as it swung back with a hollow thud. The place reeked of decay and dark secrets, and my gut twisted at the thought of her trapped in there.

The place was too quiet, the kind of silence that gnawed at you, that made every shadow feel like a threat.

My pulse pounded in my ears, and my breath came in short, panicked bursts as I stared around the old stone building, barely standing.

What had once been several floors had caved in, leaving jagged beams and broken stone scattered across the space.

Part of the ceiling was gone entirely, exposing a patch of gray sky through the remains of the flooring. Dust floated in the pale light filtering in, making the whole place feel like a crumbling tomb.

No one was here.

I scanned the ruins, my heart thudding in my chest, hoping for any sign of her— anything —but the silence pressed down harder. Then my eyes landed on the stairs leading down into the darkness below.

I sprinted down the stairs, barely feeling the impact as I took them two at a time.

“Ava!” I screamed, my voice raw, cracking with desperation. The echo bounced back at me, mocking me with the silence that followed.

Please. Please let her answer.

As I descended, I swept my flashlight through the darkness. I stopped breathing when I saw the pair of legs, bent at an odd angle on the floor below.

No .

A body lay sprawled on the ground, half in shadow, unmoving.

I stumbled to the bottom of the stairs, my throat closed up, a sharp pain stabbing through my chest.

No, please, God, no.

I rushed to the body, dropping to my knees so hard I barely felt the impact. My hands shook as I reached out, my heart pounding so violently I thought I might collapse under the weight of it.

The beam of my flashlight illuminated the face— Cormac .

Relief hit me like a punch to the gut, so sharp and overwhelming that for a second, I couldn’t breathe. I collapsed forward, my hands pressed to my knees, and I let out a shuddering breath.

Thank God.

But relief had never been so torturous. Because if she wasn’t here, then where was she ?

Fear prickled at my spine as I leaned over him to get a better look at the body and saw the source of all the blood. The huge open gash across his neck from ear to ear, done with a sharp blade.

Whoever had killed Cormac knew what they were doing. That kind of precision murder took strength, but above all, it took self-control. It was the work of a steady hand and an even steadier mind.

He’d been a loose end, tied up in a bloody knot. The Sochai didn’t need him anymore. So they disposed of him as carelessly as a used rag.

But then why was Cormac’s eye socket a red, pulpy mess? And why was the poor bastard’s horrified eye staring at me from the back of his mouth ?

I could handle a hit man. A professional in every sense of the word. But there was something personal about this that caused whoever it was to lose that requisite restraint.

It didn’t matter why.

They had Ava.

I would track them down. I would dismember each and every one of them limb by limb before bringing her back where she rightfully belonged—with me .

Outside, I threw open the trunk and Dr. Vale blinked against the downpour.

I hauled him out and threw him to the mud. I shook the rain from my hair and unsheathed a blade—Dundee.

He screamed and began trying to crawl away with bound hands and wrists.

I lifted him by his hair, deriving small pleasures at the pops of hair tugging out, and placed my knife to his throat.

“Where is she?” I demanded, my voice cutting through the downpour like a blade.

“W-what?” Dr. Vale stuttered, blinking furiously as rain splattered against his face.

“She’s gone ,” I growled. My grip tightened on him, my knuckles white. “Where did they take her?”

“You won’t find her now.” Dr. Vale whimpered, blinking against the relentless rain. “The Tiarna Ard has her.” The High Lord .

“Unacceptable.”

I dropped him to the ground in disgust and grabbed his ear, slicing it right off.

He screamed, his cries echoing through the trees, causing birds to take off in fear.

I threw the offending ear aside, my insides cold .

“ Who is the High Lord?” I demanded, my knife’s glinting edge perilously close to his jugular vein.

No, I couldn’t lose control. If I killed him, I’d learn nothing.

I shifted the knife so that there was no chance my hand would slip in my rage.

He shook his head, his lips going pale as he clutched his bleeding head with bound hands. “I d-don’t know, I swear.”

“Then give me a fucking name— any name.”

I’d carve my way through the fucking Society to get to Ava.

Dr. Vale shook his head. “They’ll kill me.”

Snarling and drawing his face close to mine, I hissed, “ I’ll kill you.”

Dr. Vale blinked at me from behind his eyeglasses, askew and covered with droplets of water. “Maybe. But it’ll be infinitely less painful than if they do it.”

I laughed, wrenching his head back and pressing the knife against his Adam’s apple so he could feel the blade when he swallowed.

“Are you so sure, Doc?” I asked, ready to prove my point.

He answered before I even had a chance.

“Yes.”

His response was chilling. There was no lie in it. No trick.

The Sochai had the man not just terrified, but more terrified than he was of me .

And I was a monster.

With a growl of frustration, I shoved Dr. Vale back down to the mud .

He landed on his face, his glasses shattering. He rolled over with a groan and blood mixed with the rainwater.

I loomed over him with the knife at my side in a white-knuckled grip.

When I found Ava—and I would find her—I wanted to be more for her.

She hadn’t wanted me to become like the Society when she told me not to torture Dr. Vale for answers. I’d promised her I wouldn’t.

But even with all the promises I made, all bets were off now that her life was at stake.

“W-wait, wait…” Dr. Vale held out his bound hands. “I’ll tell you the truth about your father if you let me go.”

Squatting down beside him in the mud, I blinked the raindrops from my eyelashes. “What do you know about my father?”

Dr. Vale nodded. “I can tell you everything.”

I tilted my head to the side and gave him a pitiful look. “Oh, Dr. Vale, you went to shrink school and everything.”

Blinded without his glasses, he frowned in confusion, squinting to see my face better. “What?”

“Took you years to earn that degree, I’m sure.”

His smile faltered.

I patted his cheek. “All that to end up dying because you couldn’t properly read someone’s psychology.”

I slit his throat, ear to ear, before he could put it together.

Before I could change my mind.

He wasn’t going to tell me anything more. I tried to justify it, pushing down the small voice in my head that chastised me for being reckless, for not thinking things through—again.

For acting on impulse, just like I always did.

The rain fell heavier, but I barely noticed as I watched the blood pour from his neck, steaming as it mixed with the cold. It gushed hot and fast, staining the ground beneath him.

The light in his eyes flickered, then dimmed entirely, leaving them blank, staring lifelessly at the circle of trees and the tower piercing the low gray clouds above.

I took a deep breath, the gravity of what I’d done barely registering. I only had one thought left in my mind.

I would get Ava back.

No matter what.

No matter how much of a monster I had to become to make it happen.

Even if it meant she couldn’t stand to look at me, even if I destroyed everything good between us. As long as she was safe, as long as I could save her from this nightmare… I’d pay any price.

I pushed myself to my feet and cleaned my blade against my pants. I dragged Dr. Vale down to the basement and tossed him next to Cormac.

“You see, Dr. Vale,” I said to his corpse. “I already know the truth about my father.”

Unlike Ava, I couldn’t forget my father, couldn’t unsee his sins.

And I already knew more than I wanted to.

I knew that he never learned Gaelic, too busy with his precious plants and their Latin roots .

I’d only ever heard him say three words in Gaelic: An Tiarna Ard .

The High Lord.

My father had been part of this Society. The doc didn’t have to tell me. I already knew.

And it was the reason Ava had been targeted.