Chapter 4 #3
Her eyes focused on something behind him. He was wholly in tune with her and his surroundings. He heard the faint sound of breathing, the forced quiet of footsteps.
He did not turn, did not look, knowing whatever was behind him was nothing of consequence—he could kill; he was made to kill and hunt.
"You played along?" she whispered, her fingers red with frost, gripping the edge of the headstone before her.
"I—" The word was long and drawn out. Kit struggled to find the rest of his thoughts, but they were hidden. "I hunted you down here. I’ve been hunting you since you left me, Vesperin. You can’t hide forever. I found you. I—"
Return to the base. Return to the base. Return—
Kit’s speech faltered.
His single prerogative: hunt her down.
It was finished. He had hunted her down. Now what?
She looked different here, outside, in the real world. Less like the memory of the girl he had held onto, as he was conditioned into this unfeeling thing. His thoughts shifted—less like the girl who had seized and convulsed beneath his hands, strapped down as he tortured her.
What would she do if he hurt her again? Would she cry and beg like she had before?
Auren imperceptibly shook his head. The Soul Searcher was half-hidden in the shadows behind Kiton, his white cloak blending with the snow.
Vesperin trembled.
Auren must go to her. He had vowed to protect her. He always upheld his vows.
The situation was precarious. The one called the Phoenix was an unstable predator, a hunter. Not even seeing his face, Auren felt the unnatural, predatory need radiating from the man. It took much to unsettle an immortal, but Auren felt the hair on his nape rise.
He stepped carefully over the snow, toe to heel, silencing his steps. His fingers curled around the handle of his scythe, ready but restrained—held back only by Vesperin, bound by the invisible leash wrapped tightly around his immortal Soul, and she, who held the other end.
"Why will you not talk?" Kiton’s voice filled the night air. His tone was careful and methodical.
Vesperin met Auren’s eyes over the man’s shoulder, and he saw the plea inside their grey depths—a silent demand to stay his blade.
Auren’s scythe answered to his Soul and hers, as entwined as they were. The Soul Searcher dipped his chin, and he did not move closer.
Rin forced herself to stay still. Watching the man she still held a shred of hope for, foolish and fleeting.
The same man who’d tortured her.
Watching him now—the utter absence of soul and feeling—she wondered if he was as much a victim as she was.
"Kit," Rin breathed, "you’re not this. This isn’t you. Come back to me." She stepped closer, boots sinking into snow. "Please."
She was still reeling from his admission—they truly were Soulbonds, and he’d known. He’d known for years.
"Man." Kit released an echo of a laugh. "I am not a man any longer. Your heart beats. I hear it. It tempts me."
She watched as his right hand curled into a tight fist. The move was stilted, strange.
He moved, like movement was precisely what he was made for. He stalked forward, snow crunching beneath his boots, and reached for the holster at his side, drawing a sleek gun. His thumb switched the safety off, his hands encased in dark gloves.
He was close now. Too close. She couldn’t see Auren anymore. Weaponless. How foolish she’d fucking been.
Rin gave a ragged gasp as Kit stood right before her, close enough to touch, close enough that she could see his pupils dilate, darkness swallowing the brown of his irises.
He lifted the gun, staring at it like a stranger’s hand held it. Snow melted against the metal. "I held you as our home planet exploded. The blast took out our ship. We died together." He looked up, snow clinging to his lashes.
Rin memorized his freckles, desperate to keep something human about him alive.
His words made the ache behind her eyes flare anew. Memories hovered just out of reach—something she knew yet didn’t. Their second life, the one she struggled to recall, as if the horrifying end was too much for her to handle.
"Five years ago, they took your memories a few days before New Year’s.
Half a decade… I lied to you. Vesperin, Vesperin.
" Kit echoed her name, murmuring it as if to remind himself how to pronounce it.
"Their experiments did not work on me." The gun trembled in his hand.
"Why? Why did it fail? I am a failure." His eyes grew unfocused, as if staring at something just out of her sight.
"You’re not a failure, Kit. This isn’t you. Whatever they did to you, I can fix it—we can fix it." White flashed behind him as Auren moved in a slow circle, keeping her in his line of sight. She didn’t let her gaze linger, keeping her eyes trained on Kit’s as she begged, "Let me help you."
As if her words were a trigger, he snapped. He switched his hold of the gun to his left hand, using his right to reach for her. His fingers encircled her throat, and she wheezed as her air was cut off. His strength was unnatural. None of this was normal.
Beneath the force of his bruising grip, Rin was shoved to her knees on the snow. Kit’s headstone was by her side, casting shadows over half of her face.
He loomed over her, more machine than man, with his cold, pale skin and rigid grace.
Kit lifted the gun and pressed it to the center of her forehead. It was cold against her skin.
He pressed the gun harder against her, and she didn’t move, even though every instinct in her screamed to use her training—to disarm him.
Grab his forearm, twist the gun up before he could shoot, and force his grip to loosen.
She didn’t, though. Why didn’t she? Maybe a small, delusional part of her still believed he wouldn’t hurt her—even after he’d been the one to torture her.
"You won’t shoot me," Rin whispered up to him.
"Why do you think that?" He seemed to be genuinely asking.
Slowly, Rin reached up and placed her hand over his, where he held the gun to her head. His fingers were cold beneath the gloves, immovable. "Because you care for me—you love me."
Kit stared at the gun in his hand, the way her temple pressed against the muzzle. His index finger hovered over the trigger. One move—that’s all it would take to see her brains splattered on the snow.
Maybe then, if he picked her apart, held her organs in his hands outside her body, he’d finally understand why he felt this way about her—when he should feel nothing at all. His finger twitched on the trigger but…
He didn’t want their hunt to end so quickly.
Because Kit feared what came after. In the quiet, once she was dead and he had nothing left to make him feel—what would become of the Phoenix?
"I do not feel anything for you now." But Kit wanted to. He leaned forward, shifting the gun until the muzzle brushed her hair away from her frost-pinkened cheeks.
Watched her hair slip over the black steel of the gun. Wondered what her skin would feel like beneath his bare palm.
The snow between them fell heavier. It muted the footsteps of the watcher nearby. Kit leaned down and kissed Vesperin’s cheek. It was not tender, but a ghost of a memory.
Her flesh was cold. He wondered what she felt like when she was warm.
He straightened, a strange hunger inside him as her breath hitched.
Kit kept the gun loosely trained on her, grazing the place on her cheek his lips had just touched. "Come out."
Vesperin’s eyes were trained on something behind him, and Kit didn’t look, not until the being moved to the side, coming into his line of sight.
A man, cloaked in white, with blue eyes shining beneath a drawn hood.
"Let her go," the man spoke, voice soft, yet deadly.
Kit stared deeply into Vesperin’s eyes as she knelt before him. The orders were there; he ignored them. "Who are you?"
It was Vesperin who answered:
"He’s my Soulbond."
Something inside Kit clenched in… anger, jealousy, loathing, confusion. It was muted by the memory of electricity, needles in his brain, severing neural pathways, rewiring synapses, until he was nothing but numb.
"I have more than you. Did you know that?" she went on.
"Lucien is yours," Kit said on a ragged exhale.
Vesperin nodded, fingers curling around his wrist. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything.
"Yes, he’s mine. I have others, though."
Her eyes shifted to the man standing, watching.
Kit had a primal need to look, to know. So he did. He saw the man’s eyes in truth—and the tiny Star on his face.
A Soul Searcher, whose steadfast gaze was on Vesperin and the gun Kit held to her head.
"Four," she said softly. "Lucien. Cyrus. Rhyden. Auren." The way she said the last name, staring at the cloaked man, Kit knew that was his name.
Rage darkened his vision. He shoved the muzzle of the gun against the side of her cheek, watching as it made her lips part. The metal clicked against her teeth.
"Five," Kit growled.
Her brows furrowed in distress as she gave a tiny sob. "Project Phoenix—what have they done to you?"
"All I am is a hunter. I feel nothing but the need to hunt. I am nothing without the urge carved into my DNA. I want to feel." Kit holstered the gun. His lips did something strange—they twitched, like a muscle receiving the wrong command. He let the motion play out. It formed a smile.
Kit stared at Vesperin. Eight letters. Three vowels. Five consonants. The fingers on his left hand began to trace the shape of the letters in the air.
The robotic dissonance inside him was replaced by sharp glee. "Run."
Without the gun threatening her, the Soul Searcher moved in a flash of white.
His speed was unnatural. His arms wrapped around Vesperin’s waist, scythe cutting a line in the air.
Energy surged. Vesperin’s wide grey eyes met Kit’s as she slid across the snow, pulled into the mass of light, and disappeared.
The tear in the air closed.
Kit was alone.
Return to the base. Return—
Single-minded focus recrudesced.
The hunt was on.