Chapter 11 The Present
Cassian scans the area. He inhales through his nose, exhales through his mouth, then adjusts his angle to look the other way.
I blink. “You got all that in, like, four seconds.”
“Why? Impressed?” he asks, no pride in his voice. I can’t even tell if he’s teasing or genuinely curious. Considering how hard he made me come not that long ago, I decide to bet on the latter.
“Yeah, actually.”
He leans forward, bracing his arms on the steering wheel. His voice drops.
“You shouldn’t be,” he says. “Intel only matters if you know how to use it.”
His eyes keep moving, tracking every detail, every shadow, every car, every twitch down the street.
“And in this case, that job belongs to you.”
I shift in my seat.
“Yeah, well,” I say, “I’m pretty confident I can just slip into the void this time. So odds are, I won’t need intel at all.”
He turns to me. I swear there’s still a faint shine on his lips from what he did to me earlier.
“You say that, but if something goes sideways, you need a plan. So listen, okay?”
For once, he doesn’t keep talking. He waits. So I nod.
“Okay.”
He looks back toward the house.
“No way in from the front. Too much foot traffic. Side entrance might work, depending on fences and camera angles. Basement’s a possibility.
That model was built post-war. They usually had service doors to the boiler room.
Could still be there. If you siphon through the ground and land in the basement, and somehow turn human again, that should be your way out. ”
I stare at him. “Are you building a mental blueprint of the house in your pocket or something?”
He flicks a glance at me.
“What the hell do you think I did in the military? Bake muffins?”
I lift my hands in mock surrender. “I was just asking.”
He holds my gaze for a second, then gets back on track.
“You go in. You get the object. You get out. Clean. Silent. Efficient.”
His eyes flick away, scanning the house one last time before we both agree it’s time. I wait for him to look at me again, then flash a breezy smile and wink before reaching for the door handle.
“See you on the other side,” I say, my voice lighter than I feel. Because inside, every nerve is coiled tight.
I step out of the car into the cool air.
The scent of wet grass and quiet suburbia wraps around me.
It’s strange, knowing what Laura Collins turned into.
How her house still looks like something out of a brochure.
Polished. Manicured. The kind of place where kids sell lemonade and parents wave from porch swings.
If I focus hard enough, I can almost smell muffins baking inside.
I wonder if the cops patrolling the perimeter are as shocked as I was when I found out what was really hiding beneath all that charm.
Little Smiles in the basement should give them something to chew on.
They didn’t catch her.
And they could have.
If they’d paid more attention.
If they’d done whatever they’re doing now, faster.
Careful, Skye. You’re starting to sound a lot like your three homicidal friends.
I need to remember that justice is… complicated. Too complicated. Too big for any one mortal to handle, let alone a team of them juggling paperwork, pensions, and coffee breaks.
The truth is, justice doesn’t clock in at nine and call it a day by five.
It doesn’t care if someone’s tired or overworked or waiting on a damn warrant.
Justice is perfection.
It’s what we hope for when we’re hurting. It’s what we demand when we’ve been wronged.
But real justice—universal, fair, untangled from bias or timing or budget cuts—doesn’t exist in the real world.
How could it?
True justice would mean treating everyone exactly the same.
Not just by law, but by biology.
It would mean every person feels the same pain, reacts the same way, carries the same emotional weight from a single action.
If I punched two people with the exact same force—same angle, same weight behind it—Person A might feel 80% of the pain. Person B only 50%. Maybe Person B has thicker skin, or a higher pain threshold. Maybe they grew up getting hit and learned to numb it out. Doesn’t matter.
Same punch. Different impact.
So would that punch be equally wrong for both of them?
Would it be just as cruel? Just as damaging?
If justice were real, it would have to account for that difference.
It would have to say, “Actually, hurting Person A was worse, because they felt it more.”
But then you’d also have to weigh why they felt it more. What traumas shaped their reaction. What privileges or genetics shaped Person B’s tolerance. What context surrounded the moment.
And that’s just two people.
Two.
Now try scaling that out to a city. A country. The world.
Billions of unique nervous systems, unique pasts, unique ideas of what’s fair and what isn’t, all trying to cram themselves into one courtroom or one rulebook.
Yeah, well… Everyone wants justice.
But what they really want is a world that agrees with their pain.
A system that says, “Yes, you were right to feel that way. And yes, they deserve to suffer for it.”
The ugly truth is that most people don’t want equality, they want validation. They want their pain to win.
But there’s no trophy for suffering.
I should know.
And even after everything I’ve seen, after witnessing just how broken the system is, I still want the same thing.
I want my pain to win.
Just a little bit.
Nathaniel, Cassian, and Talon want the same, I think.
The difference is, they want to burn the system down.
Me? I’m not here to fix anything.
I just want Mark to suffer.
I move fast, slipping behind the nearest tree on the patchy lawn of one of Laura Collins’ neighbors. The light in the side window flickers. Probably a TV. No one visible downstairs. Maybe they’re watching from the second floor, soaking in the drama to gossip about later over the fence.
Here, I focus.
This time, going invisible isn’t instant.
It’s not like flipping a switch like it was at the crash site.
It’s slower, like water freezing, or the way a dream fades at the edges before it slips away.
My limbs blur first, then my outline, then the weight of me.
I can still feel the grass beneath my boots, the bark pressing into my spine, but the world forgets I’m here.
It takes effort. More than it used to. But I push through. I will myself unseen.
Then I breathe.
I glance down and run my leg through a blade of grass. It doesn’t move, just slides right through me.
Good.
Just to be sure, I glance back at Cassian in the car. I flash a quick thumbs-up, then give the signal to go in. A clean, flat-hand slice, military-style.
He nods, closing one eye to check whether I’m visible to mortals. Then he gives me a thumbs-up in return.
Alright. It worked.
I move faster now.
One second I’m behind the tree, the next I’m a shadow slipping between people. The officers don’t glance my way. I could wear a tortoise costume and shake my ass right in front of them, and they wouldn’t bat an eye.
But the dog…
The dog, leashed and pacing near the porch, stiffens. Ears up. Nose twitching.
It’s a golden retriever, which feels like some kind of cosmic joke. Something that cute shouldn’t be able to sniff out death incarnate. And yet… it can.
Its head jerks toward me as I glide past the sidewalk. Invisible, yes. Scentless? Apparently not.
Its body goes rigid. A low, uncertain whine slips from its throat.
The officer holding the leash frowns, gives the dog a soft pat, and mutters, “False alarm, girl?”
I quicken my pace. The Candy Maker’s porch looms ahead: old boards warped by weather, yellow tape slashed in an X over the door. I don’t bother with it. I’m not using the door.
Instead, I veer sideways, slipping through the neatly trimmed hedges toward the side entrance. I’m out of the dog’s range before it starts barking. I hear one short, confused woof behind me, but the cop gently tugs the leash and guides the retriever into a sit.
Crisis averted.
The side of the house is quieter. One officer out front is on his phone, pretending to survey the perimeter while clearly scrolling through dating apps or fantasy football scores. Another leans against the corner, sipping coffee.
“She handed out lollipops at the fall fair,” Phone Guy mutters. “Wore a pink apron. Had this sweet little laugh.”
Coffee Guy doesn’t respond right away. Just stares out at nothing.
“She was baking while those things were still down there,” Phone Guy adds, quieter this time. “God.”
“Yeah.” Coffee Guy exhales slowly. “This one’s gonna stay with me.”
A pause.
“She’s not disappearing, though,” Phone Guy says after a beat. “There’s a reward. Big one. State-level. That senator’s already got the FBI involved. We will be chasing after her until we catch her.”
“Nah, man,” Coffee Guy says. “There’s no way she’s still in the country. I bet she somehow found out we were coming and left for Mexico or something.”
“She left everything, though,” Phone Guy says. “Photos, clothes, toys. Why not hide it?”
“I don’t know,” Coffee Guy says. “Felt like showing off, maybe.”
Another silence stretches between them.
Then:
“You go down into that basement yet?”
Phone Guy shakes his head quickly. “No. But I heard. That… thing with the teeth in the jars?” His voice falters. “Nah. I’m not going down there.”
Coffee Guy takes another sip. “Good. Don’t.”
Huh.
So.
The police know the full extent of Laura’s crimes, and they’ve got orders from above to find her, no matter what. They’re not going to stop.
Good news?
They haven’t connected the dots to the car yet.
Bad news?
It’s only a matter of time.
Which means getting to that hidden wreck before they do is critical. Almost as critical as finishing Death’s mission and destroying the wraith herself.
Because here’s the thing: I can’t do anything if I end up locked in a holding cell.
As much as I want to give closure to the families—the ones who lost their children to a monster who handed out poisoned candy with a smile—I can’t. Not yet.