Chapter 12 Dante #2
I nod, deciding it’s better to let the idiot exist in his own small theater. Engaging him would only feed the heat in my chest, and I need every scrap of that anger later for Ezra.
When I pull my gaze away, I feel the sudden burn of observation settle on me. Turning, I notice the nameless man has abandoned his laptop and is studying me instead. His thin lips press into a line, as if tasting an unsaid question.
I lift an eyebrow at him. He holds my gaze a breath longer, and then, as if bored by the experiment, swivels back and buries himself in code and numbers again.
What is wrong with these two?
I straighten my shoulders, feeling the weight of my hands, and slow my breathing until each inhale is measured and controlled.
We’re moving toward a target and toward the precise moment when the stored heat will be worth spending.
Until then, I breathe steadily, wait, and collect myself like a thief readying a blade.
The house looks as if the mountain spat it out—rough-hewn timbers, dark stone, and wide panes of glass that trap every shift of the sky.
It is a shelter for work and survival, not for memory or comfort.
When the wind comes, it carries the sharp, clean tang of pine and ice, along with a metallic edge, even from this distance, as if the air itself were hammered into being.
“His car’s here,” Owen states, binoculars steady in his hands. He chews his upper lip as he watches the house—a small, irritating tic that lodges in my mind and makes my fist tighten.
What can I do? He’s got disgusting habits and a punchable face, and it’s hard not to imagine smashing my fist into it.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Estella says from my side. “It’s like you’re the only one with functioning eyeballs.”
He drops the binoculars for a beat before clicking his tongue. “No movement. Chimney’s cold. Shed’s... I can’t see much from here.”
“Then let’s go check it and end this,” she suggests, her voice sharp.
She steps forward, ready, but he moves in front of her, blocking her path. “Will you stop being so fucking annoying, Iris?” he snaps. “What did I say? Don’t get in my way if you and your partner don’t want to get hurt.”
Estella takes a theatrically reluctant step back and paints her face with mock fear. “Learned that line from one of your favorite movies?” she shoots back. “And no, saying my name louder and more times doesn’t make you more intimidating.”
The wind slides past us again, raising a skeleton clatter from the trees, and the house watches us with its blank, glassy eyes while the tension thickens.
“You know what?” he begins, and the binoculars slam into the nameless man’s chest. He flinches, fingers scrambling for the strap. “I don’t want to think anymore.”
“It’s okay, you never do,” she snarls, planting the smirk on my face like she’s pulling a curtain apart, letting the light amusement spill out.
He shoves her with his shoulder, and she bites her lower lip in disgust. The motion sends a hot, corrosive knot down my ribs. My fist tightens, nails biting into the bandage wrapped around my palm.
I want to kill him.
No, I need it.
He slams the trunk handle and drags it open with a curse. “I don’t know why I bother with this. You want to go there fucking barehanded, I should let you kill yourself.”
Estella steps forward, slipping a knife from her pocket, the snap of the clip small and clean in the cold air. In the next second, the blade hovers at his throat. He gasps, lashes trembling, and at that, her smile stretches thin and cruel, never touching her eyes.
Up close, her hand trembles—the faintest quiver, like a moth’s wing. One wrong move, and it’s over. There’s that psychotic light in her eyes, a heat that blurs the world at the edges; when she’s thirsty before the kill, everything else fades to shadow.
I’m caught between awe and dread, suspended in that razor-thin place where fascination and fear blur together.
The instinct to move toward her collides with the instinct to stay still and witness the way she cuts through the world with nothing but her existence.
Her presence swells through the space, thick and charged, a force that feels perilous and irresistible all at once.
“I’m never barehanded, Owen,” she whispers, her voice low and filled with dangerous promises.
He swallows hard, a bead of sweat breaking on his forehead. “You’re brave, doing it right here in front of Emmett,” he says, words fraying at the edges.
“I was dreaming of different ways to kill you,” she rasps. “Not the most poetic, is it?”
“Stop it, both of you,” Emmett snaps, and our focus shifts to him. He holds a baseball bat like a prop, pretending to be a menace just like his friend. “I swear to God, we’re done with your bullshit.”
Estella whistles, a thin, casual sound, then steps back, leaving a neat red line across Owen’s neck—a trivial cut against the map of worse things that could happen.
He slaps his palm over the wound, then angrily peels it away, his eyes fixed on the blood as it blooms and freckles his skin like paint. “Next time,” he spits, “I’ll be the one who catches you off guard. And you won’t be so lucky.”
Estella moves on, ignoring his little jab, satisfied with the chaos she stirred.
I keep close to her as she goes to the trunk, snatching at the sagging fabric of a duffel and yanking it open.
Metal glints in the light, rifles lined like sleeping beasts, Glocks staring up at us with their black mouths, silencers stacked beside them.
The scent of oil and cold metal cuts through the air as we scan the weapons and contemplate our choices.
“So this is your brilliant plan,” Estella says, sarcasm slick in her words. She leans in, fingers running over an AR-15. “Putting a bullet in his head. We could’ve done this hours ago.”
“The target cannot escape unharmed,” Owen reminds, lifting a rifle for himself and shoving another toward Emmett. “Eliminate at all costs.”
“Thanks for the obvious, dipshit,” she says.
He snatches the rifle, hand twitching, looking like a child pretending to be an adult.
Knuckles whitening, he grips the stock, his face contorting into anger as he tries for authority.
“Will you show some respect?!” he screams, and a flock of birds erupts from the trees, flapping white against the sky.
So much for quiet and stealth.
“Scary. Oh, so scary,” she mocks before pivoting, dark eyes narrowing and voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper meant only for me. “He’s obviously insane since his favorite color is red and he loves to rewatch American Psycho.”
As soon as Estella finishes, Emmett decides to move. His hand shoots toward her as if to claim her like an object laid out on a table.
My instincts flare hot and loud, a siren behind my teeth.
Blood hammers in my ears, the stale air tasting metallic and sharp as I throw myself forward without thinking.
I drive a shoulder into his chest, my fist connecting with the soft bridge of his nose.
He emits a wet, surprised cough and stumbles back, palm pressed to his face.
I haven’t emptied myself into the full strike—only enough to unbalance him. Thin rivers of red snake down from his nostrils to his chin as he presses his tongue to his lips and smears the blood, like a child trying to make sense of a sudden bruise.
Heat blooms through me with the aftermath. It’s not just the rush of adrenaline, it’s something more. Something older stirs in my gut, an animal pulse that makes the hairs on my arms stand up.
There’s a strange, electric tug in my stomach that sets my teeth on edge and makes my fingers ache to do more.
For a fleeting heartbeat, something untamed rises within me.
It is not just anger, not just the need to protect, but a hunger coiling through my veins in a way I can barely define.
The violence of the motion resonates through my limbs, a thrum traveling up my spine and blossoming at the base of my skull.
Estella stands there with quiet amusement on her face. She doesn’t need me, she never does. We all know she could kill both of them with a single, effortless move.
Yet there is something in showing her that I can intervene, that I can step into the space she occupies and hold it for her, something that scratches at me like an itch I can’t reach.
The awareness of that capability blends with a sour-sweet satisfaction that makes my head spin.
Pleasure and discomfort braid together until they are indistinguishable, and the pain flaring in my temples answers them with a slow, pulsing drumbeat.
A laugh slices through the fog of sensation.
“Nice instincts, buddy,” Owen comments, eyes narrowing as if he’s trying to measure me up.
His gaze drills into my face, surprised and amused at once.
Then he tilts his head toward Estella, voice sliding into a leer.
“You sure he’s a newbie? Seems like a professional to me. ”
Another wave of heat rolls through me, but this time it comes wrapped in ice—a sudden paralysis that drains the color from my face until I feel translucent, like a ghost passing through my own skin.
Words like his are nothing new; they slide from mouths into the world, meaningless debris.
Still, they land—small pellets of doubt ricocheting inside my chest, seeding a slow, sour paranoia that tastes like metal.
“He has a good teacher,” Estella says unemotionally. “Now, can we finally do our fucking job?”
He nods reluctantly. “The newbie and I are going to check the shed. You and Emmett stay here and watch the house. If you see him, shout.”
The idea of leaving Estella with the man who had just reached for her makes my stomach drop into an acid pit. My limbs braid with tension, imagining the hand again, the entitlement in that motion.