Chapter 33 Estella
I’m a burning ember against the stillness of the night, drifting through the dark as waves crash against the recesses of my mind.
Through the fog, my hand reaches out on instinct, brushing over soft silk sheets.
The sensation blurs into something dreamlike—like dragging my fingers through warm sand while silver moonlight spills lazily across my body.
A vibration ripples through me, trying to pull me up, shake me awake, but I’m buried too deep in the quiet warmth of my own consciousness to care.
A chill folds over my skin, an invisible hand tugging at me, trying to drag me back to the waking world.
I push against it, exhausted, resisting every yank at my awareness, refusing to let it tear me from the fragile embrace of sleep.
I want to stay here. Just a little longer. I want the stillness, the warmth, the soft, forgiving sand beneath me.
Because waking means thinking. Waking means wondering what I need to do to survive the next hour, the next day, the next blow.
And I don’t want that. I just want to linger in my comfort-dream, where the world is warm and silent, and nothing demands anything of me.
But the vibration keeps returning, rolling through my bones, rattling faintly against the cage of my ribs.
A soft pressure curls around my hand, grounding me.
Through the haze of sleep, I see Dante lying with his head on my lap.
His hand tightens around mine, desperate, terrified I might slip through his fingers like the sand beneath us.
“I couldn’t make her stop.”
The words strike me like a punch. Bile rises in my throat, and tears sting my eyes as my mind replays that single sentence on a loop. It ricochets inside my skull, striking every bruised part of me, each repetition stroking the growing fire in my chest.
“You are safe,” I whisper in the memory—my voice soft, steady, but painfully inadequate. Because comfort can’t erase scars. The weight of what happened will never disappear for him. It will cling to him like a dark passenger, whispering venom into the back of his mind.
I know. Because I have one too.
But mine dissolves into nothing when I’m with Dante. He shines a light into the cracks I’ve spent my life hiding. He touches my jaggedness without bleeding. And I want to do the same for him.
I wrap my arms around him in the memory, a protective cage of limbs and warmth, holding him tight against me. He melts into the embrace, soaking in the heat of my body, needing it as much as I do.
Slowly, painfully, I pry my eyes open. A sting of discomfort pulses through them, the thick blur of dried tears sealing my lashes together. My hand drags across my face, smearing the wetness into streaks across my cheeks.
The salt lingers on my lips. It always does. My grief has lived on my tongue far longer than most people have lived in my life.
When I manage to fully force my eyes open, pain lances through my skull. I groan and sweep my hand across the bed again, expecting, hoping, needing to find the warmth of his skin.
Instead, my fingers meet cold silk. I search further, my heart thudding harder, but all I find is the vast chill of untouched sheets where his body should be.
Blinking through the heaviness of sleep, I push myself up onto an elbow, my eyes dragging across the empty space beside me. A fresh wave of tears surges up my throat. I swallow it down just as the vibration that appeared morphs into a dull ache of awareness.
Something woke me.
The dread that curls through me is instant, sharp, and crystal clear. I blink, confirming Dante isn’t here, and brush my palms against the silk, fisting it and wrinkling it in my hand.
Through the discomfort, I turn around, snatching my phone from the table and squinting against the harsh glow as I unlock the screen.
No messages.
Unease coils low in my gut, twisting tight, and I press Contacts, calling him without a second thought. My teeth catch the corner of my mouth as I hold the phone to my ear.
The ringing starts, and some time passes before I realize he won’t pick up.
Heat sparkles under my skin as panic licks to life, and it takes me a few moments to remember that I have his location connected to my phone. We decided it would be safer to have each other’s locations, especially after my last encounter with the new handler.
Clicking the app, I wait for it to load, impatience coiling inside me like a persistent buzz.
I frown when the map opens, revealing a pin dropped on an unnamed building roughly twenty minutes from our hotel. I stare at it, unfamiliar with the location.
The panic swells, stretching sharp and wide. Whatever exhaustion clung to me evaporates as my pulse slams against my ribs, and a thin sheen of sweat gathers along my brow.
If something’s happened to him…
Fuck. I won’t survive it.
I shove to my feet, staring at the pin that burns like a warning. Rushing to the table, I grab the knife Dante gave me along with the lace strap. Sliding it up my thigh, I secure it in place before letting my mid-length pajamas fall over it.
I step into the corridor only to freeze at the sight of Dante’s jacket hanging on the hook. Chest tightening, I reach for it, pulling the fabric close, breathing him in—his scent grounding me with a fleeting, fragile drop of comfort inside the storm clawing through me.
Carefully draping the jacket over my shoulders, I unlock the door and step into the hall, eyes fixed on the glowing coordinates that have now become my only direction.
I’m breathless by the time I reach the spot.
My lungs burn, my pulse thrums, and I shove the phone into my pocket after checking the location yet again, as if the coordinates will somehow change.
The moon hangs full above me, washing the street in silver, its light carving out a path where the darkness refuses to yield.
I follow it, grateful for every drop of natural illumination. Dante’s location has dragged me somewhere with no streetlamps at all, and my flashlight can only carve out a narrow tunnel through the black. The moon has been my second steady companion on this desperate march.
I tug at the collar of my dress, pulling it in every direction, trying to contain the panic clawing at my chest. The emotion swells, unfiltered, choking, turning me into an emotional fucking mess as I push forward.
It’s stupid. Irrational. Dante isn’t answering his phone, but he’s also not at the hotel.
But I don’t care if I’m walking into a trap.
I don’t care about the danger, the consequences, or the idiocy of this.
Nothing matters but Dante. I didn’t realize when he became my lifeline, but he did, and now I can’t see anything beyond that truth.
I’ll do anything if it means getting him back.
When I lift my flashlight, the beam slices across the clearing—and I shudder as another roll of thunder trembles through the sky.
A downpour isn’t far behind.
At the edge of the woods, where the last threads of asphalt dissolve into roots and wet soil, the bunker waits—half-devoured by time.
From afar, it could pass as a forgotten hill, a moss-covered mound where birch trees lean like tired sentries.
Up close, however, there’s concrete—cracked and scarred, streaked with rust. Ivy clings to it like fingers, digging into the seams of a reinforced door that time couldn’t swallow.
I step closer. The entrance sinks into the earth, as if the forest had tried to bury it and failed.
A warped metal door juts at an uneasy angle, its bolts chewed down by rain and years of silence.
The air around it feels colder, heavier, tinged with metal and storm—as though the bunker is exhaling memories it never wanted to keep.
Up close, I can see attempts to seal the place shut—layers of welded steel bent inward by something stronger. Beneath moss and grime, faded markings linger, all of them nearly wiped away by decades of decay.
No path leads here anymore. And yet the bunker remains, hidden in plain sight, waiting for someone to remember what it was built to keep, or keep out.
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I reach for the shaggy, weather-worn handle and pull. The door opens with a soft, almost relieved click, the sound swallowed whole by the density of the woods.
A wave of warm air sweeps out to meet me.
I step inside slowly, ready to reach for the knife strapped to my thigh.
A warm light spills across the bunker, sweeping over every surface, and I switch off my flashlight.
My eyes scan the space, searching for any sign of danger.
It takes a moment to realize there’s nothing—but still, my muscles remain taut, coiled like springs, refusing even a fraction of relief.
I close the door behind me, and the silence deepens into something suffocating.
I turn slowly, taking it in—tables cluttered with papers and computers, workstations littered with folders, files, abandoned coffee cups.
A massive map dominates the central wall, streaked with red lines and pins, photographs layered over it like a desperate attempt to make sense of something sprawling and dangerous.
Unease crawls along my spine, but I move toward it anyway—curiosity tightening its hold, pulling me deeper.
I strain my ears, but all I hear is the kind of silence that feels carved from stone. No footsteps. No voices. No breath but my own. The realization that I’m alone settles over me, loosening the rigid coil in my muscles just enough for me to move forward.
The map pulls at my attention like gravity. I drift toward it, sliding my phone into the pocket of Dante’s jacket. His scent clings to the fabric, anchoring me, giving me the smallest push to keep going.
But when my eyes adjust and the details on the map sharpen, everything inside me halts. My heart stops mid-beat, and my brows curve upward, confusion curdling into something sharp.
It’s my life.
My movements.
My kills. Every single one.