Chapter Thirty-Three #2
“And who gave the orders?” Onyx asks.
Dash turns the screen. I stare.
Our fathers.
All of them.
Silence. Until Lexi laughs.
“You idiots,” she hisses. “You think you’ve seen evil? You think you’ve escaped the leash? You’re still dogs in the cage. Your fathers are the ones pulling every chain.”
Suddenly, she’s yanked back by her hair.
Karter. Cold fury in his grip.
He yanks her upright. “What makes you think you know anything, pawn?”
She blinks, and for the first time, she realizes… She’s not getting out of here alive.
And neither is the leash that held her.
She squirms in Karter’s grip like a dying rat trying to chew through the trap. “Please… just let me go. I’m no one. I’ll disappear.”
“You’re right,” Karter hisses, his mouth near her ear. “We will make you disappear. Piece by piece. But before that, we’ll send a souvenir from you and your corpse-husband to each of our fathers. A little teaser of what’s coming next.”
I glance at the girl standing nearby, her gaze glued to the woman like she’s deciding where to start carving. “Hey, kid,” I say, not unkindly, “what’s your name?”
She doesn’t look at me at first. Doesn’t blink. Just studies the woman like she’s mapping out every nerve she’s going to sever.
Eventually, she turns, her voice calm and cold. “Sinclair. That’s my brother, Shiloh.”
Then she turns back, smiling slightly. “Would you like to know what it feels like to have your head cut off while you’re still alive?”
Karter barks out a laugh. “Wyck, I like this girl. Can we keep her?”
Lexi flinches like the name alone stung her. “Get away from me, you little brat!”
“Sinclair,” I say, my voice a blade. “How do you think she should die?”
No hesitation. No blinking. No mercy.
“She should be raped by three men, like she let happen to my mother. Then her fingers cut off, one by one, since she liked to touch what didn’t belong to her. And last… her head. But not quick. I want to watch her as I slice her neck slow, to the white meat, and let her bleed out like a stuck pig.”
The silence afterward is deafening.
“You have my permission to do all of that,” I say, voice low, deadly. “Except the rape. Nobody here is fucking that waste of skin.”
“That’s fine,” she shrugs. “As long as I get to make her suffer. Pain does most of the talking anyway.”
Then she turns to me, those icy eyes narrowing with intent. “I’m going to kill her now.”
She takes the blade from my hand like it already belonged to her.
And when she turns back to Lexi, it’s not a child standing there.
It’s something born in blood.
Lexi screams as Sinclair lunges. The knife plunges into her eye socket, and Karter holds her in place as her knees hit the floor. One stab. Two. Twisting each time.
“You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you!”
Sinclair doesn’t blink. “Not if I kill you first.”
She digs the blade in deeper, pulling back until both eyes spill like ruptured grapes.
Lexi’s shrieks are animalistic. Sinclair? She just hums.
“You ever heard of the Orb Weaver?” she asks us like she’s discussing her favorite bedtime story.
We stare.
“No?” She wipes her bloody hand across her jeans. “ Butcher & Blackbird. Brynne Weaver. Great book for girls with revenge issues.”
She pockets the eyes.
“I’m keeping these,” she adds, like it’s obvious.
“You two sure you want this life?” Onyx asks, voice gruff but intrigued.
Sinclair pauses, looks up. “What other life is there?”
Shiloh finally speaks, quiet but hollow. “We have no one.”
“You do now,” I say. “Finish your art. Take a souvenir. When you're done, we’ll clean up the rest and send the message loud and clear.”
“I’ll stay with them,” Wells offers, stepping forward. “Make sure everything’s... thorough.”
“Good.” I nod. “Karter, when they’re done, bring them to the asylum.”
Shiloh panics, his voice cracking. “We’re not going to the nut house!”
Sinclair doesn’t even glance his way. She’s back at Lexi, knife to flesh, slicing clean through a pinky. Lexi howls.
“You’re not going to the nut house,” I say. “That’s just what we call our home.”
Sinclair doesn’t stop. “Cool,” she grunts, sawing through the next finger. “Can’t wait to see it.”
Lexi’s wailing now, a snot-streaked disaster. “MAKE HER STOP!”
Sinclair flashes her teeth. “Why? You didn’t stop.”
Karter grins, leaning against the wall like he’s watching a show. “She’s a fucking prodigy.”
I’m about to agree when my phone vibrates in my pocket.
Ryan: You need to come home. Athens needs you.
The typing dots appear. Then vanish. No follow-up. No explanation. Just silence.
My jaw tightens. I tuck the phone away and meet Karter’s eyes. “Wrap it up. Bring them to the asylum. Athens comes first.”
“You got it,” he says, watching Sinclair remove another finger. Lexi’s barely conscious now. “We’ll finish here.”
I glance once more at Sinclair. Her face is calm. Empty.
Shiloh watches from the corner, not crying. Not speaking. Just watching his sister peel evil away with a knife.
“Time to go,” I say to the rest of the Devils.
We leave the twins and Wells behind.
The screaming doesn’t stop until the door closes behind us.
And somehow… it still echoes.
The ride back is a blur of asphalt and rising fury.
A thousand thoughts claw through my skull like barbed wire when it comes to Athens.
Is she hurt?
Who touched her?
Who do I have to carve up and bleed dry for making her scream without my name on her lips?
Every second of silence is a knife. Not just in my head, but in my chest, twisting with each mile we cross.
The city lights pass in a stuttered heartbeat, blurring red and white, but all I can see is her face, pale, broken, maybe worse.
Dash finally breaks the silence, voice low. “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know,” I grit out. “Ryan’s message said Athens needs us. All of us. That’s it.”
That alone tells me it’s bad. Ryan doesn’t panic easy, and she doesn’t reach out unless Athens is too far gone to reach for us herself.
My mind flashes. Wasn’t Fred with them?
“Fred was with them, right?”
“Yeah,” Dash confirms. But his voice… it’s off. He’s as wired and on edge as I am.
“Call her. Now. Put her on speaker.”
Dash is already pulling out his phone, dialing with the speed of someone who knows this shit is life or death.
It rings once.
“Hello?” Fred’s voice cuts through, raw, like she’s been crying.
“Fred. Where is she?” My voice is low, lethal. One wrong word and I might snap.
“We’re heading to Devil’s Lane. Just left her mother’s house.”
That sentence alone is enough to make me want to rip the wheel off the car.
“Josie’s house?” I repeat, voice dead calm. But my grip on the steering wheel turns white-knuckled.
“She went there looking for answers,” Fred says. Her voice breaks. “Gaia… her half-sister… she helped Athens unlock some memories. I don’t know how. But… Wyck, whatever she saw, whatever came back, she needs you. She needs all of you.”
That’s all I need to hear.
I floor the gas. Tires scream. The world narrows into one purpose, her.
“How far out are you?” I growl.
“Twenty-five minutes. Maybe less if you drive like the Devil’s chasing you.”
“I am the fucking Devil,” I snap. “And he better pray I don’t catch him.”
Fred exhales sharply. “You just had to pick a place buried in the middle of goddamn nowhere, didn’t you?”
“If I were you, Fred,” Dash cuts in, dark amusement in his voice, “I’d shut the fuck up before Wells gets there and does it for you.”
“Gotta go.” She hangs up fast.
Coward.
But I can’t focus on that. My stomach’s a graveyard of dread. Whatever Athens saw, whatever Josie buried… it’s bleeding through now. And I wasn’t there to catch her when she cracked open.
That eats at me.
“If this car gives out, I’ll run the rest of the way,” I murmur.
None of them argue.
Because we all feel it.
The pull.
The bond.
The chaos in our girl’s chest calling us home.
I slam my foot down harder, ignoring the speed, the turns, the world blurring past.
Let it all burn if it gets me to her faster.
“Athens,” I whisper, jaw locked so tight it aches. “Hold on. We’re coming.”
The last image burned in my mind is her smile, that crooked one she gives me when she’s pretending she’s not falling apart inside.
I should’ve been there.
But I will be now.
And God help whoever made her cry… Because we won’t be knocking. We’ll be taking blood.