Chapter 2 #2
“And clearly I accomplished that,” I bit back.
I should be a little more patient with them.
I had refused their visits and had kept communication only to short text messages.
The only thing that kept me breathing through those endless nights was getting better.
Stronger. Visualizing my hands around the throat of the son of a bitch who put me in that bed, who made me piss in a bag for weeks, who left me clawing my way inch by excruciating inch across the floor of that rehab center.
“Your letters. I read every single one until the ink faded. But I didn’t answer. I wouldn’t let myself. Not when half my skull was titanium, and doctors were betting I would never speak full sentences again—much less get out of that fucking bed.”
In truth, I read every word like it could stitch something back together. Desperate. Pleading. It didn’t.
I couldn’t write back. Not without admitting how close I’d come to staying dead. I wanted them to stop caring. I also needed them to never stop.
Then the feeling cut off. A switch flipped in my brain. Useful. Empty. Controlled. And I hated how much I needed it.
Numb kept me alive. Numb also made me dangerous in a way I couldn’t measure. If something ever cut through it again, I’d either kill it … or keep it.
I pressed my fingertips against my temple, feeling the ridge of scar tissue.
“The man you knew? He was obliterated. When that bat connected with my head, it killed Dope. This body just didn’t get the memo.
The wiring’s all wrong now. I feel nothing where I should feel everything, and everything where I should feel nothing.
Truth is …” my voice cracked, “Dope had to die for me to survive.”
Sadness flickered across Ella’s face, then she masked it again. “We’re just glad you’re home. I’m sorry for my reaction, you look amazing. The brown hair really works on you too.” She offered me a soft smile as she crossed the room and flung her arms around my neck.
“I love the name Ryker, by the way.” She gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek, and I wrapped her in a big hug. I’d missed them. I didn’t want to touch that thought for long. Instead, I filed it and kept moving.
A twinge of belonging hit my chest, but it disappeared almost as fast. Dope had always been drowning in his own emotions, struggling against the OCD that strangled his thoughts.
I still felt the disorder’s talons sometimes, but they couldn’t pierce as deeply now.
No pills, no weed—just raw clarity slicing through the fog.
Every sense heightened to a razor’s edge.
And my cock? Fucking ravenous. Those rehab nurses never knew what hit them.
Once my body was physically ready, I’d jackhammered my way through the staff like a man possessed.
“Yeah, we’re glad you’re back, Ryker.” Sebastian spoke my name as if he were testing it out on his tongue. “If you’re ready for the society, we’re ready to have you.”
Kip glanced at me. “I think we need to work out together so you can show me your arm and chest days. You’re making me look bad in front of my fiancée.” He shot me a grin.
Ella returned to the couch, less wide-eyed than when I’d arrived.
“No shit? You decided to keep this motherfucker?” I walked over to Holland and pulled her in, crushing her against me in a bear hug that lasted way too long. I smirked at Kip over her shoulder, daring him to say something.
Holland’s giggle filled my ears, vibrating through my chest, and for that split second, I was ripped back in time. The sound hit something in me before it slid off like water on glass. Then—nothing.
I released Kip’s girl and grabbed him by the shoulders, nearly lifting him off the ground. “Fucking congratulations, man. Can’t believe someone finally agreed to be stuck with your ass forever.”
Our laughter filled the room, and a twinge of regret gripped my chest. I’d missed an entire year of my goddamn life, and I would never get it back. It would take time to even put the puzzle pieces back together. First, I wanted to check on my computers.
“I’m headed downstairs. Anyone mess with my shit while I was gone?”
“Nah,” Bass answered, his Australian accent thicker than usual as he took Ella’s hand in his. “Those are your babies. No one would be stupid enough to fuck with them.”
I headed for the stairs tucked behind the living room and down into the daylight basement I’d turned into my command center. Concrete floors. Dark paint. Slits for windows choked the light to a strangled trickle. Half bunker, half office. My kind of church.
An eerie feeling snaked down my back as the hairs on my neck bristled. The computer setup pulled me in immediately. The rabbit tattoo burned into my skin as if it had just been inked. I clenched my jaw against the urge to claw at it while I strolled across the room.
The night of the attack, I’d seen something. Learned something that had ripped my soul out through my fucking eye sockets. But the memory was gone. A phantom limb I could still feel but couldn’t touch. A constant, maddening itch burrowing deeper into my brain stem with every passing second.
Goddammit. Whatever I’d discovered had nearly gotten me murdered, which meant I’d stumbled onto something nuclear about the Pied Piper.
That ice-cold, calculating bastard whose genius made Einstein look like a fucking kindergartner.
A monster who turned killing into performance art while he yanked on our strings and watched us dance like puppets in his sick little theater.
The screens blazed awake at my touch, bathing my face in their harsh glow.
I sank into my chair, the worn cushion bottoming out against the frame.
Piece of shit. Once, I’d wasted away here, my ass molded to this seat.
Not anymore. Now I hammered my body into submission six days a week until my muscles screamed.
No more rotting in digital purgatory. I had a fucking vendetta to settle.
I booted my secured laptop and routed through my usual layers. My fingers flew across the keyboard as I connected to the dark web, aware that my friends were staring over my shoulder.
The database thrummed with a heartbeat, never pausing, never sleeping.
“This is the one I programmed to hunt the monsters. The ones who think they’re beyond the consequences.
” My palms tingled with anticipation as names materialized on the screen, each one a predator marked for extinction.
Sebastian had built the Horizon Society from nothing, a sanctuary network born from blood and necessity.
Kip and I didn’t just help the women and children escape.
We erased them, helped rebuild their lives, while their abusers?
We delivered them gift-wrapped to our close friend who called himself Death.
He had a particular talent for making men scream before they disappeared forever.
“Kip got the messages too,” Bass said. “We’ve stayed busy while you were away.”
I spun my chair around, locking eyes with Kip. “I’m done hiding behind screens. I want in. I want to work with Death.” My body could do violence again. It just charged interest, but I was willing to pay it.
Kip’s expression darkened. “You used to puke at the sight of blood.”
Dope would have turned green at that. Stumbled back. Gagged.
A flicker of something twisted low in my gut.
Not quite disdain. Something colder. Because nothing about that felt familiar anymore—not the nausea, not the instinct to look away.
Somewhere along the line that instinct had hollowed out and been replaced by something hungrier.
What used to make me sick now pulled at me, low and insistent.
I didn’t look away anymore.
I leaned into it.
My lips peeled back in a feral grin. “Dying changes a man. I came back hungry for it—need to feel it on my hands.”
Kip’s jaw tightened as he shot Bass a loaded glance. “You want me to run this by Death? He’ll have opinions.”
Bass planted his feet wide, knuckles whitening as he gripped his belt. “Listen, Ryker. I still need your brain on those computers. Death agrees or not—you’re irreplaceable. We nearly fucking collapsed without you.”
“I need to feel something real again.”
The room went dead silent. No one moved. Finally, Ella broke the tension. “Dope. I mean Ryker. Let’s regroup after you’ve settled in. We’ll make it work.” She patted my shoulder.
“Fine. I’m pretty tired, so some sleep sounds good. It’s been a big day.” Every second in that room cost me something I didn’t have left to spend. I needed space to breathe. To stop performing for an audience who loved me.
I assumed they’d take the hint and leave.
“We stocked your fridge,” Holland added. “Ella’s idea. High-protein stuff to rebuild your strength.”
“I appreciate it.” I stood and we all went back upstairs.
One by one they filed out of my front door and to their cars.
The second the last car pulled away, I slammed the door.
I secured all three deadbolts. One. Two.
Three. Then I checked every window latch in the same order I always did—left to right, top to bottom—until the house complied.
The new camera system would be installed soon.
I practically lunged for my computers, dropping into that goddamn chair that bit into my spine.
This was the only place I didn’t have to pretend. I didn’t have to act human. Upstairs, I pretended I still belonged to people. Down here, I belonged to a purpose. A purpose that didn’t ask me to be human, only accurate.
Lightning detonated in my head, white-hot and blinding.
Metal rang in my skull, the baseball bat’s ghost. Acid churned in my gut as I locked my jaw until my teeth threatened to crack.
One second. Two. Ten. A thousand. Then the agony eased, dropping to a dull roar.
I gulped air and pinned myself to the seat.
If my friends saw this weakness, the pathetic echo of what happened, Death would never allow me to hunt with him. Worse than that, my friends’ eyes would fill with that sickening sympathy. That look that says you’re broken. One year since the attack, and I was still crippled by it.
I despised the numbness when it hit, and how it turned me into an emotionless machine. But when fragments of my former self occasionally surfaced—laughing, feeling, caring—I hated him even more. What I’d barely admitted to myself? I wasn’t scared of hurting. I was scared of breaking.
I checked the clock as the screen flickered, pulling my attention to it. My knuckles whitened around the mouse, teeth grinding, the pain distant and familiar. I leaned forward in anticipation. Waiting. Then the message appeared.
WELCOME BACK, RYKER.
It wasn’t a greeting. Just a ping. A reminder that someone was watching and knew about my name change.
Good. This time I was ready, and only one of us would walk away alive.
“Game on, motherfucker,” I whispered.