Chapter 11
Sera
I’m going to say something controversial…so gird your loins, I guess?
Those energy drinks are terrible. Terrible-tasting, terrible for you, just terrible.
I would rather drink glue or cum or literally anything else than chug some sugary drink that tastes like battery acid mixed with cough syrup, but they seem to be the poison of choice for this city since I have to restock them every single damn day.
I start to do that at the beginning of my shift when the bell above the door dings. I don’t look up immediately, but I know who it is before I do.
I can sense that intense stare caressing my skin. The particular quality of attention that’s become familiar over these past weeks—focused, hungry, complicated in ways I don’t have words for.
My Detective Eddie.
My hands freeze on the case of Monsters, my fingers pressing into the cardboard hard enough to dent it.
He stands in the doorway, backlit by the dark-gray sky outside.
Storm clouds have been gathering all day, turning the world outside the fluorescent bubble of Gas N’ Go into something dim and threatening.
For a moment, he’s just a silhouette—broad shoulders, the familiar set of his stance, the outline of that leather jacket he always wears.
Then he steps forward into the harsh fluorescent glare, and I see it.
He looks like a ghost, like a man who’s been hollowed out and left standing through sheer muscle memory alone. His blue eyes are red-rimmed, not from tears but from the kind of exhaustion that comes from staring at something terrible. The kind of tired that sleep won’t fix.
His jaw is tight, working slightly like he’s grinding his teeth.
And that’s when I see it. Or don’t see it, rather. There’s no badge on his belt. No gun bulging his jacket either.
“Sera.” My name sounds like gravel in his throat. “I must have just missed you at your house.”
The ruin in his voice makes my breath hitch, and I almost drop the box of Monsters. I set it down at my feet and let the refrigerator door close.
“What happened?” I ask softly.
He walks toward me with the careful, measured steps of a man trying not to shatter. “It’s over.”
Two words, flat and final.
My stomach drops. “What’s over?”
“Me. My career.” He laughs, a dry, brittle sound. “Suspended pending investigation. The Internal Affairs meeting is tomorrow morning.”
My next thought hits like a fist. “Vincent did this?”
“Yes and no.” Eddie pulls a hand through his floppy hair, the gesture tired and defeated, and he looks around to make sure no one is within earshot.
No one is. “ I don’t blame James. He was careful.
But he used the same kind of adhesive I do.
The same specialized polymer. And that alone would have been enough to raise questions. But there’s more.”
He pauses, his throat working.
“There’s security footage of my car at the scene that night that’s time-stamped and clear as day, even though I myself was not there. Even though I was…” He stops, his jaw clenching. “I was with you.”
My mouth drops open. The implications spiral out, dizzying. “What are you talking about?”
“Someone stole my car.” His voice is carefully controlled, but I hear the rage underneath, banked but dangerous. “They drove it to Michael Devlin’s street. Parked it where a neighbor’s security camera would catch it. Then brought it back before I even noticed it was gone.”
He looks at me then, really looks at me, and the hollow devastation in his eyes makes something crack inside my chest.
“A neighbor saw someone matching my description walking toward Devlin’s house. Someone who wanted me gone. Who needed me out of the way.”
The words hang between us.
“But…” I shake my head.
Someone stole his car, meaning they broke into it, meaning they knew our plan while we were carrying it out. The only person I can think of who may want the detective removed from the board—who would benefit from the chaos—has a grainy face in security footage and a history of sneaking into cars.
Oh my god.
Red Hands.
I want to ask questions, but the words stick in my throat like broken glass.
“My badge is gone,” Eddie continues, his voice dropping to something quieter, even more terrible. “My gun. My access to the legal system. My ability to pull files, run searches, investigate anything officially, and keep you hidden from Vincent.”
He leans forward slightly, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
“But don’t think for one second that I can’t protect you anymore, Sera. I will. Always. Badge or no badge. Gun or no gun. I don’t need official authority to keep you safe.”
The fierce certainty in his voice should comfort me. Instead, it makes my guilt even worse.
The weight of it crashes down like a collapsing building. My Mind. The piece of my court who understood the system, who could move through the legal machinery Vincent controls with insider knowledge and official sanction, gone.
And it’s my fault.
Because it was my plan. My brilliant idea to help that broken woman by framing her abuser.
My reckless, arrogant belief that I could tear abusers down without consequences to myself.
That I could play this game and win. That I was smart enough, careful enough, ruthless enough to outmaneuver everyone. That I could play this game and win.
“Eddie—“
“Don’t,” he cuts me off, gentle but firm. “Don’t apologize. Don’t say it’s your fault. Don’t try to fix it because there’s nothing to fix. I have no regrets, Sera. Not about you.”
The words should feel like absolution, but they feel like knives.
“What now?” The question scrapes out of me.
“I don’t know.” A bitter smile ghosts across his lips. “But maybe it’s for the best. Maybe I was always going to end up here—just another dirty cop who thought he could bend the rules and get away with it.”
“You’re not dirty.” The words are fierce, almost violent.
“You’re trying to help people. Trying to stop monsters.
You’re trying to help me, and my plan backfired all over you.
You were not the one who was supposed to be stopped by this, Eddie.
It was supposed to be Michael Devlin in handcuffs, not you facing termination. ”
My throat tightens. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, and those words don’t even begin to describe how sorry I am.”
He stalks forward and cups my cheek, his touch warm and solid and achingly gentle. “Stop blaming yourself.”
I lean into his touch. “Too late.”
My court. My beautiful, doomed attempt at building something powerful. Something that could stand against Vincent and this whole rotting city.
And I’ve destroyed it. Hurt a man who didn’t deserve it. A man who was only trying to protect me.
With a sigh that sounds like surrender, Eddie pulls away. His hand drops, and he turns toward the exit.
“Are you coming by tonight?” I ask, a note of desperation in my voice I’ve never heard before.
He pauses in the middle of the aisle, his back to me, and reaches out to straighten a bag of chips on the endcap. The gesture is so him—finding small order in chaos, fixing little things when the big things are unfixable.
“The last thing I want is for all this to blow back on you, so it might be best if I lie low for a while,” he says without turning back.
Then he disappears around the corner. The bell above the door dings his exit—a cheerful, obscene little jingle that mocks the moment.
Gone.
I stand there reeling, my eyes burning. I’ll be damned if I let that man walk out of my life. I may be damned anyway, though. No, I definitely am. But if I’m going down, I’m taking everyone who hurt me—hurt us—with me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. At first I think it’s probably a text from James, checking in, but when I pull my phone out, it’s Ben, likely asking me about his shift tomorrow morning.
I don’t read it. Instead, I open a local news app to see if there are any new bodies. New victims. New evidence of Red Hands circling closer, tightening the noose.
The headlines blur. A town council meeting. A church raffle. Roadwork on the highway.
Then, near the bottom, a story catches my eye.
Wichita Woman Hospitalized Following Domestic Incident
I tap it.
The article loads and shows a generic photo of the hospital. The article contains vague, careful language about “injuries consistent with physical assault.” The suspect fled the scene because of course he did. Police are searching. The woman’s name is withheld for privacy and safety.
But the location isn’t.
The 400 block of Maple Street.
Michael Devlin’s street.
The woman from the gas station. The one who whispered his name to me.
She’s in the hospital.
Because we tried to help her?
We planted Farley’s severed hand to frame her abuser. To make him visible and vulnerable. To give her breathing room while the investigation circled him and eventually snatched him away from her life. That was the plan. That was supposed to be how this worked.
And instead—what? He panicked when the police started asking questions? Got violent? Took out his fear and rage on the nearest target?
On her.
Because our plan fucking backfired.
My vision blurs. Something hot and acidic burns behind my eyes.
I failed her.
Worse than failed. I made it worse for everyone. For her. For Eddie. For everyone stupid enough to get caught in my orbit.
My brilliant plan, all of it smoke and mirrors.
The phone screen swims in front of me. I lower it, gripping the refrigerator door handle with my free hand.
Eddie is gone, suspended and facing termination. The woman is hospitalized, beaten worse because we made her abuser feel cornered. Red Hands still hunts, probably closer than ever now that he’s successfully removed my detective from the board. Vincent still breathes.
And I’m standing here in a gas station at the ass-end of nowhere, queen of absolutely fucking nothing.
My phone buzzes again, and this time I look.
It’s a text from James: You all right, Prayer?
I stare at the words, feel the concern bleeding through the pixels. James, who killed for me. Who planted evidence for me. Who watches me through hidden cameras because his devotion has no concept of boundaries or normal human limits.
My Fist, still loyal, still lethal, still mine.
But what good is a weapon without a mind to wield it? What good is any of it when every move I make leaves ruin in my wake?
I hover my thumbs over the keyboard. What do I say? How do I explain this cascading disaster?
I type back: Fine.
A lie. The oldest lie in the feminine arsenal. No woman who says she’s fine is ever actually fine. But lies are all I have left tonight. Lies and guilt and the growing certainty that I’m in over my head and drowning fast.
I pocket the phone and force myself to move. Back to restocking. Back to the mindless rhythm of minimum-wage-plus-fifty-cents survival that feels like an insult after everything else. Like the universe is mocking me.
You thought you were special? You thought you were building something? Here, stock nasty-ass energy drinks for $7.75 an hour and shut the fuck up.
Somewhere out there, Red Hands is watching, waiting, circling closer now that my detective is gone and off the case.
Somewhere out there, Vincent smiles his smug smile, his wife probably still clutching my photographs, drowning in betrayal while he thinks untroubled thoughts.
Somewhere out there, a woman lies in a hospital bed, broken because I thought I could fix her world with a severed hand and some planted evidence. Because I played god and got it wrong.
And here I stand, the hunter and the weapon, the woman who came to this town with a burning need for revenge.
Except I’m not hunting anymore.
I’m the prey.
And the worst part—the part that makes my teeth grind together as I shove Monster drinks onto the shelf with more force than necessary—is that I did this to myself.
My choices. My plans. My reckless, arrogant belief that I could control the chaos. That I was smart enough, careful enough, ruthless enough to win.
I thought I was building a court, a kingdom of monsters loyal to me, but really I was building a pyre.
And now it’s burning.
The weight of every mistake I’ve ever made presses down like a hand around my throat.
Outside, the villains are regrouping.
And inside this fluorescent cage, so am I.
Because this isn’t over.
It can’t be.
I won’t let it be.
Even if I’m alone. Even if my court is shattered. Even if every plan I touch turns to ashes.
Vincent took everything from me once before, including my sense of safety in my own skin. He violated me in ways that left scars deeper than any knife could cut.
And I survived.
I’ll survive this too.
And when I rise from these ashes…
When I finally, finally twist the knife in his back, he’ll understand exactly what kind of monster he created. What happens when you break someone so completely that they rebuild themselves into something sharp and hungry and utterly without mercy.
My phone buzzes again with another text from James: Need me? I’m right outside.
I stare at the words for a long moment and soak in his devotion, then I type back: Yes.
Because I can’t do this alone, and maybe I was never supposed to.
Maybe that’s the real lesson—not that I need to be stronger, but that I need to let my monsters hunt beside me instead of trying to command them from a distance.
My court isn’t broken.
It’s just…evolving.