Chapter Ten
Berkley
By now, Stanley Picklemire’s name is plastered across every major news outlet like some sensational headline meant to shock suburban America into locking their doors.
His picture—smug and polished in a dated press photo—flickers across TV screens, phone notifications, scrolling banners at the bottom of news channels.
“Local businessman perishes in tragic fire,” they say.
“Investigators search for cause.” No one dares to call it what it really is.
Retribution.
I’m long gone from the scene, already across town, the smoke miles behind me and fading into the night.
The city moves on like it always does—buzzing, oblivious.
Stanley’s businesses will eventually draw too much attention, but not yet.
Maybe it’s the late hour or the fact that they’re so sterile on the outside—all glass walls and sleek metal.
Clean. Corporate. Unassuming. No one’s traipsing around the AutoHalo lots looking for answers. Not the public, not the press.
No one but me.
The first two locations were taken care of last night, hidden beneath the cover of darkness.
Carefully. Quietly. I scoped them out earlier, then returned when the streets were empty, moving like a ghost through the shadows.
It took longer than I wanted—being a one-woman operation means every step rests on my shoulders—but precision matters.
I don’t do this for spectacle. I don’t crave chaos.
I do it for justice. These buildings need to fall the right way—collapsing inward, like diseased lungs finally giving out—without taking innocent lives down with them.
The charges are hidden—tucked behind service panels, nestled beneath insulation, masked by the natural mess of forgotten spaces. Everything is timed. Everything is ready. All that’s left is this last location.
I crouch behind the display tower of electric sedans, sliding a narrow strip of det cord into place along the structural seam.
My hands move fast, practiced, sure. But even now, even after everything I’ve done, there’s a strange calm that moves through me.
A stillness. It’s not peace—I haven’t felt that in years—but it’s close.
There are moments in the quiet before destruction, where I almost feel like the girl I used to be.
Then the darkness catches up.
It always does.
It creeps in from the edges of my thoughts, coiling along my spine like smoke.
In those moments, I’m not the girl I used to be.
I’m something else entirely—something forged from pain and honed by silence.
I live for the fire now. For the breathless seconds right before everything gives way and burns.
I’m finishing the last connection when it happens. A subtle shift. A prickling heat that skates across the back of my neck like an icy blade.
Tingles.
They start on my arms, soft and nearly ignorable, like brushing past static. But then they intensify—settling into the base of my spine, crawling beneath my skin with slow insistence. Not panic. Not quite.
Awareness.
The air changes—heavier, denser. That quiet warning settles in, the kind that says you’re being watched. I haven’t seen anyone yet, but I can feel it, and that’s enough.
My fingers still. The surrounding shadows grow deeper, denser. I exhale slowly, adjusting my stance, letting instinct take over.
I’ve been hunted before—cornered, underestimated, left for dead. But they don’t know who they’re chasing now. Because I’m not a scared little girl anymore. That version of me burned away in the fire with my father.
I’m not a victim.
I’m not just a survivor.
I’m what comes after.
The reckoning wrapped in skin and scars.
The storm that rolls in once the silence breaks.
And if they come looking for the girl who vanished in flames, they’re about to learn the truth the hard way—she didn’t die.
She transformed.
And she didn’t come back empty-handed.
She came back carrying fire.
Just because I’m here for revenge—driven by it, fed by it—that doesn’t mean I’m reckless.
I’m not some mindless flame-flinger looking for chaos.
I may burn everything down, but I do it with precision.
With purpose. Every move is calculated, every step deliberate.
And that’s exactly why I don’t ignore the shift in the surrounding air.
As soon as that electric warning skates across my skin, I move—sliding behind a steel beam and tucking myself into the shadows like I’ve always belonged there. I freeze. Watching. Waiting.
Another presence moves in the dark. Subtle, but there. Just out of reach. Another shadow among many, but this one is different.
The interesting part? I don’t feel fear. There’s no spike of adrenaline, no instinct to run. It’s not danger I sense—it’s curiosity. Like the monster inside of me, the one I’ve kept caged and sharpened over the years, recognizes something in the dark. Another monster—silent and watching.
And suddenly, she wants to come out and play.
The thought itself is ridiculous. Maybe even a little horrifying. Still, I can’t stop it—a strange, giddy laugh slips out before I can rein it in. I roll my eyes at myself, because damn it, I know it’s true.
I’m not afraid of whoever’s out there. Not even a little. If anything, it feels like they’re waiting for me to notice them—to invite them closer.
I almost turn back to my work, fingers itching to finish setting the final det cord line. Because if this person—whoever they are—isn’t trying to stop me, I see no reason to hesitate. Let them watch. Let them question what they’re seeing.
But then the shadows shift.
It’s not dramatic. No grand entrance. Just a subtle movement, like the dark itself is exhaling. Shapes rearrange. The weight of the air changes again.
And suddenly, there he is.
A solid figure pulled from the deepest part of my memory, from a time that feels like a dream and a nightmare twisted together.
Ronan.
He doesn’t step fully into the light—he hovers at the edge of the shadows, like that’s where he’s meant to be.
Watching. Waiting. The darkness wraps around him like a second skin, but even from where I’m half-hidden behind steel and silence, I feel his attention slice through it all, sharp and deliberate, like a blade finding its mark.
His eyes aren’t searching. They’re fixed on my exact position.
It isn’t just fixation; it’s something deeper, more instinctive. A charged awareness hums between us, like a live wire pulled tight and vibrating. He feels me. The same way I feel him.
We’ve always called to each other like this—quiet, magnetic, inevitable. Our monsters learned the same language long before we ever did. But now… now that mine has fully awakened, and his has clearly been honing itself in my absence, the pull between us feels sharper. More dangerous.
It’s not just awareness.
It’s a collision.
That low, pulsing recognition between two things born of the same chaos. And I know—deep down in the place I’ve tried to bury for years—that our monsters recognize each other. And they approve.
Still, he waits.
He doesn’t charge forward, doesn’t shout my name or demand answers. He just stands there, still as stone, watching me from within the dark like he’s daring me to make the next move.
I’d like to believe I’ve hidden myself well enough—that all he sees is the intriguing fighter he’s been chasing, the underground legend known only as Cupcake. I want to believe he’s still connecting the dots, still searching.
But my gut twists.
Ronan’s never been easy to fool. He’s too smart. Too damn intuitive for his own good. And he’s always seen through people—through me—even when I wasn’t ready to be looked at that closely.
He doesn’t just sense me.
He knows.
And in that moment, under the dim industrial light, across a stretch of cool concrete and tension so thick it nearly vibrates, I accept it.
He sees me.
All of me.
Even the pieces I thought I burned in the fire.
I should’ve known I couldn’t hide from him.
Out of all of them, I always knew—he’d be the hardest to escape.
As much as I want to run to him—throw myself into his arms and pretend the world outside doesn’t exist—I know better. That kind of safety? That kind of forever? It’s just a dream. A sweet, aching lie I let myself taste for half a second before the truth slams back into place.
Ronan always tried to protect me. With fists and fury.
With that quiet, unwavering way he looked at me like I mattered—like I was worth saving, even when I couldn’t see it myself.
But intentions don’t always change outcomes.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you fight, the world burns anyway. And we burned right along with it.
None of what happened was his fault. Or mine. Sometimes the cards are dealt, and there’s no reshuffling the hand. You play what you’re given—win or lose. And back then? We lost. Badly.
But maybe—just maybe—there’s still something waiting for us on the river. A shot at redemption buried in the ash.
I turn my attention back to the task in front of me. My hands are steady, my mind locking back into focus. He found me. I don’t know how, but he put the pieces together. Who I am. Where I’d be.
And he’s not moving to stop me.
He just watches—quiet and controlled—letting me do exactly what I came here to do.
Which tells me something. On some level, he understands. Maybe he even agrees.
That works for me.
If he wants to see what I’ve become, then he can stand there and watch.
Thirty minutes.
That’s how long it takes to finish wiring the building. Every connection is deliberate; every line placed with care. I move through the darkness on instinct alone, muscle memory guiding me—steady, focused, precise.
And through all of it, Ronan never moves.
Not a single step. Not a word. He remains tucked into the shadows like he’s part of them, watching me with that unblinking intensity I remember all too well.
I feel his gaze following every move I make, a steady pressure against my skin—not threatening, just heavy. Laden with questions he doesn’t voice.
But he never comes any closer.
Maybe he’s giving me space. Or maybe he’s waiting—biding his time until the moment feels right to strike.
To drag those unspoken questions out of the dark and force answers from me I’m not ready to give.
Because now he knows I’m alive. Now the illusion of my death has cracked wide open.
And he won’t stop. I know him too well for that.
He’ll dig. He’ll pull apart every thread, chase every lead, tear the whole thing down until the truth is laid bare.
And I don’t know if I’m ready for what that truth will cost either of us.
There’s still so much I don’t understand. Too many questions I’ve avoided because asking them feels more dangerous than staying silent.
And the biggest one?
Where the hell is my best friend?
How could they let their father send Reign away—hide her like some shameful secret in a locked room while the rest of them pretended she was just…
gone? How do you do that to someone you love?
How do you let them vanish, buried under the weight of your father’s filth, and keep breathing like the world hasn’t ended?
But now’s not the time. Not yet.
We remain silent—two ghosts orbiting the same graveyard, both carrying too many dead things inside us.
When I’m done, I don’t look back. My steps stay light and deliberate as I move toward the edge of the lot, where the night bleeds into pavement and swallows me whole.
Ronan doesn’t try to stop me. He only watches, eyes sharp and predatory, already cycling through a thousand possibilities. Always calculating. Always hunting.
My monster feels him—senses the way he studies me like prey he hasn’t quite figured out how to trap yet. But she isn’t afraid of him. Not even close. She likes the attention. She stretches inside me, curious and entertained by the chase.
So, I let her indulge.
As I slip back into the shadows, I toss him a kiss across the lot—taunting, unapologetic—before disappearing down the bike path. My body hums with adrenaline as I go, my exit clean, my presence erased.
Once I’ve put enough distance between myself and the building, I slow just enough to pull out my phone. My fingers don’t shake. This part—the ignition—it’s ritual now. Controlled. Clean.
I dial. The connection clicks. A breath of pure silence stretches tight between two points in time—before and after.
Then, the world behind me erupts.
Flames roar to life, consuming steel and glass in an instant, lighting up the night like a sunrise made of vengeance.
The blast rattles windows and kicks heat down the street in rolling waves.
My hair whips around me, the purple strands catching the blaze—swirls of violet wrapped in flickers of orange, red, and gold.
For a moment, I appear as if the fire’s made me part of it.
Even from this distance, I swear I can feel the flames licking at my back. Not enough to burn, but just enough to remind me what it felt like.
My scarred arm tingles beneath the fabric of my sleeve—an echo of pain, memory, and fury stitched into the healing of the skin.
And still… Ronan doesn’t come after me.
I know he’s there. Watching. I feel him like a steady pull along my spine. But he doesn’t shout. Doesn’t chase. Doesn’t try to stop me.
He lets me go.
Aside from the cocky smirk that had tilted across his lips when I blew him a kiss—sharp, knowing, like he was already three steps ahead—he gives me nothing. No chase. No challenge.
Because Ronan’s not the type to make a move too early.
He’s going to play the long game.
And now that he knows I’m alive… I’ve just become the prey he plans to stalk, inch by inch.
Only he doesn’t know I stopped being prey a long time ago.
I hunt, too.
And I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.