Chapter 25 Nyx #2
We did not go to Meridian. Malachi refused to drag the Council to his home base, and I understood why even while it made my stomach twist.
We went somewhere underground that smelled like bleach and concrete and money that did not ask permission. Steel doors lined the corridor, cameras watched without blinking, and Elijah killed every signal the moment we crossed the threshold.
Fielding was already there, which meant Malachi had planned this before the Council ever knocked.
Dr. Fielding sat strapped to a metal chair under cold white lights. Thick restraints pinned his chest and thighs, and cuffs held his wrists to the armrests.
He looked smaller without his clinic and his paperwork.
His eyes snapped to me, and he tried to put my name in his mouth. “Nyxelle,” he rasped.
Hearing my full name from him made my stomach turn.
“Where is my sister?” I asked.
Fielding swallowed and tried to sound professional. “I do not know what you mean,” he said.
Jabari stepped behind him and set a hand on his shoulder with the gentleness of a pastor. “Sir,” Jabari said, Southern smooth, polite as church, “I need you to understand something before we begin. We real patient with folk who tell the truth, and we real creative with folk who try to lie.”
Fielding’s breathing sped up.
Kairo pulled a chair and sat in front of Fielding. “Doc,” Kairo said, voice casual, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way. I am in a terrible mood, so choose carefully.”
Elijah stood to the side, hands clean, eyes colder than the lights. “There is no feed,” Elijah said when Fielding glanced toward the camera. “Nothing leaves this room. Nothing enters it unless we allow it.”
Fielding’s face went damp.
Malachi stepped close enough for Fielding to feel him. “You trafficked omegas,” Malachi said. “Tell me where Tatum Brooks is.”
Fielding shook his head too fast. “I do not know her,” he lied.
Jabari sighed like Fielding had disappointed him. “That is a shame,” Jabari said, still polite.
Then Jabari took Fielding’s right hand.
He lifted it gentle, and Fielding made the mistake of thinking courtesy meant mercy. Jabari snapped the ring finger backward until bone gave, and the sound turned wet.
Fielding screamed.
Jabari kept holding the broken finger, calm as Sunday. “I am so sorry,” he said, politeness dripping. “That one right there is gonna hurt. But it is gonna hurt less than the next one if you tell the truth.”
Fielding sobbed and shook, the restraints squealing under him.
“Name her,” I said. “Say my sister’s name, and tell me where you sent her.”
Fielding’s eyes squeezed shut. “I do not,” he choked.
Kairo leaned in, smile gone. “We can keep going,” he said. “You got ten fingers, and you only need one mouth.”
Elijah’s voice stayed clinical. “He is stalling,” he said. He pulled a thin strap from his pocket and cinched it high around Fielding’s forearm until Fielding’s hand started to swell and change color.
Fielding gasped, eyes going wide.
“This is a tourniquet,” Elijah explained, calm as a lecture. “It will make everything you feel sharper. If you pass out, I can wake you back up.”
Malachi stepped closer, and the room tightened around him. He placed two fingers on Fielding’s jaw, not hard, but certain.
“You are going to speak,” Malachi said. “Or you are going to learn how long a body can scream.”
Fielding tried to shake his head.
Kairo reached into the case on the table and produced a pair of narrow pliers, the kind used for medical work and small, precise damage. He caught Fielding’s index finger, pinched at the nail bed, and peeled it up slow.
Fielding shrieked until the sound broke, blood slicking the skin under Kairo’s grip.
Jabari’s voice stayed soft in Fielding’s ear. “Lord, you making this hard on yourself,” he murmured. “You could have just told the truth.”
Fielding sobbed, gagging on the pain.
“I report to Northstar,” he gasped over tears. “Not Meridian. I report to a compliance director. Council liaison.”
My blood ran cold.
Elijah’s eyes narrowed. “Name,” he said.
“I do not know his real name,” Fielding cried. “He uses a title. Registrar.”
Malachi’s gaze did not move. “Tatum.”
Fielding shook his head, and I saw the lie form before he even spoke.
Jabari bent close, voice still gentle. “Sir,” he murmured, “if you make me get ugly, I promise you will miss this version of me.”
Kairo tightened his grip on the pliers and twisted.
Fielding broke.
“She was processed,” he sobbed. “Flagged unbonded. High value. Council requested expedite.”
“Where,” I said.
“A transfer hub,” Fielding rushed out. “A holding facility. An off-grid warehouse. They call it the Annex. Crown Clinic Annex.”
Malachi’s eyes went empty in a way that meant violence was already on the schedule. “Address,” he said.
Fielding tried to stall.
Jabari snapped another finger.
Fielding choked on the scream and spat the address. He gave a gate code, a time stamp, and a description that made my stomach flip.
“How long ago,” I demanded.
Fielding’s eyes were wild. “Two hours,” he gasped. “Council retrieval team. Black sedan. Eye and crown on the glass.”
Two hours, and my stomach dropped hard enough to make me dizzy. The Council did not wait, and neither would we.
Malachi stared at Fielding. “Every name you have,” Malachi said.
Fielding cried and started spilling. He gave drivers, clinic staff, shell companies, and a facilitator who handled registry overrides.
He talked until his voice went hoarse, and when he slowed, Jabari’s hand tightened on his shoulder and Kairo’s stare promised worse. Elijah wrote it down.
When Malachi was satisfied, he stepped back. “We go,” he said.
I stared at Fielding one last time. “If my sister is dead,” I said, voice low, “I will pray you are already in hell. Because I will make earth worse.”
The Annex sat in a dead industrial park, gray buildings and empty lots and a gate that looked. The cameras were too new, and the locks were too serious.
Elijah keyed in the code and the gate slid open. We rolled in quiet, and the bond beat under my skin.
We moved through white tile corridors that made my skin crawl. The room at the end had restraints bolted into the floor, straps on a chair, and a drain in the center with blood drying at the edges.
My throat closed and my lungs forgot what to do. “Tatum,” I whispered.
A clipboard sat on the counter.
At the top, stamped in clean black ink, was the symbol.
An eye over a crown.
Below it, one word.
RECOVERED.
Then the name.
TATUM brOOKS.
Status: ASSET TRANSFERRED.
Registry: PENDING.
Kairo’s hand landed on my shoulder, not gripping, only there. I could not accept comfort, not yet, so I swallowed around the burn and kept breathing.
Elijah lifted the form and showed the time stamp. “Transfer logged at 06:12,” he said.
We were late, and the feeling was worse than fear because it was arithmetic. They moved her, and we had arrived after the receipt.
Jabari read the paper twice, then looked up, his expression turning into something polite and terrifying. “They got here first,” he said.
Malachi’s gaze found mine. “You see what they do,” he said.
“Yes,” I whispered.
The bond tightened, not soft and not sweet, only territorial, and it pulled. Somewhere out there, the Council clock was still running, and my sister was in their hands.
Then I saw the bottom of the form, and the anger in my chest sharpened into focus.
A shipment number sat beside a destination code, both printed in that clean Council font. It was not a name or a city, but it was a thread, and threads were what I knew how to pull.
“I can trace this,” I said, voice steady, showing Elijah the code with my fingertip. “No Meridian channels. Offline only. You give me a clean device and a hard line that does not touch their network, and I will tell you where they took her.”
Elijah’s gaze stayed locked on the paper, pupils tight. “I can do it,” he said. “And I can do it now.”
Kairo’s hand tightened on my shoulder, warm and furious. “We are not losing her,” he said, and the bond flared.
Jabari stepped closer, slow and deliberate, and his voice went soft in that Southern way. “Baby,” he said, “we will find your sister. I do not care who got her first, and I do not care what it costs us.”
Malachi met my eyes, and there was no softness in him, only certainty. “We bring her back,” he said. “Even if it kills us.”
The words landed in my chest. I did not trust promises as a rule, but the bond did not let me dismiss this one.
I nodded once. “Then we do not beg the Council,” I said. “We take what belongs to us, and we make sure they never mistake me for something they can recover again.”