Chapter 42
The second I see Malcolm Bellrose standing in front of Cason, every violent instinct in me wakes up at once.
My shadows react first, spilling across the floor in twisting black currents, crawling up the walls and machinery like something alive and starving. The entire chamber darkens around the edges as they surge outward in response to one singular thought pulsing through me over and over and over.
Kill him.
Kill him.
Kill him.
He’s been allowed to live for far too long. It’s been seven years of blood and ghosts and rage and empty fucking revenge. And all that time, I’ve been imagining this moment.
Malcolm watches me enter the room with that same unbearable calm he always wears.
But I can see it now—the acceptance beneath it.
Like he already knows exactly how this ends.
I’m sure he does. I heard enough of his conversation with Cason.
I told him I’d be right behind him, and I meant it.
As soon as I made sure my people had the upperhand upstairs, I followed after him.
And now the shadows that have already approached the closest to Malcolm twitch violently. Hungry. He sees them too and barely reacts.
“I always wondered which one of the futures I saw we’d end up in,” he says, completely composed.
“You won’t have to wonder much longer.”
“Reese.”
Cason turns fully toward me now, eyes still red-rimmed and overwhelmed from all the fucked up shit Malcolm dumped on him. Just hearing him say my name softens something enough that my shadows hesitate.
Only for a moment.
Then I look back at Malcolm, and the rage returns in an instant. My entire body is tense, wound so tight around the urge to finally end this that I can taste it.
Because this man took everything from me.
My life.
My identity.
Ash.
Cason for seven whole years.
Too much fucking time lost and too many people around me dead while he sat behind glass walls pretending he was saving the world.
And it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me that he can see the fucking future.
It doesn’t change the fact that he manipulated Cason, engineered his suffering, and turned his trauma into a fucking blueprint.
I want him dead so badly my hands shake.
For me. But for Cason even more.
“Not that you deserve it,” I tell him, my voice steady and sure from the promise of fulfilling a prophecy of my own, “but I’ll give you one last consolation. You created me to protect Cason? You can rest assured I will do that until my very last breath.”
Something about him changes then, like a dozen years worth of tension bleeds out of him. His shoulders slump, and he sighs. Then he smiles.
“Reese,” Cason says again.
He moves suddenly, stepping between us. Immediately, my shadows recoil away from him on instinct alone, as though they know they’re far too dangerous to be near him right now.
His eyes lock onto mine. “Don’t.”
I laugh once through my nose, not amused. “It’s too late for that.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” My gaze moves past him back to Malcolm. “He’s dying tonight.”
Cason glances back at his uncle before looking at me again, and I can see it. The hesitation. That awful conflict tearing him apart right in front of me. Because Malcolm is a monster. But he’s also family.
Please don’t ask me.
“He could still be useful,” Cason says carefully.
But it’s not careful enough. My shadows surge violently, and the machinery around the room rattles faintly as darkness crawls higher up the walls. They need this as badly as I do, and I don’t know if I have the power to stop them.
“You cannot seriously be arguing for him right now.”
“He has precognitive abilities. Don’t you understand how fucking useful that could be?”
“I understand exactly how dangerous it could be,” I counter.
“Sometimes you have to take the risk.”
“Cason.”
My voice comes out rough, as both a warning and a plea.
Because I would give him anything. Anything.
But this?
Malcolm’s life?
I don’t know if I can do that. Not after everything. Not after seven years of promising myself that this is how it would end, with my shadows tearing him the fuck apart.
Malcolm exhales quietly behind him. “You shouldn’t argue for me, Cason.”
That makes us both look at him, and he looks…tired. Like he’s ready for it all to end too.
“I’ve seen enough possibilities to know how this ends,” he says calmly, his eyes on his nephew.
“How it was always meant to end. Not even I can control fate. Sometimes I just give it a little nudge. But it’s time to stop thinking I can fight it at every turn.
I just needed you to know the truth first.”
He doesn’t sound afraid. He sounds resigned.
“Possibilities,” Cason repeats. “That means there are other possibilities?”
Malcolm is silent, and I think I have an idea as to why. Why he’s resigned, why he’s accepting this without more of a fight. Because he fears those other possibilities.
“Answer him,” I snarl as my shadows lash across the floor.
Malcolm looks at me instead. “There are futures where keeping me alive creates outcomes far worse than killing me.”
“For who?” I ask. “For us or for you?”
“You were always clever, Mr. Morgan,” he says with a faint grin, the light of which doesn’t reach his eyes. “The answer is both.”
“Well, if you’d rather die, I’m more than happy to oblige.”
Darkness spills down from the walls like waterfalls, writhing in Malcolm’s direction until the air itself feels colder. They stretch past my feet, but Cason immediately plants himself directly in front of me again. My shadows twist around him without touching, restless but protective.
He lifts both his hands cautiously, placing them against my chest. Grounding me. Or, at least, trying to.
“Listen to me,” he says.
“I am.”
“No, you’re trying not to murder my uncle.”
“Multitasking.”
Despite everything, despite the tension strangling the room, I see the faintest flicker of amusement cross his face. Because I’ve said that before. When it comes to my shadows, I’m always multitasking.
“There’s my emotionally stable boyfriend,” he mutters.
I almost laugh as something warm blooms in my chest.
Then Malcolm moves behind him, and every violent instinct in me spikes again. My shadows whip around us hard enough that Cason has to brace against me. It was one step. That’s all it was, but it was nearly enough to have me completely forget what it is he’s asking of me and do it anyway.
“Reese,” Cason says, his voice firmer now.
Electric sparks dance across his fingertips where they press against my chest. It’s not threatening, just meant to anchor me. His eyes hold mine, and…
I’m so incredibly fucked.
Because I love him enough to stop.
No matter how much rage or violence or restraint there is, I’ll always fucking stop. Even now, even like this with my shadows pulling on their invisible leash, I would rather tear myself apart holding them back than risk upsetting him.
My jaw clenches painfully as I drag them tighter around us both instead of letting them strike. Because every instinct in me screams that this is wrong, that Malcolm deserves to die. That letting him live is a mistake we’ll regret.
But Cason’s standing between us looking at me like he’s asking for trust instead of blood.
And God help me…
I can’t deny him.
The room feels one wrong breath away from collapsing in on itself. Cason’s hands stay planted against my chest, electricity flickering weakly beneath his skin while my shadows writhe around us like starving animals pulling at chains. Behind him, Malcolm watches silently. Waiting.
But I look at Cason instead. Really look at him.
And I can see how torn apart he is. How everything Malcolm dumped on him tonight is still rearranging itself inside his head.
The realization that almost every horrible thing in his life traces back to the man standing ten feet away.
And despite all of that, he still doesn’t want me to kill him.
I don’t understand how that makes him stronger than me, but somehow it does.
“Tell me this is because he could be useful. And not just because he’s your family.”
“He’s not my family. Not anymore.” He shakes his head, his eyes sad. “I’ll never forgive him for what he did to us. To you. To Ash.”
The shadows jerk violently around us.
I close my eyes for two seconds because I can feel what they want. They’ve wanted it for years. They react to my anger like blood in water, pressing harder against the room every second that Malcolm Bellrose keeps breathing.
Ash flashes through my mind. Then the others. All those bodies, all that blood. Everything Malcolm built on top of their graves.
And still, Cason stands between us.
Which means his reason is stronger than all of that.
In a world where Ascended exist, seeing probable futures could be useful.
“Besides,” Cason says, “he doesn’t deserve something so quick.”
Behind him, Malcolm bows his head, something deeper than defeat in the shape of his shoulders.
And just like that, I understand what those other possibilities were.
Not mercy or escape or a quick death. He saw the ones where I killed him, and he accepted them because death is easier than what comes for him instead.
Easier than consequences, than facing what I’ll do to him if denied my first choice.
“You just realized it, didn’t you?” Cason asks, that little grin in the corner of his mouth back. “The thing he’s afraid of.”
I take a slow breath as my shadows twitch.
Then Cason says one word.
“You.”
For the first time all night, Malcolm’s composure fractures. He lifts his head, and our eyes lock over Cason’s shoulder. He swallows hard, his jaw ticking. I can see it in him now, what he truly fears.
Chaos. Loss of control. Me.
For seven years, I dreamed about killing this man. Sometimes quickly, sometimes not. I imagined bullets and knives and shadows crushing the air from his lungs while he begged for me to end it.
Standing here now, now that I finally have the chance, I realize death would be too easy. Too merciful. Living with what he’s done is worse.
I know that, yet every instinct in me still screams to kill him. End it. Finish it.
But Cason asked me not to.
And I would burn the fucking world down for him.
Or, in this case, not do the one thing I’ve dreamed of doing for seven fucking years. For him.
So instead, I let a slow, cruel smile take over my face. Then I see it, what I was waiting for. It lights up Malcolm’s eyes, taunting my shadows.
Fear.
“Reese.”
Malcolm’s voice wavers in a way I’ve never heard before. Just my name. A plea.
I may not be killing him tonight, but that was worth the wait.
My shadows explode outward. They hit Malcolm, slamming him backward into the central structure behind him with a violent metallic crack. Darkness wraps around his wrists, yanking his arms wide as more shadows coil around his throat, ribs, legs.
Then they squeeze.
Malcolm grunts as the shadows constrict around him. Tighter and tighter and tighter. Bones creak. His lungs wheeze. The machine at his back groans under the pressure.
Cason steps back beside me as sparks skip across his skin, like he’s itching to join me but letting me have my moment.
Malcolm doesn’t fight. He has too much pride for that, too desperate for the illusion of control. But me and my shadows know him too well by now. They slide beneath skin without breaking it, pressure blooming deep inside muscle and joints, invading every vulnerable place they can reach.
He manages to suck a sip of air into his lungs.
Then he screams.
The sound rips through the chamber, raw and human and nothing like the composed man who’s spent years pretending he’s above suffering.
My shadows tighten their grasp. Not to kill him, not anymore.
Because Cason was right.
Death is mercy. And Malcolm Bellrose doesn’t deserve it.