Chapter 50
Sitka greets us with that fake-nice summer bullshit, sun out, air warm, like it didn’t spend nine months trying to kill everyone.
Dove and I linger in the doorway of the mechanic shop while the security guys do their thing, radios chirping, eyes everywhere at once. They’ll turn the garage inside out, lock it down, and make it solid enough that I can leave her here under their watch.
She braces a shoulder against the doorframe, smiling, as a group of people walk past us, their heads turned, openly staring at me.
Yeah, I’ve armored up today.
A black lace corset ties loosely under my cropped jacket, my scars peeking above the boning. A plaid kilt hangs low on my hips, cut for movement, not ceremony. I layered fishnet under it because Sitka summer is still Sitka.
My stompy combat boots look as loud and mean as my heavy black eyeliner, which flares out toward my cheeks in scalloped, Gothic streaks. I added the pearls at my throat mostly because I like how they confuse people who think they’ve already figured me out.
Today calls for extra of everything. Because if Jag Rath read my journal, he now knows my weaknesses. The only way to prepare for that is to own who I am.
“All clear, sir.” Carl steps out of the garage. “Found this taped to the wall.”
He hands me a scrap of cardboard that reads Lunch in thick marker.
“Guess Taaq and Chester took a late break.” Dove pauses in the doorway. Not in. Not out.
Sunlight slashes across her face, catching on her septum, Medusa, and eyebrow piercings. Her hair hangs unbound, rippling around her in ocean-blue waves.
A sleeveless cherry-printed crop top knots at her ribs, and her high-waisted black shorts have enough stretch to squat under a chassis without flashing the universe.
She catches me staring and quirks a brow. “What?”
“Just appreciating my excellent taste in clothes and the woman who wears them.”
“Pretty sure you bought these clothes for yourself.”
“Pretty sure they’re too small for me.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” She crouches, grabbing her quad skates from the side where she always kicks them.
After she shoves them on and ties the laces, she continues to stall in the doorway.
I stall with her. Too close to leave. Too far to pretend I’m not stalling.
“You can just let Jag go, you know,” she says.
“I know.”
She takes me in from head to toe. The eyeliner. The kilt. The way my shoulders set like I’m bracing for impact instead of a conversation.
“You’re wickedly intimidating.” A corner of her mouth lifts. “He won’t know what to do with you.”
“No one does.”
“I do.” She hooks a finger in my corset and pulls me close.
Dear goddess of diesel fumes, I fucking love this woman.
She’s strong without advertising it. Fierce without cruelty. Her quiet doesn’t ask for permission. It just exists.
I don’t want to leave her here. The thought digs into my gut and refuses to be polite.
“I’ll be here.” She straightens the pearls at my throat and traces an exposed scar. “Only a few blocks away.”
“I know. Still don’t like it.”
“Go.” She presses a toe stop into the cement and nudges me backward. “Do the thing.”
“Yeah.” I keep backing up, eyes glued to her gorgeous face. “There’s something I need to do first.”
She stays where she is, framed by the open doorway, sunlight outlining her like heaven’s trying to steal her back.
I keep walking backward, right into the street, and stop dead in the middle of it.
Arms out and boots planted, I yell, “Hey, everyone! I have an announcement!”
People flinch. Heads turn. A guy with a coffee freezes mid-stride. Two tourists look thrilled, like they just stumbled into local entertainment.
An older woman with grocery bags clocks me, makes the sign of the cross, and hurries away like I’m the anti-Christ.
“Ma’am!” I shout after her. “You’re gonna want to hear this!”
She runs away like she absolutely does not want to hear it.
A couple of younger guys linger by the curb, grinning. One of them pulls out his phone.
“Everybody scoot closer.” I wave them in. “This is a group experience. Don’t be shy. I’m fragile but committed.”
Dove covers her mouth, her eyes bright. Oh, no. Does she know what this is? She definitely knows.
I take a big breath. Too big. Then I bellow, “I love this woman!”
The harbor echoes it back.
“Her.” I point at her hard in case there’s any confusion. “Right there. In the doorway. With the skates.”
A guy laughs. Someone claps once, unsure.
“I love her. I love her. I loooooove her!” I spin in a slow circle, addressing the street, the docks, the sky, the entire postal code. “I love her when she’s quiet. I love her when she’s mad. I love her when she’s fixing engines and ignoring me on purpose. I love her all the time.”
Dove laughs, full-bodied and unguarded, with pink cheeks and wet-honey eyes.
She pushes off the doorway on her skates, rolls forward, and cups her hands around her mouth. “I love you, too!”
People cheer. Someone whistles. The guy filming gives me a thumbs-up.
I bow, dramatic and unnecessary, then backpedal out of the road, grinning like an asshole with a pulse.
From the sidewalk across the street, I catch her gaze and blow her a kiss. She snatches it out of the air, licks it, and fires it back at me.
I stay there a second longer, watching her roll backward into the garage. The door yawns wider to take her in. The light shifts. She’s inside, probably already reaching for a tool.
The guards move into place, two at the door, two flanking the lot. Exactly where they belong.
That’s when I turn.
Extra eyeliner. Extra steel. Extra resolve. I head for the tattoo parlor, ready to face whatever Jag Rath thinks he has waiting for me.
A few blocks away, the front door gives way under my hand. Too easy. It should’ve been locked. The shop is closed today.
“Shit.” I pull a knife from my boot and rush inside.
And slam to a stop.
My brain tries to process the mess on the floor.
The blood.
The bodies.
One by the front desk. One half-curled like he tried to crawl. Blood slicks across the concrete, dragged by boots that don’t belong to the people left behind. Throats open. Stab wounds everywhere else.
My chest collapses.
“No.” I step around them, moving deeper into the shop. “No, no, no.”
Another body near the chairs. Another by the coffee machine. Eyes open.
I force myself to look at them, one by one, dread climbing higher with each heartbeat.
Please don’t be him. Please don’t be him.
My hands shake, and my airway pinches shut. Extra eyeliner feels like a joke as I grab wrists, check necks, and examine faces.
All four guards are dead, and they’re still warm. Not cooling or stiff. Heat clings to skin, the blood fresh. Whatever happened here is breathing down my neck.
My eyes lift.
The break room door stands open. Blood trails toward it. Or from it? Footprints overlap, in and out.
If Jag is in there…
My pulse roars in my ears as I step closer, every sense on high alert. I brace for anything. Another body, a final stand, Jag on the floor with his throat torn open.
I push the door fully open.
More blood.
A knocked-over table.
No Jag.
He isn’t here, and neither is his duffel bag. The corner, where the bag sat only hours earlier, is empty.
He left.
And everyone between him and the exit paid for it.
Dove.
She flashes through my head like a siren, and my phone is in my hand before I realize it.
My thumb shakes against the screen as I swipe to call her security team. But before I connect, the screen flashes with an incoming call.
GI Joe Carl
“Carl.” I sheathe the knife in my boot and head to the door. “Jag’s gone. Guards are dead. Move Dove. Now! Get her to the yacht—”
“Sir,” Carl snaps. “She already left.”
“What?” I stumble onto the sidewalk.
“She said she didn’t feel well and wanted to head back to the yacht to wait for you. That’s why I’m calling. We initiated a location change and have eyes on her.”
“The entire security team is with her?”
“Affirmative, sir. Did you say Mr. Rath is gone? And the guards—?”
“Rath is gone. Guards are dead.” The phone bounces against my ear as I tear down the street. “I’m coming to you. Where exactly—?”
“Hold on.” An explosion of wrong sounds blasts through the line. Wind. Shouting. Footsteps pounding.
My pulse skyrockets, and I pick up my pace.
“Shit! She’s running.” Carl barks commands at his team, panting. “She bolted. Took off through the harbor. She shook the two closest guys—”
“Why is she running?” I shout, sprinting down the street. “Where is she?”
The sidewalk blurs. The sky tilts. My boots slam pavement hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“Where is she?” I yell.
“Heading east through the docks,” Carl wheezes. “Near the fish processors.”
I cut corners, and people shout as I shove past them. Someone curses. Someone stumbles. I don’t slow down. My lungs burn. My legs scream. I push harder.
“She’s fast.” Carl’s footfalls pound through the phone. “Jesus, she’s fast.”
My chest locks up with fear so sharp it tries to fold me in half.
Why is she running? Something must’ve spooked her.
“Carl,” I gasp. “If he gets anywhere near her—”
“We won’t lose her.” His voice cracks. “You hear me? We’re not—”
I disconnect as the pier comes into view. Wood planks, rocking boats, rigging clattering like bones… I scan the throngs of people as the harbor clangs in my ears.
“Dove!” I yell into the crowd and the air and the universe like she might hear me through sheer force. “Dove!”
Then I see it.
A flash of blue a few docks down. Just a glimmer, just enough to hook my spine and yank.
“Dove!” I tear toward it, running faster than I ever have in my life. Faster than fear. Faster than thought. Faster than anything Jag Rath ever planned for.
My boots strike the planks, lungs shredding and vision tunneling as I scream her name.
“Dove! Stop!” As I close the distance, a speedboat slides in beside her, smooth and wrong, entirely out of place.
She keeps her back to me, and my panic goes feral.
“Dove!” I roar again. “Look at me!”
She doesn’t.
What the hell is her problem?
The crowd shifts, giving me a quick glimpse of her feet. She switched her skates for sneakers. Plain white sneakers I’ve never seen before. And the flannel shirt draped over her? It hangs to her knees, swallowing her frame.
My stomach free-falls.
All of this feels wrong.
The boat nudges the dock, and she jumps without hesitation, landing on the seat beside a man I’ve never seen in my life. Nondescript. Forgettable. Built to disappear.
Who the fuck is that?
He cranks the throttle.
“No! Nooooo!” I hit the end of the dock as the boat surges forward, water exploding behind it.
I scream until my throat bleeds, and my voice fractures.
The wind whips her hard as they take off, and her blue hair lifts. Then it peels away, sails clean off her head, and spirals into the harbor.
A wig.
It hits the water and spreads, bright and false against the dark chop.
My heart stops as she turns to watch it sink. Then her eyes lift and find me.
Not Dove’s eyes.
Similar features. Similar coloring. Same height and build, maybe. But wrong in every place that matters. Her hair is brown, and her gaze is empty of recognition, empty of anything at all.
Not Dove.
A decoy.
A distraction.
My blood turns ice-cold as the truth detonates in my chest.
Dove is still at the mechanic shop.
Alone.
Unprotected.
Dread curdles. Fear pummels. I spin on my heel and run.
“That wasn’t her,” Carl shouts from the entrance of the harbor.
No shit.
Two blocks ahead, the other three guards sprint hard, tearing back toward the mechanic shop with trained speed. They blow past people, past carts, past shouting voices, all of it blurring into noise in their wake.
I’m right behind or trying to be.
My phone’s in my hand again, my thumb slamming the screen.
“Come on, Dove. Pick up.”
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Pick up,” I snarl under my breath, lungs ripping and legs on fire. “Pick up. Pick up.”
It goes to voice mail.
Carl falls in beside me, matching my stride as he switches between his headset and radio, calling all units and dispatching teams to the tattoo parlor and the mechanic shop.
My world narrows to one thing.
Getting to her.
My lungs feel too small as I pump my arms and overdrive my legs, letting the pain turn into fuel. Anyone in my way gets flattened. Anyone near her when I arrive is dead. I will tear this town apart if I have to.
I don’t think about the blood in the tattoo shop.
I don’t think about Jag missing.
I think about her laugh, her kiss, and the way she rolled backward into that shop like nothing bad could touch her there.
If anyone has—
If anyone—
I bare my teeth and run.
Carl shouts into his mic, spitting coordinates and rerouting bodies. He glances at me once, sees my face, and doesn’t try to slow me down.
I skid into the garage seconds after the security team, breath tearing out of my chest in ragged pulls.
“Clear!” someone shouts.
I blow past them and into the bays where she should be.
The shop is wrong in a way I recognize instantly. Too still. Tools laid out mid-thought. A creeper abandoned halfway under a lift.
Guards fan out, methodical, weapons up, checking corners, checking shadows, checking places that can’t possibly hold her.
I already know.
My eyes go straight to the spot by the workbench where she dropped her bag.
It’s still there.
But her skates aren’t. They’re not on the floor. Not tucked under the bench. Not kicked aside, where she always leaves them.
A guard shakes his head at Carl and holds out a phone.
Dove’s phone.
The garage tilts, and I have to plant my boots wider to stay upright. My hands curl into fists. My vision tunnels, and every nerve lights up. Then goes numb.
I replay it all at once. The doorway, the sunlight, and the kiss she caught and threw back. She told me to go, and I listened.
I should’ve stayed.
I should’ve known.
I should’ve—
The thoughts don’t finish. They fracture, scatter, and burn.
Pain floods in and spreads everywhere, behind my eyes, in my throat, and down my spine. All the noise fades, the guards, the radios, and the city outside, leaving a hollowed-out space where she’s supposed to be.
Carl comes up beside me, breathing hard. “We’re canvassing the blocks. Cameras. Harbor feeds. Everyone’s moving. Your family is inbound.”
I nod once, because nodding is all I can manage.
Dove is gone.