Chapter 16 #3
I catch his wrist and slam it against a steam pipe that glows orange from the burner beneath it. His scream ricochets off the concrete walls as the smell of burning flesh fills the air.
“Who supplied the sedatives?” I ask, voice low enough that even the buzzing lights seem to quiet for it.
He sobs something incoherent. I shove his palm harder into the heat, feeling his body jerk with each second. “Try again.”
This time, he manages a name. A name I dread, and knew it was coming.
The next warehouse reeks of gasoline and fear. A man bolts the second he sees us. He makes it two steps before I grab him by the back of his shirt and slam him into a concrete pillar. His head whips backward. The crack echoes.
“Driver’s name,” I say.
“S-stop… please…”
My fist crashes into his kneecap. The sound is sharp, sickening. He screams the same name without breathing between syllables.
Through every location, the Twins shadow me. Violent reflections that share one brain and two bodies.
“You think he won’t hit harder if you lie?” One taunts a shaking Hellhound.
“He’s not even using half his strength,” the other adds, leaning close enough that the man flinches back into my grip.
One circles left. The other mirrors him on the right. Their voices weave together into something seamless and unnerving.
At one point, one twin wipes blood off his glove and says, “You know,”
“This would go a lot faster if you idiots stopped lying,” the other finishes.
Another man breaks immediately, sobbing names into the dust.
Aloiki tries twice to pull me out of the spiral, voice softer each time.
“Eh, Tiny… you losing pieces of yourself out here, brah.”
I can’t look at him. If I do, I might feel something other than rage, and feeling anything else terrifies me more than the violence tearing through me.
Trigger finds us behind the warehouse on Soto.
He stops dead in the doorway, gaze fixed on the scene of me pounding a man so hard his body lifts with each hit.
Blood splatters across my arms, my shirt, and the floor beneath us.
The sound of ribs cracking feels distant, muffled by the roaring static in my head.
Trigger steps closer, voice shaking. “Tiny… brother… look at me.”
I don’t.
“Look at me,” he says again, and this time his voice breaks. “You’re scaring everyone.”
For half a second, I want to stop, but I don’t. His words drift toward me like they’re underwater, distorted and slow. They sink somewhere deep, but not deep enough to stop me.
I keep hitting. I keep demanding. I keep breaking.
Because the only thing more terrifying than what I’m becoming is the thought of failing her. Losing her and never hearing her voice again.
Behind me, Aloiki exhales. A low, heavy sound that carries both pity and fear. “Shoots, Brah… we need to find her fast, or we're not gonna recognize you when this pau kahana.”
I finally let the broken man fall and grab another by the shirt, hauling him upright so hard his teeth clack together.
“Where is she?”
He trembles so violently that he can barely stand. His eyes squeeze shut as if he can hide inside the darkness.
“I… I heard something… an old building… concrete… cages… they, they carved shit into the walls.”
My grip turns to iron. “What building?”
“A shelter,” he whimpers. “The old county animal shelter.”
“Where,” I say slowly, “is the shelter?”
The man stammers. “Old county animal shelter… outskirts… they say he… he marks the walls…”
“Who?” Trigger demands.
The Hellhound’s voice shrinks to a whisper. “Lattimer.”
A coldness sweeps through me so fast it steals my breath. Everything inside me goes eerily quiet, and then reignites with a steady, lethal burn.
I release the man so abruptly that he collapses onto his hands, shuddering with relief he hasn’t earned.
I turn toward the door.
“Wait, there’s more.” I stop and turn, glaring at the man, waiting for him to speak. “There’s a motel south of Long Beach you’ll want to check out.”
“Why?”
“A woman they called Pearl was told to wait there. Room twelve.”
Fucking cryptic, but I turn my gaze to Aloiki.
Aloiki straightens, eyes dark. “We going?”
“Yes.”
One twin cracks his neck. “Finally.”
The other grins. “Been waiting for the fun part.”
Trigger grabs my arm. Not hard, but enough to make me pause for the first time in hours.
“Tiny,” he says quietly. “Promise me you won’t lose yourself before we get her back.”
I stare at him. There’s no promise I can make that won’t be a lie. So I give him the only truth I have left. “I’ll lose whatever I have to,” I say. “Just not her.”
Trigger’s expression fractures into pain, fear, understanding, and brotherhood, all mixing at once. He steps away, letting me go.
Aloiki snaps his phone shut and steps beside me, adjusting his gloves. “Shoots, Brah. Lead da way.”
The twins fall into step like two shadows belonging to the same man. And we head toward the dark. Toward the shelter. Toward whatever monster is stupid enough to believe he can cage someone I love. If Lattimer has touched her, I’m not sure there will be enough left of him to bury.