Chapter 43
The darkness swallowed him completely. No cracks of light, no steady hum of electronics, just the metallic groan of the truck as it rumbled to life beneath his feet and rolled forward into the unknown.
Riven braced himself against the cold wall of the freight container as inertia shoved him off balance.
The engine’s growl vibrated up through the floor.
Every jolt in the road rattled his bones.
He hadn’t seen a hint of a tail in the parking lot, and now he was in a moving box, headed who knew where.
If they’d scrambled the signal, it stood to reason they’d scrambled tracking, too.
No one was going to intercept this vehicle. No one would even know where to look.
That was when the panic started to creep in—slow at first, then fast. It clawed at the edges of his chest, tightening, a rising tide of suffocation. He pressed his hands to his knees and forced himself to breathe.
He clenched his jaw.
So what? He’d spent years surviving without help. Why should now be any different?
Because now, some bitter corner of his mind answered, you’d gotten used to having it.
Riven scowled and slammed the heel of his boot against the floor. A sharp clang rang out, loud and useless in the dark. “Fuck that,” Riven muttered aloud, his voice harsh in the container’s echo chamber. “I’m not going to sit here waiting for rescue.”
He forced himself upright and paced a few short steps, though the confines of the truck bed didn’t give him much room. The darkness was disorienting—he had to stretch his hands out to keep from running into the walls—but the motion helped. Focused him.
They were going to open that door eventually. And when they did, he’d get one chance. A second, maybe two.
He knew the odds weren’t great. Two men in front. One or more outside. Guns. Trained reflexes. He didn’t even have a weapon, just the metal case with the fake syringe. And fists, if it came to that.
Still. Better to go down swinging than get used as a bargaining chip in someone else’s game. But the minutes dragged.
He focused on the motion of the truck beneath him, trying to map the route in his mind.
Right turn. Left. A long straightaway. Then another turn—maybe a roundabout?
He couldn’t be sure. The freight bed was too well-insulated, muffling the outside world to little more than engine noise and road vibrations.
And without any windows, even his sense of direction was starting to slip. Industrial zone? Outskirts?
No. Don’t go there.
Riven dragged in a breath and let it out slowly through his nose.
He refused to think about the possibility that they were taking him out of Atlantis altogether. That once this truck crossed some unseen threshold, he’d be gone for good. He couldn’t afford to spiral. Couldn’t afford the kind of fear that made you freeze instead of fight.
He replayed what Lareth had said to him before closing him in with Kieran’s gun. “You’ll make a better bargaining chip than anything else we’ve got.”
That had to mean they weren’t just killing him. Not yet. They needed him alive, nearby. Somewhere still in the city. Close enough to push against House Virellien, to test their response.
So use that. Use it.
He shifted his weight again and braced one hand against the wall for balance. The metal was cold against his skin, grounding. He pressed his palm flat to it, exhaling through clenched teeth.
This could still work.
Whatever Lareth was tied up in—this new, purified Soulglass, this supposed “organization”—Riven had to believe it wasn’t just some one-off operation. They were testing something. Scaling up. Planning for more. That meant infrastructure. Contacts. Weak spots.
All of it mattered. And if he played his part right, he could learn something worth bringing back.
If he got out.
When he got out.