Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Blood.
Bones.
And dust.
I stand in the fiery ruins of El Centinela. Or Devil's Gulch. It don't matter what you call it. It's gone. All of it. The smell of burning flesh and sulfur fills the air. Aside from the crackles and burn and roar of the fires around me, there is no sound.
Everyone is dead.
I let those who ran escape.
But those who remained to fight died by my hand.
I'm head to toe in black tactical gear.
But blood streaks my face like war paint.
Some of it is mine. Most of it is not.
This is what I was made for. This is what I am.
My boots crunch over broken glass and pulverized concrete as I walk through what was once the main street. I torched the trucks. I razed the buildings. All of the tunnels beneath collapsed, severing the poisonous arteries.
The air shimmers with heat, distorting the landscape into something unreal.
It looks and feels like hell.
It's where I belong. Not with her in my arms by the sea. She is a heavenly creature. Something pure. Something good. Every kill made me feel further from her. But it didn't matter. Because I don't matter. Every kill brings her closer to freedom. To safety.
Static's voice crackles in my earpiece. "Satellite shows no survivors in your sector."
He makes it sound clinical. So do I when I respond. “Copy.”
I barely gave myself time to heal before the operation. The modified CRISPR sequences in my DNA have kept me going long past a normal man's limits. Bullets grazed me, knives sliced my skin, but I kept moving, kept killing. The monster they made me, now unleashed in its full, terrible glory.
Flames lick up toward the night sky, casting wild, dancing shadows across the desert. The fires will burn for hours yet, visible for miles—a beacon, a warning, a message to Isla Graves and everyone like her. It burns like the entrance to damnation.
And I am the demon who stalks its gates.
I pull the phone out Static gave me and dial. Static said it was untraceable. But it doesn't matter. They can trace it all they like. I want them to know exactly where I am.
"Graves,” she answers.
"You know who I am." It's not a question. I'm sure she does.
There's a pause on the other end. "I do," she replies simply.
"You're having trouble reaching your team." Also, not a question. And I let it hang. She doesn't know how to respond to that.
"It's because I killed them. All of them. El Centinela is gone. I razed it to the ground."
The silence stretches between us, thick with tension. I can almost see her face. I'm sure she’s recalibrating now. The board hasn’t just changed but has been upended.
"You listen to me, Walker. I don't care about the girl you want to fuck.
What I built is far more important than a silly little doe-eyed CIA analyst and her sad soldier boyfriend.
And yes, I have to get my hands dirty to do it.
I'm not going to apologize for that. I'm certainly not going to give one to a man whose hands are as dirty as mine. "
Her voice is cold iron.
"I ain't judging you. I'm telling you how it is. Let Naomi go."
"She knows too much."
"She knows about El Centinela. It's gone."
"I don't care. I can't afford loose ends. I am the one who keeps track of the monsters under the bed. Not you."
Blood drips from my fingertips onto the scorched earth beneath my boots. The irony of her statement isn't lost on me. I am the monster she claims to control. The weapon she thinks she understands.
I sigh, like I’m bored. But I’m actually bone-deep tired.
"Babylon, Echo Valley, Operation Blacklight, Helios Point, Nightshade.
" I list the black sites and secret projects that Static found Isla Graves has either started or had a hand in.
The pieces of her dark empire that I will destroy one by one if she doesn't give me what I want.
Letting her know that El Centinela was just the beginning.
I can hear the tension in her voice. "Well, maybe I'll just let Logan kill her. I'm the only one holding him back."
My grip tightens on the phone. The plastic creaks under my fingers.
"I suggest you don't, ma'am. First, I'll dismantle what you've built. Then I'll find anything you love and destroy that, too. Then I'll find you. And take you apart piece by piece."
Silence.
The fires behind me cast my shadow long across the ground, stretching it into something inhuman.
"I would burn down the world for her. This is a war you don't want. This is a war you can't win. Give her back to me, and you can have peace. Take her from me, and there will be nothing left. Let. Her. Go."
Another long stretch of silence. I mean what I say. Every word of it. But I am not as sure as I sound. It is a gamble. I'm trusting that Isla Graves is logical. That she’ll sacrifice this piece of her black kingdom to hold on to the rest.
Graves sighs. "I will release her. But the two of you had better disappear. If I hear from either of you again, I will use all the weapons at my disposal to wage war on you. Do I make myself clear?”
Graves doesn’t know that we won’t be riding off into the sunset together. Naomi will hate me. She wanted her life back. I can free her, keep her alive, but I can’t change what I am or how the world works.
But I will find some way to keep her out of Isla Graves’s crosshairs.
"You won't hear from us again.”
“I’ll text you where you can meet.”
I end the call and pocket the phone. I lost the battle for my soul. But won the war to save Naomi. I can never have her. Never be with her. The angel can’t lie with the demon.
But as the town burns around me, looking and feeling like hell, I don’t regret it.
I’d trade my damnation for her salvation every damn time.