Chapter 8
The question of who killed her family repeated in Audrey’s head all night. Alone by the window, she wrapped herself in a wool blanket and shut her eyes, blocking its meaning.
You, me, your family…we’re not like the humans here.
Audrey didn’t know what it meant, but inside, she sensed the truth before her mind caught up.
When the sun appeared, every nerve screamed for that small baggie of crystals. Her teeth ached. Her skin felt raw. Need blazed in her belly, taking over every thought. She craved relief.
There was only one way to get it—and more.
She needed to talk to Alex about getting the money now.
She woke him.
The conversation was brutal. Humiliating.
Audrey’s face burned as she spat out the words, struggling to confess how much she owed Erik.
It felt like flaying a layer of skin. Unable to look her friend in the eye, she twisted her hands in the blanket.
After she revealed everything, they fought about the money.
At one point, she almost left out of spite.
Beneath all the safety talk was a simpler truth: she wanted a hit. She wanted the noise to stop.
Alex’s fury came in cold waves. No shouting—just a clipped tone, one argument from shattering. In the end, he agreed. If they were to run, every thread Erik entwined around her—including debt—had to be severed.
He gave her the safe code and told her to take enough to clear Erik and disappear. So, she took the money. Ten grand in cash and a little more for Erik’s silence. She ended up back at the club just before dawn, a heavy duffel thrown over her shoulder like a body.
At this hour, Sarai’s street lay bare and still.
Audrey paused under the awning, adjusted the duffel, and held the knife in her pocket.
She prayed not to need it. From here, she could see the club’s front windows vibrating slightly with bass.
Inside, she heard laughter along with a woman shouting over music somewhere down the block.
Get in. Pay Erik. Get out.
She charged through Sarai’s doors, trying to blend in. It was difficult, though, with no makeup, Cary’s leather jacket, black leggings, and one of Alex’s sweatshirts. She was pale as a ghost, and even Mags and Sam—security —hesitated, struggling to match this version of her to the one they knew.
But they recognized her, and she kept walking.
Inside, the main room pulsed with life. Saturday night merged into Sunday morning. Sweat, perfume, and stale sex wafted in the air.
Erik paced by the bar like a panther. His fury blazed. She’d ignored his calls all night—her arrival now would be gasoline on embers.
She squared her shoulders, held the duffel in her hand so it wouldn’t drag, and headed for the back. He’d follow her.
Halfway there, the sensation hit. A crawling at the base of her skull. The music didn’t stop, and something in her mind went quiet—the way the world does before a storm breaks. Someone was looking for her, using their aura.
Her heart throbbed, drowning out the bass. Audrey’s head turned before she could stop it.
There he was again.
Across the room, under the spill of colored lights, stood the man whose voice had intimately entered her mind. The man from the backyard, the prison gates, and the bus.
The killer.
His mind was walled off, but his face was clear now. No shadows.
How does he keep finding me?
Despite her cravings, Audrey’s mind stayed alert. If he was here for her, coming inside was a mistake. If for Erik, the money was a liability. If for both, Audrey held the duffel closer.
No. She needed to focus. Letting her panic distract her would be dangerous. She couldn’t get trapped in something she didn’t understand.
The bag mattered. The debt mattered. Whatever this man wanted, she couldn’t let Erik and the killer collide and trap her in between.
Now wasn’t the time for panicking. She forced one slow breath into her lungs.
Then another. If he wanted to talk, he could do it on her terms. But even as she told herself to control the situation, she could hear her own doubt.
Nothing about this was really under her control, was it?
Fear iced over her confidence. Audrey was unaccustomed to fear. She lived in others’ minds—she sensed deceit, and she knew how to push people to their breaking point.
But this man felt like nothing she’d ever touched before.
He slid through the crowd with predatory grace. A smirk spread across his face. Tattoos ran up his neck—black flames crawling toward his jaw. Another mark burned red over his hand as he raked back his hair.
Erik vanished from her mind.
All that existed were her pounding heart and the dark shape crossing the room. She trembled, and not from the cold. He unsettled her. Not like Erik did, but as if the ground under her was buckling.
Still, she couldn’t move.
Every rotten thing her life had become—all of it traced back to that night. To him. And now he was walking toward her like this was inevitable.
He didn’t look like a monster. At a glance, he looked her age—dark hair, pale olive skin.
His black eyes burned. With every step, horror twisted deeper in her middle.
She reminded herself that, even if she’d been wrong about a lot in her life, she wasn’t wrong about him.
This, at least, she could be certain of.
Satisfaction surged. She’d been right all along, despite what everyone had said.
Detectives, experts, and doctors insisted the man she described was a delusion, a story twisted by trauma and drugs.
They called her unstable or a liar. Vindication hit so hard it bordered on nausea.
He was real, with a powerful aura. She wasn’t high.
This wasn’t a hallucination. For one ugly second, she savored her proof before survival took over.
Threat radiated off him like heat from asphalt. He wanted her to feel his approach, which should have terrified her more.
Instead, it made her hold her ground.
She considered fleeing. Maybe he collected telepaths as trophies. Maybe she was next. The unknown made him more lethal, and hungry men broke in unforeseeable ways.
However, curiosity sank its claws in deep. She was rooted to the wall, away from Erik, away from the drunk, distracted crowd, watching him close the distance.
Ten paces.
Then, abruptly, he stopped.
In the middle of the crowd with music circling him, he stopped and snapped his head to the side as if someone had pulled a chain. Anger flared through his aura, sudden and bright. His lip curled as an inhuman growl shaped his mouth.
A vibration touched the edge of Audrey’s awareness. There was another powerful presence here—another telepath.
Was it her mother? Someone else? Something worse?
Her insides screamed.
Run.
She’d learned not to ignore that voice. This time, the instinct felt tactical. She didn’t want this fight now. Not with Alex’s money surrounded by a crowd too drunk to care.
A rough hand grasped her elbow, wrenching her around into a solid mass of muscle.
Erik.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he growled into her ear, fingers biting into her arm. “I swear to God, you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He dragged her through the crowd, past the bar, into the warren of back hallways.
As they crossed the club, the sound shifted—music surrendering to cold concrete and stale ventilation.
At the end of the corridor, Erik kicked open a steel door and hurled her into the alley.
Night slapped her, and a damp, bitter wind stabbed through her coat and Alex’s sweatshirt.
Erik’s thoughts turned rough and loud in the emptiness. When he got angry, his mind slipped into Swedish with its coarse consonants and clipped syllables. She caught enough.
Fucking whore, making me look bad when the bosses are here.
He slammed her against the brick. The impact rattled her teeth, hair whipping her mouth as she twisted away. She ducked his first swing, which sliced the air over her cheek. She came up ready to strike, but he got a fist in her hair and snatched her face up.
Grabbing her by the hair, Erik cracked her skull against the car.
Glass splintered into a spiderweb. Pain flared at her temple.
Warm blood flowed down her cheek. “You think you can skip out on me?” he snarled, pressing his arm to her chest, hand jamming between her legs. “Like I don’t own this pussy?”
She put a bloody hand on the car. “Jesus Christ, calm down,” she growled. “I have your money.”
“Where is it?”
She motioned to the duffel but held it back. The bag meant more drugs—a safety net. If she gave it too soon, he’d still hurt her. If she held it too long, he might decide both money and body were problems.
His eyes narrowed. “You skimming? Working for someone else now?”
“I told you I have your money, plus more,” she said with confidence she didn’t feel. “You get it tonight, and I’m done. I want a kilo of crystals, then I’ll never see your face again.”
She shoved the duffel into his chest.
He shoved her harder, and before she could catch her breath, his forearm rose to her throat. “I can’t trust you, can I?” The weight on her windpipe increased. “I should just kill you.”
The alley narrowed. Her lungs struggled for air that wouldn’t come.
“You kill me,” she snarled, “and you’re a dead man. My attorney—the one who got me out of a triple homicide—is outside. If I don’t come back, he’ll hunt you. You’ll rot in a cell.”
His fingers crushed harder. “You’re lying,” he breathed.
“Want…to risk it?”
Apparently, he did. His aura shifted, and she felt his intent rise—he was going to kill her. She’d known Erik was a violent man, but his threats were usually empty. Until today. Today, he meant it.
Audrey had lied. Alex wasn’t waiting outside. She’d insisted on going alone so she could buy more drugs without him knowing.
The alley remained empty.
Her mind kept trying to inventory her attack options even as oxygen thinned. She could knee him in the groin and gouge his eyes. The door to the club was six feet behind him, with the dumpster wall to her left. There was a broken bottle by the drain, which she could smash over his head.
No, it was too far and would be too slow.
The duffel sat half-zipped against the car tire, with the twelve grand inside. She’d thought it would be enough to buy her way loose, but in reality, it was enough to get herself killed.
His face was close now, blotchy with rage and need. She could feel him deciding whether she was worth more alive, working and obedient, or dead with the cash already in hand.
That realization steadied something in her. Erik had crossed into a kind of violence that didn’t leave space for negotiation. She was not getting out of this by talking.
And that unusual pressure caressed the back of her mind again.
She ignored it.
Spots bloomed at the periphery of her vision while she scratched at Erik’s arm. It might as well have been welded there. Her legs gave way, but his arm was so firm it held her upright.
She saw it then—clear as a photograph. In her mind's eye, she saw Erik dropping her body behind the broken pallets, slinging the duffel over his shoulder, and walking back inside as if nothing had happened.
It would be that easy.
Tears leaked hot from the corners of her eyes. Her hand loosened against his wrist.
No, not like this.
Something broke inside her. It wasn’t a conscious thought.
It was an instinct.
An electric current lit up underneath her skin, and the blood-tang of it hit her tongue.
Her strength surged, roaring up from somewhere buried and violent, rattling her bones from the inside out.
The feeling was terrifying and intoxicating.
Like grabbing a power line and realizing it wasn’t lethal—it made you more.
Spreading her fingers, her hands lifted as her aura tore outward—vicious and invisible—straight into Erik. It reached past flesh, found a grip, and yanked.
At the same instant, her fist clenched in the air. A wet choking sound split the alley, followed by a sickening smack.
Erik dropped, hitting the pavement at her feet, slack-limbed.
And Audrey realized she hadn’t told it to stop.
His body twitched as his hands raked at his throat. Erik’s mouth opened and closed around nothing. She panted. Her hand fell to her side, but inside her body, the power still raged.
This had happened before, once, in prison.
Another inmate attempted to stab her with a shank, so Audrey flung her into the bathroom tile.
The cameras caught everything, and Audrey hadn’t moved an inch.
In the aftermath, the woman was carried out on a stretcher, dead, and Audrey spent a week in solitary confinement, watching a blank wall.
When she was let out, guards eyed her warily, and inmates avoided her.
From that point on, Audrey learned how to fight with her fists, afraid of herself and what might happen if she lost control again.
Audrey’s knees gave out. She dropped beside him, hands floating uselessly over his chest. “Stop,” she uttered to whatever was inside her. “Stop. Please.”
It didn’t.
The deadly ability she’d feared for years—and buried deep—had locked on and refused to yield. Steadily and invisibly killing him. He writhed on the asphalt, hands digging furrows into the grime. His eyes bulged. Red flooded the whites. Sounds ripped from his throat, then weakened.
Tears clouded her sight. She turned her head away and still felt it happening through the tether between them.
Then, all at once, the pressure released and power snapped back into her just as a recoiling wire. Dizziness crashed through her.
Erik stopped moving, and the alley turned silent. Audrey couldn’t hear any music, footsteps, or traffic loud enough to matter. Just the rain ticking off metal somewhere farther down towards the street, and her own rough breathing dragging in and out of her.
His body looked wrong without motion. A minute ago, he’d been furious and alive enough to fill the entire alley with himself.
Now he was only a weight.
And Audrey? She was the cause.
The world turned black.