Chapter 31
She’d almost gotten critical intel on Cary.
Almost.
Then Felix had offered the drugs.
And in that moment, Audrey had wanted silence more than anything.
The world around her had grown so loud—the pounding in her chest, the relentless churn of fear, shame, and vigilance.
Every second, she felt the weight of watching eyes and impossible expectations.
She’d been holding herself stiff against panic for too long.
Silence was the only thing that felt like safety, the only escape from the storm inside her.
That was the part she couldn’t lie about now.
Felix hadn’t dragged her off the path; he’d opened a door, and she’d stepped through it herself. She’d followed Felix into warmth and smoke and the promise of quiet. She’d traded a real chance for numbness.
Even now, with her skull splitting and her mouth sour with chemicals, she knew that was the truth. Addiction greeted her like an old strategy dressed in new clothes. As always, it was silence first and consequences later.
Light from the hallway bled into the room, thin and invasive. Audrey felt it before she saw it, a hot lance through her skull. It took everything she had to lift her head toward the silhouette in the doorway.
Kat.
Fury rolled off the woman in waves, scorching Audrey’s already shredded senses.
Audrey tried to steady her vision, but the world kept sliding to the side.
She rolled—and fell off the bed. Her palms smacked the floor just in time to keep her skull from following.
A low, hysterical laugh left her as she landed on her back.
Darkness pooled at the edges of her sight.
A voice murmured inside her mind. Not her own. Too soft. Too close. Her eyes flew open. She shook her head, and the ceiling rippled like water. “Fuck me,” she whispered. “Is that...still the drugs?”
Kat loomed above her—posture rigid, her arms crossed so tightly it looked like she was holding herself together by force.
God, Audrey needed water. And clothing. Her gaze dropped to her bare breasts.
Fantastic.
Another wave of vertigo rolled through her, and she curled onto her side to keep from vomiting.
“What did you take?” Kat asked, the words distorted and dragging.
Audrey tried to think. Right, the glittering powder.
Felix had laughed when she asked what it was. “Silver Fury,” he’d said, sliding the mirror toward her. It was a Voírían stimulant, too strong for most humans.
Audrey should have walked away.
Instead, she’d bent over the table.
And then the pill—the Mist Roll—had felt dangerously familiar. She wondered if this was how Ryker survived inside his own skull.
Her gaze drifted lazily across the room—to the naked man sprawled on the bed, the plate dusted with residue, the straws glinting faintly.
Kat swore in Voírían.
Her memory came back in fragments: Felix laughing. Felix cutting lines. Felix insisting she could handle it. Audrey thinking she could. Audrey wanting the silence that followed more than she feared the consequences.
Stupid.
Weak.
Desperate to feel nothing.
She pressed her hands to the floor and forced herself upright.
Then—
a hand pressed against her chest. Another lifted her chin.
“Look at me.”
Ryker’s voice cut through the haze like a blade.
Her head lolled back, and she blinked dreamily up at him.
He was beautiful. Horrible. A nightmare carved into human shape.
His eyes were solid black tonight, drowning any trace of white.
She tried to smother her thoughts—God, she knew he could hear them—but everything was unraveling too fast. His fingers slid up her neck, precise as he checked her pulse.
She moaned softly before she could stop herself.
Oh, Christ.
He forced one eye open. Light seared her pupil. “Stop,” she hissed. “Fuck, that hurts.”
“What did he give her?” Kat demanded.
“I don’t know,” Ryker murmured, his voice low and lethal. His thumb moved in slow circles against her neck, coaxing her pulse to slow. “She’s half-human and strung out on things she shouldn’t even survive.”
His gaze shifted to Felix. “Whether he does is another matter.”
The world lurched again, and Audrey’s knees buckled. She crashed backward into the mattress. His anger pressed against her skin like a heated brand.
They were arguing in Voírían again. She caught only fragments—responsibility, sacrifice, failure. Then Felix’s arm curled around her shoulders from the bed, his lips brushing her hair.
Ryker growled.
Audrey’s blood froze.
She staggered upright, forcing herself between them. Panic flooded her veins hard enough to cut through the fog.
Felix was going to die.
A shirt hit her face. Someone shoved her head through a hole.
“Is he gonna kill him?” she asked Kat, fighting to stay upright.
Kat didn’t look at her. “Best not watch.”
“I didn’t even know Ryker was here,” Audrey slurred.
Kat forced her arms through the sleeves. Audrey wriggled free just in time to see Felix on his knees, screaming into a shirt.
Gold fire snapped from Audrey’s hands.
Felix screamed. His body seized like a wire had been pulled tight inside him.
Horrified, Audrey clutched her hands to her chest. She begged in broken Voírían, tripping over names and half-formed apologies.
“Please—Ryker—stop—”
Her fire had eaten the edges of the mattress. Chaos roared. Someone pulled her toward the door.
Ryker towered over her at the threshold, a black shirt clinging to tattoos that crawled across his arms like living ink. She reached out, dragging her fingers over the tattoos.
He didn’t stop her. They writhed under her touch. Was she still that high?
“Please don’t hurt him,” she mumbled.
“You’re a mess,” he said roughly. But instead of pushing her aside, he steadied her, his hands framing her face. “You’re still coming with us. Can you walk, or do I have to carry you, pet?”
Heat flared inside her, bright and far too hot. She pushed him away with a whimper, clutching her bra and jacket like life preservers. She needed dark. Silence. Anything to drown the brightness.
Felix tried to speak, but Ryker moved first. His fist drove into Felix’s jaw. Blood sprayed across the wall. Felix collapsed, and he didn’t get back up.
He was still alive, but barely.
Audrey wailed while Kat dragged her into the hallway. “Are you really this stupid?” Kat snapped, “Or were you trying to kill yourself tonight?”
She sucked in a breath, trying to slow her heart. “I was preparing for my wild escape with my lover,” she declared, grand and deranged.
“You’re never escaping here.”
The words stabbed through Audrey like a cold rod.
Never.
Numb, she let Kat haul her down the corridor. Her eyes snagged on the green mark curling over Kat’s ribs. Audrey opened her mouth to ask about it, but Kat shut her down.
“Don’t ask.”
Eventually, her room swallowed her. The door clicked closed and locked from the outside. Shaking, Audrey fell into bed. Voices throbbed through the walls—too loud, too close. She burrowed under the comforter like a child hiding from monsters.
A metal edge poked her hip. She fumbled and found a flask.
Thank God.
She drank, wrapped herself in her blanket, half-naked and half-conscious, and finally succumbed to sleep.
Hours later, the door didn’t open so much as explode inward, slamming against the wall hard enough to rattle the bedframe.
Even the narrow slash of hallway light made Audrey recoil, shielding her eyes with a hiss.
Light felt wrong this morning. It stabbed at her skull like needles.
Kat stormed in, flooding the room with a sterile, merciless glare.
Audrey sat hunched on the bed, trying to assemble memory shards into something coherent.
Coming here. Falling down. Maybe sleeping. Maybe dying a little.
Kat tossed a backpack onto the bed. “God,” she muttered, taking in Audrey’s face. “I’ve seen benders, but you—”
She cut herself off.
Audrey didn’t need a mirror to know she looked terrible. She felt it—her skin was too tight and her blood too loud. “Just breathe,” Audrey whispered to herself.
Kat gave her an impatient gesture. Move.
Audrey obeyed. She washed her face, dragged a brush through her hair, zipped her jacket, and laced her boots.
Outside, the cold didn’t just hit her—it pierced her. She gasped as clarity washed over her like ice water.
Kat rummaged in the bag and thrust gloves, a hat, and a rough scarf at her. Audrey took them gratefully and stumbled after her—until she nearly collided with Kat’s back.
Her teacher had stopped dead, staring upward at the gate. Audrey followed her gaze.
Something dangled from the high stone arch, swaying in the wind.
At first, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. Just boots turning slowly in the air. Hands swollen and purple. Then the body rolled.
Felix.
The same man who had shared cigarettes with her in the yard. The same man who had laughed when she butchered her first sentence in Voírían. The same man who had pressed a lighter into her hand and told her she’d need it here.
Audrey’s stomach dropped.
I did this.
His face—what was left of it—caught the light like a grotesque lantern. The bruising around his throat was new. Ryker’s work. Felix’s name rose in her throat, but Kat grabbed her chin and forced her to look.
“No,” Kat said softly. “Not today. You don’t get to look away.”
Audrey’s breath left her in a choked sound.
“Remember this,” Kat said. “Power without control kills people.”
Her eyes flicked briefly to Felix.
“I’ve watched it happen before. Not just once,” Kat added, quieter now. “Not just to trainees. To friends. To people who thought one bad night, one bad choice, one little loss of control could be cleaned up in the morning.” She shook her head. “Home Field remembers everything.”
Then she looked at Audrey with fresh disgust. “So, when I tell you Felix is dead because this place punishes weakness faster than mercy can reach it, I need you to understand I’m not speaking in metaphors.”