From the Shadows (The Shadows #4)

Prologue ~ Dope

I paced the Velvet Vortex parking lot like a caged animal as a few drops of rain landed on my upturned face.

“Answer, goddammit, answer!” The phone rang endlessly before cutting to voicemail. I slammed my fist against my Audi’s hood, the dull thud drowned out by thunder.

“Ella.” My voice cracked. “Don’t do this alone. I know what that bastard’s doing to you. I fucking know.” My fingers gripped the phone so hard they ached.

“I’m at Velvet Vortex right now. We need to meet.

” Rain streamed down my cheeks, or maybe tears.

I wasn’t sure. “I’m going to call Bass and see if he knows where you are.

” I hung up, my entire body trembling with fury.

The knowledge of what was happening to her burned inside me, eating through every rational thought.

My stomach heaved. How could she suffer alone all this time?

How the hell had I not seen it sooner? I’d been standing too close to monsters for years—and somehow, I hadn’t noticed one was already at her throat. At all of theirs.

I stabbed at Sebastian’s number in my contacts, then pinched the bridge of my nose, praying to a god I didn’t believe in that he would answer.

My jaw ached from clenching it so damn hard as his phone rang.

Nothing. Voicemail. I ripped the joint from behind my ear, jammed it between my lips, and bit down until I tasted the potent weed.

My mind was a hurricane, thoughts smashing against my skull.

I removed it from my mouth and tucked it into the front pocket of my jeans even though it was soggy.

The rabbit on my forearm stared back with dead eyes, its broken neck a warning I should have heeded. The truth was collapsing around me like a house of cards soaked in gasoline. I had to salvage this inferno before it consumed everyone—my friends, my family, everyone I’d sworn to protect.

This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be fucking real.

The night sky bore down, a suffocating weight crushing my lungs.

I stumbled to the edge of the lot where the club’s blue neon sign pulsed.

My skin crawled with electric panic as revelation after revelation detonated in my brain.

I launched into a sprint, my phone forgotten in my pocket.

Every cell in my body screamed for the sweet oblivion of a smoke, but I couldn’t hide from this monster.

It was too massive, too hungry, too goddamn close.

I ran until the club’s lights vanished behind me.

A half mile later, I cut past Manny’s Diner and veered toward the empty overflow lot beside it.

My lungs were on fire, each breath scraping all the way down.

Pot helped quiet the storm in my head—the OCD and ADHD that never shut up—but Christ, it turned my lungs to tissue paper.

Still, the pounding of my feet against pavement drowned out the screaming in my mind.

Maybe I needed more of this agony. Maybe the joint could wait.

I doubled over, hands on my knees, heart hammering against my ribs. Then electricity shot up my spine, and every nerve ending shrieked a warning.

I pulled up my jean leg, and my fingers closed around the knife hidden in my calf sheath. I snapped upright.

The blade flashed as I pivoted, scanning the shadows with predator focus. You don’t spend years close to men who do terrible things without learning what danger sounds like when it breathes.

But what I’d learned tonight …

That information hadn’t just rattled me. It had blown my world apart. It looped in my skull on repeat. Ella was in danger. And it was already happening.

The air shifted. Not the wind, something else.

My muscles tensed, spine straightening tight as a pulled wire.

Gravel crunched behind me.

I whirled, fists raised—

CRACK.

White light detonated behind my eyes. For a split second, sound cut out as if someone yanked the plug on the world before everything came roaring back too loud.

My vision doubled, the parking lot tilting sideways as my body shot through the air like a ragdoll before slamming into the concrete.

Voices swarmed, distorted, demonic. Drowned beneath the thunderous pulse in my eardrums.

CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.

Steel-toed boots pulverized my ribs, each impact a gunshot through my chest. I curled desperately, an animal instinct taking over, but hands pinned me down. Too many. Everywhere.

My fingers clawed the ground until they bled, jagged stones ripping under my nails as a realization crystallized: this was it.

No way out.

Hot blood gushed beneath my fractured skull. Death was coming, its breath hot on my neck. The truth I’d unearthed wasn’t just dark—it was fucking radioactive—and now I was paying the ultimate price for digging too deep.

I fixated on that goddamn rabbit tattoo, desperate to anchor myself.

Crimson liquid cascaded down my forehead, spattering the ground beneath me.

Darkness gnawed at the edges of my vision, voices dissolving into a distant roar.

My body convulsed violently as pain exploded through me, then vanished, a terrifying absence.

I clawed mentally for words, for any way to scream goodbye across the void to everyone I loved.

My final breath rattled out.

Alone.

Utterly alone.

And then—two faces flashed through my mind seconds before …

I died.