Chapter 13
Icome back to the apartment and find the lock broken.
For a moment, I simply stand there in the dim hallway, staring at it. The metal plate is warped, the bolt twisted at an angle that suggests brute force rather than finesse. Then I inhale slowly, turn the handle, and push the door open.
The apartment is... not ransacked.
Instead, the first thing I register is the smell.
Food. Warm, fragrant, aggressively seasoned takeout.
Then, I notice that my kitchen table is cluttered with plastic containers, chopsticks, sauce packets, and a spilled heap of rice that Talon is currently scraping back into a carton with the wrong end of a fork.
Cassian sits opposite him. Posture unnervingly straight even now, eating with clean, economical movements. He glances up the moment I step inside.
Talon only looks up when he drops a piece of chicken on his shirt.
“Oh,” Talon says, as if I’ve simply returned from the mailbox. “You’re back.”
My eyes flick to the broken lock. Then to the table. Then back to Talon.
“Why,” I ask evenly, “is my door broken?”
Talon jerks his thumb toward Cassian. “We got hungry.”
I stare at him.
He seems entirely unbothered by this. Not even a little bit aware that what he’s just said is not, by any reasonable standard, an explanation for property damage.
He nods toward the fridge. “You have nothing in there except... I don’t even know what that was, dude.
Some kind of science experiment. Or leftovers from the Cold War. So we had to improvise.”
Cassian speaks without looking away from his meal. “We meant to pick the lock, but he got impatient.”
“I was starving,” Talon protests. “Oh, and we got you food too. Cassian said you’d probably forget to eat. You seem the type.”
I blink once.
Of all the outcomes I anticipated, of all the scenarios I turned over during the walk back, bracing myself for the worst, coming home to a dinner table occupied by two murderers sharing orange chicken and spring rolls in the middle of my sterile apartment was not on the list. Not even close.
I step further inside, closing the damaged door behind me.
“How,” I ask calmly, “can I be certain the two of you didn’t take the folder while I was gone?”
They stare at me for a beat. Talon swallows loudly. Then, without warning, he digs into the pocket of his leather jacket and tosses something across the room. I catch it automatically, fingers closing around it before my brain fully registers what it is.
A phone.
“Check it,” Talon says. “I recorded everything from the moment you left the apartment.”
I look at him, surprised despite myself.
He shrugs. “You seem like the paranoid type, too.”
I power on the phone and find a single video file.
It’s timestamped and continuous. The footage shows Talon pacing, Cassian sitting with arms crossed, Talon complaining about hunger, Cassian telling him not to break anything, Talon breaking the lock anyway, Cassian sighing, a sigh so deep and weary it’s almost theatrical, except I suspect it’s entirely sincere, and then both of them leaving.
They return fifteen minutes later with takeout.
Talon tries to nose through my cabinets, but Cassian stops him.
I fast-forward through the entire thing.
Not once do either of them touch the bedroom, the closet, or my murder evidence.
I set the phone down on the table.
Talon grins, radiant with the self-satisfaction of a man who has just proven, via shaky cell phone footage, that he is not a thief, only a vandal.
“See? One hundred percent honesty. Well... ninety-eight percent. I ate three of your spring rolls on the way up.”
Cassian adds, “He ate five.”
Talon gasps. “Oh, come on. Be on my side. We know each other longer.”
Something twitches at the corner of my mouth. I kill it before it even becomes anything identifiable.
How absurd. I shouldn’t smile in this situation.
Why would I even want to?
I pull out the empty chair at the table, settle myself down, and fold my hands in front of me.
“Very well,” I say quietly. “There are at least a dozen ways you could have created this video while it still not being a viable proof of reality, but I’m going to take yet another risk and indulge.”
Talon beams and shoves a container toward me. “Knew you’d come around, Doc.”
I fold open my chopsticks and the wood splits unevenly.
“I went to the hospital,” I say.
Cassian looks up instantly. Talon leans forward.
“I spoke to a colleague who once worked at Westbridge Private Clinic,” I continue. “She left abruptly several years ago. At the time, she cited personal reasons. Today, she... elaborated.”
Cassian narrows his mismatched eyes. “What kind of elaboration?”
“The kind that makes a person question whether the clinic has any legitimate operations at all.”
I pause.
“There were inconsistencies. Gaps in documentation.”
Talon frowns. “So, what? Your doctor buddies are cooking meth in the back or something?”
“No,” I say calmly. “I suppose it’s worse than that.”
Worse. The word sounds too mild.
Cassian’s gaze sharpens.
“How much worse?”
“I suspect they are killing people.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you find out anything else?”
“Else?” I ask.
“How to enter the building,” he clarifies. “Plans, blueprints, anything.”
He doesn’t seem shocked. Not even slightly. I suppose I haven’t met many people like Cassian. Talon, for that matter, isn’t shaken either, though with him it’s harder to tell. His face turned blank.
I have met exactly zero people like either of them.
“Yes, actually,” I say after a while, and I can feel something shift in the room.
Nobody wants to joke anymore. “I acquired information after leaving the hospital. The research wing has no functioning cameras. The official reason is ‘privacy protocol testing,’ but the cameras have been offline for years. Half the rooms still use outdated electronic locks. The building employs no night staff other than a janitor who leaves at seven-thirty. After that, the entire clinic is accessible only through badge scanners.”
No cameras. No staff. No record of who comes and goes.
Talon’s eyebrows shoot up. “That’s… sketchy.” He pauses, tilting his head like he’s running the math on something. “Wait, how did you find that out?”
“I used to be interested in hacking back when I was a teenager.”
He lifts both brows and nods, slow, like he’s impressed.
“Anyway,” I say. “According to my colleague, everything that happens at night is intentionally undocumented.”
Cassian leans forward slightly. “What about the people running the place? What do you know about them?”
I take a bite of my food, chewing slowly, buying myself a few seconds. It’s a strange thing, trying to describe people you once respected to people who might soon be breaking into their facility.
“Two attending physicians oversee the clinic—Dr. Harrow and Dr. Keene. I worked with them during my residency. They were competent, if eccentric.” I pause, turning over the memories.
“Harrow has an obsession with metabolic regulation.
Keene was always writing papers on sedation techniques, trying to optimize what he called ‘neuromuscular silence. Odd men, but not outwardly malicious. Back then, at least.”
Back then is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, and all three of us know it.
“Do you think they know?” Cassian asks.
I consider the question carefully.
“Before today,” I say, “I would have told you no. Or at least, unlikely.” I press my thumb against my temple, feeling the dull tick of a headache forming behind the bone.
“They took unusual interest in experimental methodology, but both maintained reasonable boundaries. They wanted innovation, not infamy.”
“And now?” Cassian presses.
“Now I suspect those boundaries have deteriorated. Whether out of ambition, desperation, financial incentive, or moral decay, I cannot say. But Marisa saw things.” I stop. “And if she did, they would too.”
Talon whistles. “Nice friends you got, Doc.”
I wouldn’t call them friends. I don’t bother correcting him.
“What do you want to do?” Cassian asks.
I breathe in. Hold. Release.
“I want to verify what is happening inside that clinic,” I say. “Of course.”
Cassian nods once. “I’ll join you then.”
Talon wipes sauce from his mouth with the back of his hand. “So we break in, do our little near-death experiment on me, and then go snooping around a spooky illegal lab?” He grins, wide and reckless. “Sounds like a fun night.”
So he’s in as well.
Two men I’ve known for a matter of hours, ready to walk into something that could end careers, end freedom, end lives.
Mine included.
“I suppose we could count on at least one death tonight,” I murmur. The words come out drier than I intend. “However.” I hesitate. This is the part I’ve been turning over since Marisa’s name first left my mouth. “There is one problem.”
“What?” Cassian asks.
“If anything suspicious occurs in that clinic in the coming weeks,” I say carefully, “Marisa might put the pieces together.”
“Is this the doctor that clocked the malpractice and didn’t report it?” Talon asks.
“Yes.” I meet his gaze. “But just so we’re clear, I will not harm her. No matter what we find in there.”
“What if she took part in it?” Cassian asks.
“She didn’t,” I reply.
All reason points toward the truth. Marisa did not participate in whatever is happening at that clinic.
Her fear, her shame, her quiet retreat from a profession that could have paid three times what she earns now.
These do not belong to a perpetrator. They belong to someone who saw something, understood its implications, and chose to leave rather than confront it.
A coward’s exit, perhaps. But not a criminal’s.
“Alright,” Cassian murmurs.
“When this is over,” I say, “when we know exactly what is happening and we address it, I can speak to Marisa myself. I can shape what she thinks occurred.”
Cassian winces. A small contraction of his features, barely there, but I catch it. “Cutting contact would be best.”
“Yeah,” Talon agrees. “I don’t know about you, but whatever happens, I’m skipping town afterwards.”
“Even if you get the sight?” Cassian asks him.
“Yeah.” Talon doesn’t hesitate. “Especially then.” He looks at Cassian like the answer is obvious, like the question itself is faintly absurd. “Not gonna hang around in the town I legally died and came back to life. Sounds like a bad omen or something.”
Cassian thinks about it for a moment.
Then he nods.
“Alright,” he says. “I’m gonna go with you then.”
“What?” Talon nearly chokes.
“Well, I didn’t convince you to do this so you skip town and I never see you again.”
“And you’ll do what?”
“Murderers are everywhere,” Cassian says.
And that seems to clip it. Talon raises a brow. After a while, he nods like Cassian’s got him there, like the logic is airtight even though it’s barely logic at all. I just watch the two of them, finding myself surprised at how easy all of this seems. Moving, changing towns, leaving things behind.
I’m not a sentimental man. But I am a victim to routine, to order, to the particular comfort of knowing exactly where every instrument sits on the tray.
That alone sets me back.
But I suppose there’s no real progress without real risk.
“Fine, then we’ll leave together,” I add, before I can change my mind. “If anybody will have a reason to leave, it will be me.”
I push the takeout container away, interlace my fingers, and rest them lightly against the table.
Talon’s eyes widen.
“Insane,” he mutters.
It doesn’t escape my notice that his ears redden, likely from a quickened pulse. It doesn’t seem to be fear. Given the previous conversation he and Cassian had, the one in which he disclosed that much of his close circle had died, I can only make one assumption.
Perhaps Talon has been an unwilling lone wolf for some time now. Perhaps the prospect of companionship, however volatile, however strange, doesn’t seem that bad.
I couldn’t say the same thing myself. I like to be alone. I like to work alone.
But nobody ever said forming this group would be permanent. I just would like to use it for the time being.
“If we do this,” I say slowly. Both of them look at me. “If we continue working together in any capacity, there needs to be an agreed-upon framework.”
Cassian’s expression barely shifts. But something glints in his eyes. A flare of interest.
“We only kill murderers,” I state plainly. “Those who have taken life unjustly. We will use their deaths to rule the supernatural creatures. If they exist.” I let the qualifier hang. “But no one else’s.”
Cassian nods. “Agreed.”
“Fine by me,” Talon adds.
“Should we shake on it?” I ask. “Have it on paper?”
“Ew, I’m not writing anything on paper, man.” Talon’s face scrunches. “In my world you spit and shake on it. But even then, expect the other party to fuck you over.”
“There will be no fucking anyone over,” Cassian says.
“Then what guarantee will I have that this can work?” I ask.
We stare at each other. The silence stretches.
“I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” Cassian says.
And I suppose it’s the first time I hear him tell a joke.
I smile and nod.
I’ve gambled everything today. And so far, I’m still in.
I suppose that will have to be enough.