Chapter Fourteen — Don’t Touch the Assassin
Chapter Ten — The Journal of Ghosts
Avery stared at the kill contract while rainwater blurred the ink between Blaine Morana’s
gloved fingers.
Target: Avery Quinnly Nimh.
Execution authorized by House Moretti.
The words should’ve terrified her more than they did.
Instead she just felt tired.
So deeply tired.
“Are you going to do it?” she asked quietly.
Blaine’s silver eyes lifted from the contract back to her face.
“You’re calm.”
A hollow laugh escaped her.
“My boyfriend died yesterday.”
The word boyfriend sounded strange out loud.
Too soft for Poison City.
Too human.
Something shifted almost imperceptibly in Blaine’s expression.
Not sympathy.
Recognition.
Like he understood grief well enough to identify it instantly.
“You should run,” Avery murmured.
“You’re cornered in a dead-end alley holding a knife incorrectly.”
His voice remained perfectly calm.
“You’re in no position to threaten anyone.”
Heat flashed briefly through her exhaustion.
“I know how to use a knife.”
“No.” His gaze flicked once toward her grip. “You know how to hold fear.”
The accuracy of it hit harder than insult would have.
Avery tightened her grip anyway.
Rain hammered steadily around them while green emergency lights flickered weakly
across flooded pavement.
Blaine looked like he belonged in the city’s shadows.
Not just because of the black coat or the weapons she could already tell were hidden
beneath it.
Because he moved like violence already lived inside him quietly.
Controlled.
Contained.
Deadly.
Avery hated how safe that should’ve made her feel.
“You’ve been following me,” she realized suddenly.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since the bounty was issued.”
Cold slid down her spine.
“And you waited until now?”
Blaine’s gaze drifted once more toward the leather bag strapped against her hip.
“The journal changed things.”
Avery physically stilled.
Nobody mentioned it.
Nobody.
“What do you know about my journal?”
“Enough.”
“Who told you?”
“No one.”
“Then how—”
“I saw the names.”
Avery’s pulse stumbled.
Impossible.
The realization hit half a second later.
Her apartment.
The message.
WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE.
“You were inside my apartment.”
“Yes.”
Rage flashed through her grief instantly.
“That was you?”
Blaine didn’t even deny it.
“I needed to confirm whether the rumors were true.”
“What rumors?”
“That you kept records of the dead.”
The rain suddenly felt freezing against Avery’s skin.
Blaine studied her silently for a moment longer.
Then:
“Most killers don’t memorialize their victims.”
The words hollowed her out.
Because he still thought she was a killer.
Of course he did.
Everyone did.
Avery looked away first.
“I didn’t mean to hurt them.”
Silence.
Then quietly:
“I know.”
Her head snapped back toward him.
Blaine’s expression hadn’t softened.
If anything, it looked colder now.
More focused.
“Vincent Moretti touched you repeatedly over several months,” he said calmly. “Yet his
symptom progression doesn’t match standard contamination fatality.”
Avery stopped breathing.
“How do you know that?”
“I reviewed the body report.”
Body.
The word nearly broke her.
Blaine saw it.
Everything about him noticed too much.
“He was poisoned,” Avery whispered.
“Yes.”
Her throat tightened violently.
“By me.”
Blaine’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“No.”
The certainty in his voice stunned her silent.
Rainwater slid down his dark hair while the city flickered green around them like a dying
heartbeat.
“Vincent Moretti was murdered,” Blaine said quietly.
The world stopped.
Avery stared at him.
No.
No no no—
“He was already dying from exposure,” Blaine continued calmly, “but the final toxin
concentration found in his bloodstream was impossible.”
Her pulse spiraled violently.
“What are you talking about?”
Blaine slowly folded the kill contract once again.
“Someone accelerated the poisoning intentionally.”
The alley suddenly felt too small.
Too loud.
Vinny coughing blood.
The apartment raid.
House Moretti announcing her name to the city before dawn.
Avery’s knees nearly weakened.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“Why would they do that?”
Blaine’s expression darkened slightly.
“Because a dead heir creates panic.” His silver eyes locked onto hers completely. “But a
murdered heir creates war.”
Thunder cracked overhead violently.
Avery pressed trembling fingers against the leather bag at her hip like it could somehow
hold her together.
Vinny knew.
That realization hit next.
The files.
The drive.
Run.
He knew something before he died.
Or before they killed him.
Avery’s breathing turned uneven instantly.
Blaine watched her carefully.
Then:
“Show me the journal.”
Fear flashed hot through her.
“No.”
“You’re carrying evidence.”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s also the reason I haven’t killed you.”
The honesty of it sliced straight through the alley between them.
Avery stared at him.
Blaine held her gaze without flinching.
Rain poured endlessly around the assassin and the poison girl while somewhere deep
inside Poison City—
a war quietly began breathing awake.
Avery should have run.
That thought repeated endlessly in the back of her mind while she followed Blaine Morana
through Poison City at nearly two in the morning.
Every survival instinct she possessed screamed against this.
An assassin.
A kill contract.
A stranger who broke into her apartment and read her journal.
And yet—
he still hadn’t tried to kill her.
That frightened her more than violence would have.
Rain drifted softer now through the city, turning the streets slick black beneath flickering
green ventilation lights. Blaine moved through the ruins with unnatural precision, never
hesitating at intersections, never glancing twice at exits.
Like he already knew every route people could die in.
Avery stayed several careful steps behind him.
Not trust.
Never trust.
Distance.
“You’re limping,” Blaine said without looking back.
Avery immediately straightened.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding through your boot.”
Her stomach dropped slightly.
She looked down.
Dark blood streaked the side of her left ankle where rusted metal must’ve sliced through
her boot while escaping the apartment district earlier.
She hadn’t even noticed.
Blaine finally stopped walking beneath the shattered remains of an elevated train line.
“You need to clean it.”
“I need to leave.”
“If you leave right now, scavengers will sell your location before sunrise.”
His silver eyes flicked once toward the wanted screen glowing nearby.
Her face stared back from it endlessly.
Monster.
Biohazard.
Murderer.
Avery looked away first.
Blaine noticed.
He noticed everything.
“There’s a safehouse two blocks east,” he said calmly.
“You have safehouses?”
“I’m an assassin.”
“That somehow feels obvious now.”
For the first time, something almost resembling amusement flickered briefly across his
face.
Tiny.
Gone instantly.
But there.
The realization unsettled her strangely.
Blaine Morana looked like someone carved entirely from restraint. It felt unnatural
imagining him smiling.
Avery followed him again reluctantly.
The safehouse turned out to be hidden beneath an abandoned embalming chapel.
Which somehow felt exactly right for him.
The lower level smelled faintly of antiseptic, rainwater, and old smoke. Dim industrial
lights flickered overhead revealing concrete walls lined with weapon cases, medical kits,
maps, and neatly organized toxin vials locked behind reinforced glass.
Everything looked controlled.
Precise.
Cold.
No personal items.
No warmth.
No evidence anyone actually lived here.
Blaine locked the steel door behind them quietly.
The sound echoed heavily through Avery’s chest.
Trapped.
The thought hit instantly.
Blaine shrugged off his soaked coat without speaking, revealing black tactical layers fitted
close beneath. Scars disappeared beneath the collar near his throat — pale lines crossing
darker skin like old chemical burns.
Black Vein marks.
Avery recognized them immediately.
“You were experimented on,” she said softly.
Blaine paused.
Then:
“Yes.”
No elaboration.
No self-pity.
Just fact.
He crossed toward a cabinet and pulled free medical supplies before setting them on the
table between them.
“Sit.”
“I can do it myself.”
“I know.”
His silver gaze lifted back to hers calmly.
“You’re shaking anyway.”
Avery hated that he was right.
Again.
Slowly, she sat on the edge of the metal table while Blaine crouched in front of her to
examine the cut through her damaged boot.
He stopped before touching her.
Of course he did.
Not fear.
Awareness.
Calculated caution.
Something about that hurt unexpectedly.
Vinny never hesitated enough.
Blaine always would.
“Take the boot off,” he said quietly.
Avery obeyed stiffly.
The cut along her ankle wasn’t deep, but rust contamination had already darkened the skin
around it.
Blaine studied it clinically.
Then his eyes lifted briefly toward her gloves.
“Has your poison ever transferred through blood?”
Fear sharpened instantly.
“Why?”
“Answer.”
Avery swallowed hard.
“Yes.”
“How long after exposure?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
Her throat tightened.
“Emotional state sometimes.”
Silence.
Blaine processed that quickly.
Too quickly.
His expression didn’t change, but she saw the calculation happen behind his eyes anyway.
Danger assessment.
Risk probability.
Containment variables.
The assassin was measuring her constantly.
Avery suddenly hated how much it resembled fear.
Blaine reached for antiseptic.
Then stopped again before touching her skin.
“Can you clean it yourself?”
The question startled her slightly.
Not because he asked.
Because he cared enough to.
Avery slowly took the supplies from him.
Their gloves brushed accidentally.
Barely.
Still—
Blaine physically froze.
Avery’s breath caught instantly.
Nothing happened.
No pain.
No reaction.
Just silence stretching strangely between them.
Blaine’s eyes locked onto hers.
Sharp.
Focused.
And for the first time since meeting him—
Avery saw something crack through his control.
Curiosity.
Not fear.
Not disgust.
Curiosity.
“You didn’t react,” she whispered.
“No.”
The single word fell heavy into the room.
Avery stared at him.
Impossible.
Everyone reacted eventually.
Everyone.
Blaine slowly looked down at his own gloved hand like he was reconsidering something
dangerous in real time.
Then quietly:
“That’s interesting.”