Chapter Thirty — Black Vein Angel
Chapter Twenty-Three — Black Vein Angel
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
The underground facility hummed softly around them beneath dying fluorescent lights
while poisoned runoff dripped through pipes overhead.
Children watched from hospital beds and cracked observation rooms.
Silent.
Thin.
Afraid.
Especially of Blaine.
The little girl shrank farther against the wall the moment his silver eyes met hers again.
“Please don’t hurt us,” she whispered.
Avery’s chest tightened painfully.
Blaine physically stepped backward immediately.
Like the fear in her voice struck harder than bullets ever could.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
The words came out quiet.
Controlled.
But Avery noticed the child didn’t believe him.
Silas leaned against the doorway nearby watching the scene with unusual stillness.
No teasing.
No amusement.
Just observation.
Interesting.
Avery slowly crouched beside the little girl instead, keeping her bare hand visible and
empty.
“What’s your name?”
The child hesitated.
Then softly:
“Lena.”
Avery smiled carefully.
“I’m Avery.”
Recognition flickered instantly across the girl’s face again.
“The poison girl.”
Not cruel.
Almost reverent.
That frightened Avery more.
“You shouldn’t call me that.”
“They do.”
“Who?”
Lena looked toward the dark hallways instinctively.
Fear sharpened instantly in the room.
“The doctors.”
Silence.
Blaine’s expression went colder.
Not emotionally.
Dangerously.
Avery gently shifted closer toward the child.
“What do they say about me?”
Lena swallowed hard.
“That you escaped.”
Cold slid beneath Avery’s ribs.
Escaped.
Not survived.
Escaped.
“They say you killed people.”
The words hurt less than expected.
Because the child sounded scared for her.
Not of her.
Avery carefully tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind Lena’s ear.
The girl flinched—
then relaxed when nothing happened.
No poison.
No pain.
A boy sat cross-legged on the next bed over watching everything with cautious dark eyes.
About twelve. His left shoulder disappeared beneath his collar but black veins tracked
visibly up his neck toward his jaw. On the windowsill behind him, arranged with obvious
care, sat a collection of small broken things — gears, a cracked lens, three stripped bolts,
the dismantled circuit face of a ventilation panel.
Treasure.
Someone had given him nothing and he’d made it into something anyway.
He noticed her looking.
“I’m Seb,” he said carefully. “You’re the poison girl.”
“Avery,” she corrected.
He considered this. Then nodded once, like accepting a trade.
In the far corner, a girl of nine or ten sat cross-legged on her bed with both arms extended
in front of her, studying them with total concentration. Black ivy patterns traced up both
arms to the elbow — real growth, real contamination — but she’d drawn over the lines in
charcoal, turning the black veins into actual flowers. Detailed ones. Roses and foxglove and
something that might have been nightshade.
She looked up when Avery approached.
“Does it hurt?” the girl asked.
Avery looked at her own hands. “No.”
“Mine doesn’t either.” She offered one arm for inspection with complete matter-of-fact
calm. “I’m Rue. I made it into flowers because flowers are better than veins.”
The simplest and most devastating logic Avery had encountered in years.
“Yes,” she said softly. “They are.”
Near the entrance, an older boy sat with his back against the wall. Sixteen, maybe
seventeen. He wore the remnants of a Black Vein trainee uniform — the silver threading
half-stripped away like he’d tried to remove it himself and stopped halfway through. His
eyes tracked Blaine the moment they entered.
Not with the fear the younger children showed.
Recognition.
Shame.
Blaine crossed toward him slowly. Crouched to even height.
The boy stared at the stripped insignia on his own sleeve like he regretted not finishing the
job.
“Cal,” Blaine said quietly.
The boy looked up sharply.
“That’s not who you are,” Blaine said.
The boy said nothing.
But his shoulders dropped slightly.
Like something too tightly held had been given permission to loosen.
Avery’s throat tightened painfully.
All these years spent terrified of herself—
and somehow children engineered in the same nightmare feared Blaine more.
The realization hit hard.
Avery slowly looked up toward him.
Blaine stood near the doorway rigidly still, like he’d rather face an army than another
frightened child.
“Why do they call you Black Vein Angel?” she asked quietly.
The facility fell silent again.
Even Silas watched him carefully now.
Blaine didn’t answer immediately.
Wrong.
Very wrong.
Lena did instead.
“He comes when kids disappear.”
Avery frowned slightly.
“What?”
The child’s small hands tightened around her blanket.
“The doctors say if we don’t behave…” Her voice shook. “The Black Vein Angel takes us.”
Silence crashed through the underground ward.
Avery slowly turned toward Blaine.
Horror hollowed her chest instantly.
Not because he looked guilty.
Because he looked devastated.
Silas closed his eyes briefly like he already knew this story.
“Blaine,” Avery whispered.
His jaw tightened sharply.
“It was conditioning.”
The words sounded dragged out of him.
“They used my file during psychological compliance training.”
Lena stared at him fearfully from behind Avery’s shoulder.
“They said you kill the broken ones.”
A sharp flicker crossed Blaine’s face then.
Pain.
Real pain.
And suddenly Avery understood something terrifying — he probably had.
Not because he wanted to.
Because someone ordered him to.
The Black Vein Angel.
A monster story built from a real boy forced into becoming death.
Avery stood slowly.
“Everyone out,” Blaine said quietly.
The command instantly sharpened the room.
Silas frowned slightly.
“That tone usually means murder.”
“Out.”
Avery saw it immediately.
The shift.
Blaine had noticed something.
The children noticed too.
Fear spread silently through the ward.
Then the lights above flickered violently.
One by one every filtration monitor in the facility powered on simultaneously.
Static screamed across old medical screens lining the walls.
Lena whimpered softly.
And then a face appeared.
Don Luciano Moretti.
Live broadcast.
The patriarch sat calmly behind a polished black desk while silver serpent insignias
gleamed behind him in the dark.
Avery’s blood ran cold.
“Well,” Luciano said smoothly through the monitors. “You found it.”