Chapter Eighteen #2
Rowan stumbles forward with a strangled sound, catching himself on a crate before he can sprint blindly up the stairs. His eyes burn like wildfire. “If he’s hurting her…” his voice cracks, then strengthens into steel, “I’m killing him slow. I swear to fuck, Ro, I’ll make him beg.”
Dean once called himself our father. Hard to believe some creature like that was ever allowed near children—near us. Near her.
“We’re getting her back,” I growl, grabbing Rowan’s shoulder and pushing him toward the stairs. “Both of them.”
We ascend fast but carefully, raised weapons, breath controlled. Halfway up, the scent hits us.
Blood. Fresh. Heavy. Metallic.
Please—not Berk’s. Not Kimber’s. The plea tears through my head before I can rein it in, and the fury that follows slams through me hard enough to shatter bone.
Emerson signals two fingers, reminding us to stay tight. We round the corner at the top landing—
And immediately take fire.
Bullets crack past my ear. Rowan dives left. I drop behind a metal support beam. Emerson rolls to the right, returning fire in controlled bursts.
There are six, maybe more, shooters dug in across the upper hall, trying to funnel us back down the stairs. They’re shouting at each other, panicked, desperate.
“Hold them! Dean wants time!”
“Don’t let them reach the rooms!”
My blood goes dark and molten, burning through me like poisoned fire.
They know exactly who we’re here for.
Rowan pops up first, firing three controlled shots that crack through the hallway like snapping bones. Two men drop instantly, the third stumbling as he tries to crawl behind a crate before Rowan puts another round through his spine.
I flank left, keeping low as muzzle flashes strobe across the dim landing. One guard pivots his rifle toward me, but Emerson tags him clean in the chest before he can stabilize his aim. He spins, firing wildly into the wall as he goes down.
A round screams past Rowan’s ribs, kissing the metal railing and sparking bright enough to light his snarl. He fires back without hesitation, nailing the shooter center mass and dropping him like a sack of meat.
The last two rush us in a panic—heavy boots, shaky hands, guns spitting desperate fire as they charge. The smart move would’ve been to fall back and regroup. Instead, they run straight into three people who’ve already died and come back as devils.
Big fucking mistake.
One rounds the corner too fast, weapon lifted, breath wheezing. I meet him head-on. My blade slides up beneath his jaw, severing the scream in his throat. He collapses against me, dead weight, before I shove him aside and move on.
The last guy barrels toward Emerson with a bellow, but Emerson sweeps his legs clean out from under him. Before the man can recover, Rowan steps in and ends it with a single shot through the throat. Blood sprays the floor in a sharp arc, then everything goes still.
But it isn’t the right kind of still.
Not the relief that follows a fight.
Not the hush before a storm breaks.
This is deliberate silence. Controlled. Rehearsed.
Rowan looks to me. Emerson checks the far door. My pulse hammers, my gun ready.
Dean isn’t within sight.
“He’s close,” I rasp. “He knows we’re coming, and he’s going to be desperate.”
Rowan wipes blood from his cheek, chest heaving. “Then we move faster.”
Another scream cuts through the hall—shorter this time, weaker. Berk’s running out of strength.
The sound lights us up like gasoline.
My lungs burn with every breath as Berk’s cries echo ahead of us, thinning, fading. Too distant. Too wrong.
“Let’s end this,” I snarl, voice scraping raw.
We push deeper into the second floor, boots pounding across concrete smeared with footprints, blood, and shell casings.
The hall branches off from the wide area we just turned into a graveyard, stretching forward like a throat we’re about to cut open.
Cold metal doors line both sides. Three on the right.
Two on the left. One centered at the far end.
And nothing to guide us.
No more screams. No more taunts. Just the dead stillness of a place that has hurt too many people.
Emerson murmurs, “Metal doors. At least we don’t have to worry about someone firing through.” He tries to sound steady, but we all hear the quiver he chokes back.
Rowan’s jaw ticks. “We clear them in order. No skipping. If she’s not behind the first one, she’ll be behind the next.”
Or she won’t be in any of them at all.
That thought punches me in the ribs, but I shove it down and gesture to the first door on the left. Emerson swings it open while Rowan and I cover angles. Empty. No furniture, restraints, or signs that anyone has ever stepped foot inside.
“Fuck,” Rowan mutters. “Alright, next.”
We cross to the door opposite. Same procedure. I push this one open.
Another empty room. Bare walls. No smell of blood. No sound.
A pressure builds behind my eyes. Panic trying to claw its way in.
“Still nothing,” Emerson hisses. “Why set up decoy rooms?"
“Because he’s a coward,” I grit out. “And because he knows we’re coming."
We move to the next door on the left. Rowan’s hand trembles once on the handle before he forces it steady. He pushes it open.
More empty space.
He curses, voice cracking. “Three rooms empty? Why the hell would there be three empty rooms up here? What is this place?”
“A maze,” Emerson answers tightly. “A distraction. Keep going.”
Fourth door. Right side. Emerson opens it fast. We sweep low and high.
Empty.
Again.
My pulse spikes, a knife against the inside of my throat. “This isn’t right. If neither of them is here, then where the hell—”
“Don’t say it,” Rowan cuts in sharply, voice frayed. “Don’t you fucking say it.”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Emerson murmurs. “We could be too late. They might’ve moved them. Or—”
“Or there’s a way out we missed,” Rowan snaps. He runs a shaking hand through his hair, eyes wide and haunted. “We should’ve checked the blueprints again. Or a basement door we didn’t see. Or—”
“Stop,” I growl. “Panicking won’t get us to them any faster."
But my stomach is dropping like a stone because he’s voicing every thought I haven’t dared.
Two doors left.
The last door to the right and the heavy metal door at the end of the hall.
They have to be behind one of them. They have to.
Emerson’s face drains of color as he stares between me and Rowan. “If these next two are empty…”
Rowan finishes it for him, voice flat and raw. “Then we’re fucked.”
We converge on the last right-hand door, shoulders locked tight, breaths sharp and shallow. My pulse hammers so violently I taste metal. Every instinct I’ve ever trusted is screaming at me that Kimber and Berk are close. And we’re running out of time.
Rowan crouches first, fingertips brushing the metal. “This one’s got an exterior lock,” he whispers. “Like someone wanted to keep whoever’s inside… in.”
My chest constricts.
He presses his ear to the cold steel, eyes narrowing. “There’s something. Quiet. Like humming… or breathing through fabric.”
We look at each other once. That’s all it takes.
Guns raise. Muscles coil. Emerson’s hand tightens on the knob.
I whisper, “On three.”
But he doesn’t wait for three.
The door slams open and we barrel inside, ready to take out anything that moves.
Then we stop.
Because nothing moves.
And everything bleeds.
The room is a slaughterhouse. Blood coats the walls in glossy streaks. Bodies sprawl across the floor in mangled heaps, throats open, limbs bent wrong, eyes glassy. The copper tang is choking, thick enough to taste.
For half a second, I think we’re too late.
Then something shifts.
A figure snaps upright in the back corner, blade glinting, stance ready to kill the next thing that twitches.
Berk.
She’s soaked in blood from brow to boots, hair matted to her face, pupils blown wide with adrenaline. She looks like vengeance carved out of bone and hunger. A feral snarl curls her lips.
Then her gaze locks on us.
Recognition snaps through her features. The snarl melts into the brightest, wildest smile I’ve ever seen, teeth sharp and victorious.
She sprints.
“Berk—!” I only get her name out before she launches herself at me. I barely manage to catch her as she slams into my chest, momentum knocking me backward onto the blood-slick floor. Rowan and Emerson rush forward, hands everywhere, touching her like she’s a ghost they’re trying to prove solid.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Rowan breathes, staring around. “What the hell happened in here?”
“What didn’t happen?” Emerson mutters, scanning the carnage. “There are… holy shit… are their dicks out?”
Berk pushes up on my chest, grinning with pure mischief. “Don’t worry,” she says, voice sugary sweet through the gore. “I didn’t touch any of their dicks. I pinned them down with another knife, so I didn’t have to use my hands.”
Rowan follows her pointing finger—then doubles over laughing so hard he nearly drops his gun. Because every single corpse was given the signature treatment.
Octopus hotdogs.
Bloody. Carved. Ridiculous. Horrific. And goddamn Berk.
He wheezes between laughs. “You made octopuses. Out of all of them. Every… single… one.”
She shrugs innocently. “They deserved it.”
I grip her jaw gently, forcing her eyes to mine. “Are you hurt? We heard you screaming.”
“Oh, that?” She waves it off as if she tripped on a rug. “I had to cover their screams with mine. Didn’t want whoever was outside getting suspicious.”
My stomach flips. Rowan swears softly.
She points to one ruined body. “That one touched Kimber. Pulled her hair. Licked her face. So I cut out his tongue, then took his fingers.” Her voice is flat—casual, like she’s commenting on the weather.
I could kiss her senseless, wrap her in bubble wrap, or throttle the shit out of her for scaring us like this. Hard to tell which instinct screams louder.
Her expression shifts suddenly—fierce, sharp, urgent. “Have you found her yet?”
All three of us shake our heads.
Her entire face hardens. “She’s in the room at the end of the hall. Dean’s been setting up a buyer for both of us. We need to move.”
Rage roars through my bloodstream.
Rowan grips her shoulders. “We’re getting her. But when we get home? You’re in so much fucking trouble.”
“Massive trouble,” Emerson echoes.
I growl low, “You’re not pulling this shit again. Ever. You understand me?”
Her eyes soften, guilt cracking through her bravado. She nods. “I know. I deserve it. I’m sorry. But it was the only way to get to Kimber.”
I kiss her forehead once, quick and fierce, blood and all. “We’ll deal with it later. Right now? Let’s finish this.”
We form up without another word. Emerson and Rowan take point, while I keep Berk anchored to my side, refusing to let her slip even half a step behind us.
We approach the last door—the one at the very end of the hall.
The room behind it should hold Kimber.
And Dean.
Or something we’re too late for.
My grip tightens on my gun.
“Ready?” I ask.
Three voices answer with the same cold, lethal certainty.
“Ready.”