Chapter 6 REICH
REICH
The workload was crushing.
Over the past week, the assignments had tripled—more targets, more names, more blood. The directives from the ENA came faster than we could process them, stacking on top of one another like bodies in a shallow grave.
We didn’t ask why.
We never did.
But that didn’t make the weight of it any easier to bear.
The pressure mounted with each passing hour, heavy and smothering.
I pushed myself harder, worked longer, because someone had to.
Even as Castor started falling behind.
He was slower now, distracted in ways I hadn’t seen in years. I’d catch him staring at his phone too long, running a hand through his hair like it might steady him.
But it didn’t.
He was slipping, and I knew why.
He was trying to live a life outside of this.
Something… more.
And I was the one who had made that nearly impossible.
I was the one who led him into this life.
I was the one who handed him the blade and told him where to cut.
I promised I’d protect him. Promised I’d shield him from the darkness that had been swallowing me whole since I first ended up with the ENA but promises like that are built on lies.
I hadn’t saved him.
I’d dragged him under.
But even now, standing in the fallout of those choices, it was impossible to tell whether there had ever been another path, though at times I feel like I could have carved out another for him.
The guilt gnawed at me.
Every hour. Every minute.
Relentless as a dull knife twisting under the ribs.
I should’ve been his protector.
Instead, I became his undoing, and yet, he stayed.
He could have left me in this house, this life, in the graveyard of men we used to be, but he didn’t.
He stayed, and that haunted me more than anything.
I ran a hand over my face, fingertips digging into my temples like they could dislodge the pressure building behind my skull.
I needed air.
I needed something else—anything else to keep the walls of this house from closing in on me.
I stepped out onto the deck, shoving the door open harder than I meant to as the wind carried it.
The air held the scents of pine and earth and the faint tug of something distant and wild. I inhaled deeply, holding my breath until my chest ached before letting it out slow.
Trying to clear my head and feel something other than this mental fatigue I found myself in.
The valley stretched out below, quiet and still.
From here, I could see everything.
The river carving its restless line through the valley floor. The lake catching the light like a glass reflection and across the water to the field of wildflowers.
Beautiful.
Deceptive.
I hadn’t stood out here in days. Maybe even weeks.
But I knew she had.
That woman.
The trespasser.
Every morning, without fail, she emerged from the trees on the far side of the valley.
At first, I thought it was a fluke. A random hiker who’d strayed too far.
Until it happened again. And again.
Then eventually, I knew her routine as well as I knew my own.
I’d been watching her.
Not directly—not yet.
But through the lenses of the surveillance cameras mounted discreetly in the trees.
Their daily feeds kept on repeat would glow faintly on the monitors in my study when sleep wouldn’t come.
I observed her movements.
Kept track of them.
She always paused at the edge of the field, standing still like she was drinking it in, committing the view to memory.
Then she would settle down, sitting cross-legged in the grass with a book in hand, thumbing through the pages while the wind tangled her hair.
When she finished her books, whether it was reading or writing, she wandered among the wildflowers, plucking a few before tucking them carefully into the pages she brought with her.
She never stayed longer than an hour.
Never deviated from her schedule.
Precise and predictable.
Too predictable.
But there was something about her… something that held me captive.
Her quiet presence. Her solitude.
The way she existed so completely within herself, untouched by the world that had ruined the rest of us. It was a strange kind of comfort and something more.
Something I didn’t dare to name.
Something I didn’t trust because it was foreign.
I didn’t know if it was how she truly was or if it was merely a mask she hid behind.
Though if it was a mask, she wore it damn well.
I found myself waiting for her to appear on the cameras, even when I didn’t have the time to see for myself.
Every morning.
I told myself it was curiosity.
Precaution.
A necessary awareness of anyone who might be a threat—anyone who got too close to a body that needed to stay buried, but that wasn’t the truth, and I was tired of lying to myself.
I couldn’t look away.
Not from her.
Until she would leave my vision.
I would stand there, hands braced against the railing, eyes fixed on the distant line of trees where she would eventually disappear. And when she did, when her silhouette would eventually slip through the forest’s edge like a shadow returning home, I knew I’d go back to feeling empty.
“Are you going to talk to her,” Castor’s voice cut through my thoughts, sharp and unexpected, “or just keep watching like some creep?”
I turned, not startled by his presence but by how long he must have been standing there without me noticing.
He leaned against the opposite side of the railing, one brow arched in lazy amusement, but his eyes were sharp.
Always sharp.
“I’m trying to figure out what she’s up to,” I replied, defensive without meaning to be. Like I was justifying something I didn’t fully understand.
Castor smirked. “Easiest way to do that? Walk down there and ask her.”
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t look at him.
Just stared back at her as she knelt among the flowers, running her fingers over the petals like they were something sacred.
“What’s the matter with you?” Castor asked.
There was a cadence in his voice I didn’t hear often.
One that sounded like concern.
“Nothing’s the matter with me,” I snapped.
And he didn’t push.
Didn’t need to.
The silence that followed between us after said everything.
After a long moment, he sighed, “I’ve got errands to run before the festival. You’re still coming, right?”
I exhaled, slow and tight.
“I can’t—”
“You can,” he said, cutting me off, “you said you weren’t missing Nerv play again. I’m holding you to it.” He nudged my shoulder with his before continuing, “I need this. And so do you. One night.” He held up his index finger. “One night won’t kill you.”
I clenched my jaw.
Felt the resistance crumble in my chest.
But the truth was, I wanted to go.
If only to prove I could still do something normal.
If only to feel something else for a little while.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll be there.”
Castor’s grin was fast and sharp, satisfaction flashing across his face. “Good,” he said. “You won’t regret it.”
He turned to leave, pausing at the door.
“Oh,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “I still haven’t found anything on the last Ovitt son. Slippery bastard.”
The mention of the Ovitts sent something sharp twisting in my gut.
A familiar burn.
“Keep searching,” I said, voice low. Steady. “No one’s beyond our reach.”
And I meant it.
I would find him.
No matter how long it took.
No matter how far he ran.
Even if I had to drag him from the depths of hell, I’d make him face what he’d done.
This wasn’t just a mission.
It never had been.
This was personal.
Harry Ovitt had poisoned everything he touched.
A man who treated his daughters like garbage and forged his sons into monsters.
I had started with Harry. Severed the head of the snake.
Then I took his sons. One by one. Five pieces of shit.
Until there was only one left. The youngest and the one who’d managed to stay ahead of me.
For now.
But sooner or later, everyone answers for their sins, and his time was coming.
Castor disappeared back inside the house, leaving me alone with the valley and the ghosts I’d made here.
I turned back to her.
She moved differently today, lingering longer than usual. Her gaze fixed on the sky in a way that felt heavier. Her fingers tightened around the flowers in her hand, as if she was holding on to something she didn’t want to lose.
And for the first time since I’d started watching her, I wondered—Was she running toward something or was she running away from something?
The question stuck in my throat.
I exhaled, slow and steady.
But the emptiness she left behind when she finally turned and disappeared into the woods was sharper than I expected.
I realized then that I didn’t need the festival for the music.
Or the noise.
Or even the distraction.
I needed to feel something.
Anything other than this.