Chapter 55
Zane
The sun’s slowly sinking like a dying animal.
It bleeds red across the sky, staining the clouds the same colour as the blood on my hands.
We’ve been combing the area two hours west of the town since she was taken yesterday. We loaded up the truck, spent the night on the road and have been at each other’s throats.
Phoenix has done his best trying to keep us together but when he caught Myles carving Ivy’s name into his own chest last night, he realised none of us would be getting any rest.
This has taken too long. The dried blood on my chest itches, but I’ll keep adding to it with every kill I make until we get her back.
Her scent ghosts across my mind—soap and something sweet. The way her hair feels on my throat when I hold her body in my arms. I cling to it like oxygen, because men are going to die for it.
We’ve burnt every shack down, covered a lot of ground but found nothing.
This morning, we ambushed some scavengers hoping they were part of Bennett’s cult.
They weren’t.
But they weren’t totally useless. We beat them until they spilled information about a farm nearby that grows food and keeps chickens. They claimed it was home to a group of around fifteen men. Then when we asked if they’d seen any women there… they said, “not for a while”.
So now, we’re crouched behind a collapsed stone wall on the edge of the farm, swallowed by moss and time. The field ahead of us is tall with weeds, wind sighing through it like breath over a grave.
The chainsaw on my thigh smells like pine sap and iron. I don’t wipe it anymore. I want them to smell their future before it happens. My fingers stroke the trigger guard like a rosary—a promise to whatever god is still watching.
I’ve already dropped one of their scouts, but it wasn’t enough to blunt the hunger gnawing inside me.
Now I’ve counted seven men, maybe more.
They move like they’ve had no training, guns slung lazily, bourbon bottles in hand, smoke curling into the air like they haven’t got a fucking care in the world. Didn’t even notice the parasites feeding off them.
Men like this wouldn’t have survived without banding together. I want to kill them slowly, drag it out so they realise how powerless they really are.
But Ivy’s been here for too long already. She’s mine even when she’s not in my arms.
Every man between us is just a blood-warm obstacle waiting to be removed.
Myles breathes her name like a prayer, in the full swing of a manic episode. Phoenix growls under his mask but he doesn’t shut Myles down.
We’re three predators inflicted with the same wound, and we’ll bleed for her together.
“Don’t they realise smoke is visible for miles around?” Phoenix grinds out, frustration palpable. “They cover their tyre tracks by driving through a creek… but they have a whole bonfire going?”
Myles growls behind me. “They think they’re untouchable.”
I map the paths between the outbuildings even as my pulse spikes. Every door, every window, every shadow where a muzzle could flash. Because rage without precision is just noise.
“This is the place. She’s here,” I hiss.
Phoenix’s gaze flicks to me, voice like gravel. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I retort, not sparing him a look. “Bennett’s no warlord. These men aren’t trained, they’ve just banded together. Look at them. Acting like they’re on patrols but just hanging around the house, drunk. They don’t know what they’re doing but they’re clearly trying to protect something.”
That name—Bennett—tastes like rust in my mouth, scraping something raw inside me. If he’s touched her, if he’s even looked at her, I’ll cut his hands off and feed them to him before he dies.
Myles’s voice is tight, barely leashed. He keeps flexing his jaw like he’s working out how to chew through the first man he meets. “They’ve got my little doe,” he snarls.
“And we want her alive,” Phoenix snaps. “We don’t go in reckless just because you’re spiralling.”
Myles’s knuckles crack around his machete’s grip, one heartbeat from splitting skulls. “Spiralling? You expect me to be calm? She screamed when they took her, Phoenix. She screamed for us!”
The memory drives me. Her voice tearing through the air, that loose shirt barely covering her precious body. The fear in her eyes.
She’s carrying more than herself now. Two heartbeats. One I’ve felt under my palm, the other still a whisper. Both belong to us, and I’ll rip this place down to its foundations before I let either of them stop.
I can already see the way it ends—body parts piled up like mulch, blood feeding the weeds. Every man I cut down is another vow carved into the world.
Ivy is mine to protect, mine to ruin, mine to worship.
Eyes locked on the farmhouse, I shift my weight, muscles twitching for release. “I’ve got this.”
Phoenix turns his head slowly, eyes sharp. “You think this is the time to lose control?”
“Yes,” I say calmly. “It’s exactly time for that.” My hands keep twitching like they’re around someone’s throat, remembering how soft the windpipe collapses.
His eyes narrow on me. He knows this side of me, the one that was built in the gauntlet of my past. But I clawed my way out of that life.
Phoenix didn’t just patch me up, he taught me to redirect the violence. Then Ivy taught me how to trust myself again. That I can let myself want her. My depraved thoughts don’t scare her away.
Now every breath I take without her feels like inhaling broken glass.
I’ll show her how far I’ll go to keep her safe.
I feel that old monster coiling to strike, and I feel no shame. The smell of blood takes me back to the Pit. How I used to dream about tearing down its walls. This isn’t just a rescue mission. This is the reckoning I was built for.
I know exactly what’s needed for this situation… a Berserker.
“I’ll go with him,” Myles bares his teeth, more snarl than grin, eyes fixated on the farmhouse. “Let us off the leash. I want to bury them all in the rubble.”
“And if they’ve got a gun to her head the second they see us?” Phoenix’s voice is a whip crack.
“They won’t,” I growl, jaw clenching. “They won’t get the chance.”
There’s silence between us, thick and hot. I feel sweat at the base of my spine. Bennett thinks he’s a shepherd. But he’s just another predator. And he’s about to learn what it means to be prey.
Phoenix thumbs the safety off with a sharp click. “We do it clean. Three points, pushing in, no noise, no escape. No mess until we hit the house.”
“There was a scout on the north ridge,” I say flatly. “Took him out ten minutes ago. Two more coming down the track. Myles got them before they could yell.”
Phoenix’s knuckles whiten around his gun. “Then we’re clear to move in.”
“No survivors,” Myles growls, pulling his mask back over his face.
I look up at the farmhouse. Weathered clapboard, sagging porch, no lights in the windows. These guys don’t even have electricity.
“I don’t care how many there are,” I growl. “We’ll stack the bodies to the roof.”
Phoenix turns to us, his voice sharp. “She’ll be in the house. Cover every door, I don’t want any of them getting away.”
He doesn’t know that for sure. But he wants it to be true. We all do.
My fingers curl around the chainsaw handle, sweat dripping down my forehead under the thick material of my mask. “Then let’s tear the house down.”
Phoenix gestures with his chin. “Take the left. I’ll circle from the east. Myles—”
“I know,” Myles cuts in. “Straight down the fucking middle.”
We split without another word, slipping into the dusk, becoming one with the shadows. The wind rustles the grass, and I hear the distant laugh of one of the men on the porch.
I don’t smile, but something inside me grins.
They have no idea what’s coming.
Every man I cut down tonight will be an offering laid at her feet.