Chapter 45
Forty-Five
THEN | JAX
By the time we park, I’m convinced something’s wrong. Every nerve ending in my body is lit the fuck up. One thought keeps repeating in my head: protect her.
Meanwhile, the circus is piling out. This isn’t a party—just ten people, maybe. Bear cranks some shitty music from his truck while someone, like magic, shows up with a keg. How they found time to stop for booze is completely beyond me.
Whistle already has Becca pinned against his bike, trying to eat her face. Nobody bats an eye. Lou’s talking to some junior year girl I don’t know, passing a cigarette back and forth. Fiona’s ass-deep in a trunk, digging for speakers that probably don’t even work.
I’m watching everyone’s moves like a dog that hears something no one else can.
Since when did I get paranoid? I’ve always been the guy who doesn’t give a shit.
Fights, cops, rumors—whatever. Nothing ever got under my skin.
Nothing and no one. Until Sisk. She’s here on a fact-finding mission, looking for proof.
Something solid she can point to and say the stories are real.
That Tar City deserves every bit of its reputation.
She told me her plan earlier: she just wanted to dip her toes in, see if you hear anything when you get close enough. I laughed when she said it. Now, I’m starting to think she wasn’t joking.
If I’m being honest with myself for once?
I already know the stories are true. Not because of Ivan or the Knotted-Hair-Girl.
It’s because something I’ve ignored my whole life is waking up.
My grandfather’s stories. The way he talked about this town like it belonged to us long before we belonged to it.
And my father working day and night, trying to buy back a soul our family sold a long time ago.
“Yo, kill the lights!” some genius shouts.
The headlights click off one by one. Bear lights up one of those glass rigs, the bowl glowing black as he pulls deep and coughs. Ash. The chemical smoke drifts across the lot.
Dean slams his door shut and stretches. “Gonna piss,” he calls out to the group by the keg. “Don’t you motherfuckers drink it all while I’m gone.” He’s already wandering toward the edge of the lot.
I lean back against the car, scanning the empty black stretch beyond the gravel. I don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling. It’s a fucked up sixth sense, something screaming that we should go. I’m not one to leave a party early, and I’d never deny Sisk a good time, but I can’t shake this feeling.
Sisk comes closer, sliding her arm around my waist and rising onto her toes to kiss me.
“Relax, Jax. Everyone’s just having fun.”
I press my forehead to hers, trying to steal some of her calm. It’s not working. “We should go,” I say quietly.
Her brow furrows. “Already?”
“I don’t like this.”
She studies my face, trying to figure out what I’m not saying. Then she gives up and just goes for it. Her hand slide into my shirt, palm warm on my stomach as she pulls me down into a real kiss.
Her mouth presses against mine, hard, teeth catching my lip.
Yeah, that works. I’m hard instantly. Her body grinds against mine, it’s like she thinks she can hold the bad shit at bay if she just holds on tight enough.
For a minute, it actually works. The noise, the Pit, the dread—it all just fucking disappears.
There’s just her. The way she tastes, the way she feels, the heat building between us.
My hands grab her hips, pulling her in tight until our clothes are the only thing between us. The kiss gets sloppy. It’s only been a few hours since I was inside her, but my dick’s already hard again, demanding another round right the fuck now.
My head is already running through a list of places we could go, what we could do, when her hand slides down my stomach and presses right against my dick straining against my pants. Her fingers curl, squeezing, and I have to literally stop myself from bending her over the hood of the nearest car.
I’m just about to say fuck it and find a corner when Fiona’s voice cuts through it all. “Jax, where’s Dean?”
Sisk pulls back. Fiona spins around, her eyes scanning the darkness past the trucks.
I rub a hand over my face. “He went to take a piss, ten minutes ago.”
Lou shrugs, lighting another smoke. “He’ll be back.”
Fiona’s already walking off toward the spot I pointed.
“Fiona, wait,” Sisk calls after her. “We’ll go with you.”
Before I can tell her that my dick already has plans for us—Sisk’s fingers lace through mine and she tugs me forward.
We push deeper into the industrial graveyard.
It’s just a mess of rusted pipes and broken concrete slabs, with warning signs so faded they don’t warn anyone anymore.
The ground slopes down toward a chain-link fence, bent and bowed where people have cut through before.
Beyond it, the ground drops away to the old mine entrance.
Or what’s left of it, most of it collapsed years ago.
Fiona calls out, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Dean!”
Nothing.
I scan the darkness.
“Dean!” Sisk tries next.
I shake my head. “He wouldn’t come this far just to take a leak.”
Fiona turns, her annoyance transforming into worry. “Then where is he?”
Sisk squeezes my hand. “Maybe he went back to the cars. Let’s just go check,” she says, already pulling us that way.
That’s when we hear it. From beyond the fence, a wet, gurgling sound. All three of us freeze. Then it comes again. A thick, sickening noise. We all turn toward the Pit.
Sisk shivers beside me as we start back toward the cars.
“What if something happened?” Fiona asks.
“Like what?” I say. “There’s nothing here. He’s probably back at the cars, drinking and wondering where the hell you went. Let’s go.”
“Look—there!” She points, her finger shaking. A dark shadow moves, then ducks behind a stack of oil drums beyond the fence. It’s too dark to make out who it is.
“Dean!” I yell.
The person freezes for a second, then bolts.
Fiona grabs my arm. “Go, Jax! Help him—please!”
“Shit.” I turn back to them. “Back to the cars. Now!” I bark, already moving.
Sisk grabs at my sleeve. “Jax, no—don’t go—”
Too late, I’m already running. My stupid formal shoes are not built for this shit.
I slip then catch myself without slowing down.
I vault the bent section of fence instead of bothering to find the gap.
The metal tears at my palm and rips a clean line through my sleeve.
I hear fabric split, feel the sting, but I don’t stop.
“Dean!” I shout.
The figure ahead stumbles over a broken pipe, almost goes down, then regains balance and keeps running.
That’s when I know for sure: this isn’t Dean. And it’s not some drunk kid who wandered off. The figure is wearing a dark hoodie and some kind of mask, nothing like the formal crap Dean had on minutes ago.
I cut left, taking the shorter line down the slope.
“Stop!” I order, but he doesn’t. Every instinct is screaming at me to get back to the car, but the way the runner is moving says this isn’t some random wanderer.
This is someone who doesn’t want to be seen.
Dean’s missing, and this has to be connected.
What if this asshole knows something? I can’t just turn back now. I started this, I’m finishing it.
I think I’m closing the distance when my foot hits something loose.
By the time I look up again, he’s gone. I slow down, my heart pounding for a whole other fucking reason.
Forget Dean, I just made myself the new target.
I reach down and grab the first solid thing my hand finds, hoping the rock is heavy enough.
I move slower now, listening. “Dean,” I call again, lower this time. “This isn’t funny.”
I turn around just as a shadow swings hard. Pain detonates, white light explodes across my vision, and my knees buckle. I try to turn, but another hit sends the world tilting sideways before everything goes black.