Chapter 71
Seventy-One
NOW | JAX
Idon’t know how the word got out this fast.
Murtaugh has taken over one of the corner tables, turning it into his own personal lab. He’s got his black case open with vials of Sisk’s blood lined up next to it and he’s squinting at some kind of readout on a strange silver box.
Everyone is talking, everyone is fucking panicking, but my mind is clear. There’s only one thought left, one thing that matters: Protect her. At all costs.
“Jax, are you even listening to this?” Viper asks.
I nod but it’s a lie. I’m not listening to any of it. I’m watching the way Sisk is standing too still, her arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold herself together.
“It’s going to be okay, alright?” Lou says as he hugs Sisk. “There’s gotta be a way.”
Is this a fucking bad time to think about prying his hands off her? Probably. He’s her friend, he’s scared, but all I see is someone else touching what’s mine.
Sisk doesn’t answer any questions. I know what her silence means—she’s already making a plan, and I’m not sure I want to ask what it is.
My mind is still stuck on the moment she realized what the black vein in her stomach meant.
First came the shock of pregnancy, then the shock of it being mine, and finally the horror that it might not even be hers to keep.
Pregnant with something that, in the best case scenario, is a healthy baby that gets taken from her.
And in the worst case… I shut that thought down immediately.
“Tell us you can do something about this,” Matt says, inches from Murtaugh’s face.
“I told you,” Murtaugh replies nervously. “The options are… uncertain. Possibly impossible. If she doesn’t want to keep—”
“What?” Sisk’s voice cuts him off.
Murtaugh looks up from his box, pushing his glasses up his nose. “We could attempt to remove it.”
My head lifts slowly, the words not registering at first. “It?”
“Well, how do we even know it’s entirely human?” he says, his voice detached. “This is unprecedented. The vein has already darkened and spread, you said so yourself. That suggests tar involvement… which means we don’t actually know what’s growing and developing inside her.”
“You will refer to my baby as baby,” Sisk says calmly. Deadly calm. “And I want this baby. I won’t hear otherwise.” Her eyes land on me when she says the last part. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Of course, hon,” Lou says, quickly grabbing her hand.
“We just want to help,” Viper says, getting her a glass of water.
“I’m not sick,” Sisk says, her voice sharp. “Stop treating me like I’m dying.”
She looks around the room, her gaze sweeping over all of them. “This is normal. I’m pregnant. That’s it.”
Silence.
“Now,” she continues, her eyes moving to me. “Can we get to the only important part? How Jax and I get the hell out of Tar City without, you know… burning it to the ground.”
“Get out?” we all say at the same time.
“Of course,” she says simply. “The sooner the better. I’m not leaving this to chance.”
“Sisk…” I say. “I can’t leave.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “What do you mean you can’t?”
It’s fucked up, but the moment I heard about the pregnancy, something in me finally settled. All this time, I’ve been fighting it, acting like I could outrun what’s in my blood. I can’t. This is the hand I was dealt, and I’m done pretending I can fold. Time to play the fucking cards.
I lift my hand and the tar pushes out of my palm.
It moves with a purpose, it stretches downward, clinging to itself as it lengthens.
I move my fingers and the tar responds. It thickens, extending across the table like a slow black rope until it wraps around the whiskey glass sitting near Matt’s elbow.
The glass scrapes softly across the wood as the tar drags it toward me.
Once the glass reaches my hand, the tar retracts slowly, pulling back into my palm like it was never there.
I take a sip, the whiskey burning a familiar path down my throat, and only then do I realize they’re all staring with their mouths open. Surprised like I just showed them the monster they all knew was hiding in my closet isn’t hiding anymore.
“What the hell…” Matt lets out.
The tar twists slowly between my fingers, forming a small shape: a spiral, then a ring, then a ball.
Murtaugh stares at it like a man watching a fundamental law of nature being broken right in front of his face. “You’re manipulating the structure of it,” he breathes, his voice full of a scientist’s sick glee.
“So?” I ask. I don’t need his analysis.
“This is extraordinary. We could experiment. We could—”
“No.” Sisk stops him again. “We are leaving.”
“Sisk,” I say quietly. “I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Every time I left the city to see you,” I say, “I could feel it pulling me back, like a fucking leash. The Pit told me you would be punished if I didn’t return.”
“But Jax—”
“I’ll take her.”
We all turn to Matt.
“I’ll take you,” he says, looking right at her. “Far away. Until Jax figures out… whatever the hell this is.”
The arguing starts up again. Everyone talking over each other, a useless cacophony of plans and panic.
My throat tightens and the words force their way out before I can stop them, a deep, raspy sound that grates in my own ears.
“Theeee heeeeiiirrrr.”
Everyone stops breathing.
Lou's head whips toward me. His eyes are wide, locked on mine for a full, agonizing second. “Nope.” He's out of his chair so fast it topples backward with a crash.
“Absolutely not.” He takes another stumbling step away, putting distance between himself and the source of the sound. “Why am I the only one terrified right now?” He looks between Viper and Matt, his voice cracking with panic. “Did you hear that? Please tell me you heard that.”
His gaze snaps back to me, desperate and wild. “That sounded like it crawled out of a—”
He doesn't finish. He can't. The tar surges violently out of my palm, shooting toward Sisk like a black whip.
The anger inside me rises instantly while a protective rage boils over.
“No!” I yank my hand back, fighting my own fucking body.
The force of it knocks me to the floor as the tar slams back into me in a cold heavy wave.
“If you can manipulate that amount, perhaps…” Murtaugh mutters, his mind still on his fucking science project.
“Perhaps what?” I snap, my own voice, my own rage, finally back under my own control.
He swallows, looking from me to Sisk and back again. “Perhaps you can manipulate all of it.”
“You mean…” Matt starts, his voice trailing off.
Murtaugh breathes. “The Pit.” He looks straight at me, his eyes gleaming with that fucking scientist’s excitement.
“Perhaps it’s possible for you to manipulate the entire pit.
” He takes a seat, leaning forward like he’s about to share a secret.
“I don’t know,” he continues quickly, “but you’re only getting stronger.
Your human cells may be deteriorating, but the power is growing. ”
“I’m not getting stronger, I’m getting more out of control.”
“You’re saying he could do what exactly?” Lou asks, his voice trembling.
Murtaugh exhales slowly. “Close it.”
Everyone stares.
“Close the pit,” he repeats, enunciating each word. “Force it back underground, sealing it. Back to how it was before the city dug it up.”
Sisk slowly sits down, one hand resting protectively over her stomach. “You think Jax can do that?”
“I can’t,” I say immediately, the words a reflex. “You all need to stop looking at me like I’m some kind of fucking god. I can’t control it.”
“Uh… Jax?” Viper suddenly points.
I look down to see the tar already moving, flowing from my fingers and shaping itself without my notice. It lifts slowly from my palm, twisting upward into a tight spiral that spins faster and faster, forming a tiny black cyclone that hovers above my hand.
“You can do it.”
His voice makes me turn. I’d forgotten he was even in the room.
O watches the tar twisting above my hand. “We’ll practice, we’ll try everything,” he says calmly. His eyes move to Sisk, lowering to her stomach. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touches his face. “We have nine months.”
* * *
WEEKS LATER
My mind isn't even here, not really. It's back at my place, on the table. I can still see the takeout container, a monument to my own stupidity. Spicy noodles, her favorite. The one thing she said she could actually stomach. Ice fucking cold.
How the fuck am I supposed to do this? Be a normal boyfriend? The kind who waits at home with a goddamn dinner ready like some domesticated dream? My ass. This is the real world. My world, and she’s not in it. My fists clench and unclench.
I’ll destroy this whole fucking city to find her. Does she not get that? Where the hell could she be? It's way too late for her to still be working. Paperwork, my ass. I’m so over it. Over her freedom.
Over what my life has become—these pointless exercises Murtaugh and O make me do every single day, like “tar camp” is some fucking solution. I’m over Sisk’s delusional travel plans, like we can just pack up and start over somewhere else. I’m over not having a single fucking clue what to do next.
I’d do anything to keep her and the baby safe, but I’m useless. The tar is a constant, thrumming reminder that it wants its heir, so taking myself out of the equation isn’t even a fucking solution anymore.
So I go through the motions. I do the stupid exercises, I play with the goddamn tar.
I don’t know how to tell them that it’s all bullshit.
That it’s not going to work. I just know.
So this is my grand fucking conclusion: lock her down, keep her by my side.
That’s all I can do. But she’s Sisk. Fucking free spirit and all that shit.
She finds a way to sneak out, to work, to live…
I don’t even bother with the handle. I slam my shoulder against the studio door, the lock splintering with a satisfying crack.
The magic inside me is already humming, eager to break something.
Lou looks up from his desk, his mouth falling open, but I’m already past him, my eyes scanning the empty room.
The mirrors throw my own desperate, furious reflection back at me.
I push into the main studio. Fucking empty.
The locker room door is next—it rips off its hinges in my hands.
Nothing. The frantic energy is a wildfire in my chest now.
The office door gives way to a kick. The storage closet door is torn from its frame.
I slam my fist against the bathroom door until the wood splinters.
“Jax!” Lou’s voice is a squeak, a mouse trying to reason with a fucking tornado. “What are you doing? You’re gonna break the—”
I stop in the middle of the studio and turn on him. “Where is she?” I roar.
Lou stumbles back, tripping over his own feet. “I haven’t seen Sisk since lunch! I told her not to work late, I told her she needs to rest and—”
The voice comes up.
SHE’S TAKEN.
“No,” I choke out, stumbling back a step.
SHE WILL STAY THERE UNTIL THE HEIR IS OURS.
My hands fly to my head.
“Where is,” I snarl, to the voice, to the room, to the world. “She?!”
HE WILL GROW STRONG. THEN HE WILL RULE THIS CITY.
The tar inside me stirs wildly.
FOR WHAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN WILL ALWAYS BE.
“Jax? What’s wrong?” Lou’s voice is a distant echo.
I lurch forward, my hands slamming onto the floor.
“I’ll rip the goddamn foundations from this city until I find her!”
I move outside, stumbling into the night as my body tears itself apart from the inside out.
I watch as it happens. One by one, the streetlights sputter and die.
A wave of blackness rolls through Tar City, block by block, until the entire city is plunged into a sudden, absolute darkness.
The only light left in the entire place is the furious, crimson glow of my eyes, burning like twin embers in the endless dark.
Good. A cold, vicious calm settles over me. Now we’re playing on my field.