Chapter 73
Seventy-Three
NOW | JAX
By the time I reach the tunnel, the fog in my head is gone, replaced by a hard clarity.
I stopped thinking the moment I understood what I had to do.
Stopped feeling. Stopped being anything but the weapon that’s going to get her back.
I walk into the tunnel with one goal: to finally let the beast off its fucking leash.
My boots echo, each step a nail in the coffin of the man I used to be. I stop where the passage curves, where the stone walls sweat black, the city’s pores oozing the sickness that’s been in my blood for a decade.
The moon is a fucking spotlight, but I don’t need it. I let my vision bleed into the dark, until I can see the energy in the rock, the fear in the stone.
I look down at my hand. No more orders. No more fighting.
An invitation. Black liquid bleeds from my palm, hits the ground, slides through cracks, crawling up the walls and burrows into the black veins that lead to the pit.
I’m not just a man in a tunnel anymore. I’m a goddamn infection, and I’m spreading.
I let my senses follow it down. The change hits me like fucking lightning. My spine snaps, a loud, wet crack that should have crippled me. My muscles writhe under my skin, my bones grinding, reshaping themselves into something deadlier.
The world explodes. Smell, sound, sight—all of it turned up to a thousand.
I can smell the despair on the other side of the city, hear the lies being whispered in bedrooms a mile away.
Then it happens: the tar inside me plugs into the main.
Power floods my system, a black ocean drowning out the last part of Jax St. Clair.
I’m moving before I can think, a blur of motion through the tunnels, a predator guided by pure instinct.
I’m not just running, I’m hunting. I move until all the voices hit me, like a fucking tidal wave of sound in my head.
A woman sobbing. “Please… I didn’t mean to—” A man’s drunken laugh.
“Another round, come on—” Glass shattering.
A kid screaming for his mom. A mean slurring threat.
“You owe me, you hear me? You owe—” I’m hearing the whole city.
Every dirty secret, every whispered prayer, every last dying breath.
It’s all here, in the city’s soul, and it’s a cesspool.
My hands slam against the tunnel wall, the stone groaning under the pressure as the noise threatens to tear my skull apart.
“Stop,” I rasp, but it’s useless, they just get louder. I hear a woman screaming, a man begging, someone puking in an alley… Tar City is screaming through me, and I’m about to fucking explode.
I sift through the chaos, a shark in a churning sea of misery, looking for one vibration. One frequency. Slowly, every other voice fades, pushed down by a will I didn’t know I had, and I hear her.
“Please,” Sisk’s voice trembles through the darkness.
The sound of her crying, the pure, unadulterated fear in her voice, makes me lock down, hard as stone. The rage that replaces the chaos is cold and precise.
Another voice answers. “Oh no, no, no… you don’t understand,” the voice says, the words tumbling over each other. There’s a high-pitched laugh, almost like a giggle. “This is exactly how it’s supposed to happen.”
The strange voice keeps going, skipping words and changing speed. “It told me! It said. I had to wait. I did it. Years, so many years.” The voice breaks for a wet, nasty laugh. “Down here with me. Whispering. Always whispering.”
No.
That voice—
That’s not possible.
“You see,” the voice continues, turning into a whisper like it’s telling a secret, “we were always going to end up together.” A burst of laughter echoes through the tunnel. “I… I just had to be the one who listened.”
“Please,” Sisk’s voice shakes. “You don’t understand.”
“I do,” the voice says quickly. “You don’t understand. None of you did. Not them. Not you. Not my father. It talks.”
Sisk coughs.
“It talks and talks and talks,” he continues, words tumbling over each other. “All this time, it has been teaching me. Showing me.”
“You have to let me go, Ivan,” Sisk says softly. “Please. I’m pregnant.”
For a moment there’s nothing.
“I know you’re carrying it. Took long but it’s here. When we dispose of it… we’ll be free.”
Another giggle escapes him. “The voices will stop. They promised. They promised they would stop.”
“Ivan,” Sisk says quickly, forcing strength into her voice. “You’re hurting me.”
The laughter cuts off abruptly.
“Ivan,” she says again, quieter now.
“Ivan…” he repeats slowly. “No one’s called me that in a long time. It calls me the Protector.”
A manic whisper spills out. “Yes. Yes. The Protector. It says the reward is close.” His breathing grows faster. “Now I know why. You’re here.” Another laugh. “My reward.” A sudden possessive edge enters his voice. “Mine. Mine. Sisk and Ivan forever. Remember.”
“You can’t listen to it, Ivan,” Sisk pleads. “You have to listen to me. Look at me. It won’t let us go. It will kill us all.” Her voice cracks. “You have to stop it. You can stop it.”
Pain explodes through my body, driving me to my knees. The tar inside me fucking riots with a violent rejection.
STOP.
My vision whites out and the pressure inside my body tightens. My lungs burn, my ribs creak, my heart feels like it’s being squeezed in a fist. The tar is trying to cut me off, it’s trying to shut me down and take over.
My hands slam against the tunnel ground, and I scream, a primal sound of pure defiance. “Nooooo,” I growl through my teeth, the word tearing at my throat. “You don’t get to have her.”
I push back with my mind, my will, and I pour every ounce of my fear, and my love for Sisk into fighting it.
The black liquid now gushes out of me, while flowing in and out simultaneously. The pain gets worse, but I don’t give a shit, because I know, Sisk can’t be harmed. Not while she’s carrying my blood. The tar won’t hurt her. It can’t. For the first time, I’m free to fight back.
The stone groans, cracks spiderwebbing out from my hands as I force the tar to bend to my will.
I force the connection deeper, past the tunnels, past the whispers, and straight into the pit itself.
My spine arches as the tar floods my senses again, a black tide that drowns everything but her.
The voices snap back into focus, and I listen.
“The one with the needles will be here soon,” Ivan whispers, almost cheerfully. “He helps. Always has.”
I hear a soft rustle of fabric, then a sharp, gasping intake of breath from Sisk.
“Be still,” Ivan orders, his voice dropping into a sickeningly gentle tone. “Don’t wrinkle the dress. It’s a special dress.” A soft, wet laugh follows. “He brings food.” Another giggle. “The needles make everything go dark and quiet.”
My teeth grind together as I focus on the sound of her breathing, shaky and scared.
“You’ll like the needles,” he continues happily. “Nice needles.”
“I won’t,” Sisk’s yells. ”Get away from me. Stop!”
A violent slap echoes through the connection.
“You don’t make the rules,” Ivan snaps, his voice losing its cheerful edge.
“The Pit makes the rules. And The Pit wants you to be quiet. I haven’t seen his girl, the one with the snake, in a long time,” he mutters, his voice changing again as he trails a finger down her arm—I can feel it, a ghost of a touch on my own skin.
“I remember when I saw her that day he brought me here.” He lowers his voice.
“He says she can’t come anymore.” Another breathless laugh.
“I want her too. Pit said I can have it. Pit said I can have anything I want if I listen and obey. She’s pretty, isn’t she?
Almost as pretty as you. But you… you’re special.
Sisk and Ivan. Ivan and Sisk. I remember. ”
His voice becomes a whisper to the darkness. “Thank you for the gift, Pit. I will take care of her. It’s time. It’s time.”
The connection falters and pain explodes through me. The tar snaps back through my veins blocking me. It’s enough, because the anger burning through my blood is stronger than the pain. It’s a fucking soul fire, and it’s all I need to get her back.
* * *
I don’t slow down. The door slams open against the wall. They both jerk apart.
“Jax—” Viper starts, her voice a squeak.
I cross the room in two strides and grab Viper’s arm, dragging her off the counter.
“What the hell—” Matt snaps, stepping up, trying to be the hero.
I don’t even fucking look at him. My eyes are locked on hers. “Did you know?”
Viper stares at me, her eyes wide with panic. “What?”
I tighten my grip. “Did you know your brother has been keeping Ivan alive all these years?”
The color drains from her face. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me,” I growl. “Tell me where he is. Now.”
Matt steps between us, grabbing my shoulder. “Jax. Stop.”
The tar under my skin surges, heat crawling up my neck. “Move.”
“Not until you explain what the hell you’re talking about.”
I shove him back, hard. He stumbles but keeps his feet.
“The lab is empty,” I snap. “Ivan took Sisk. And Murtaugh has been helping him.”
Viper shakes her head slowly. “No.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “No, he wouldn’t—”
“He’s been bringing him food,” I cut in. “Sedatives. Keeping him hidden, maybe somewhere in the tunnels.”
Her eyes flicker with panic now. “That’s not possible.”
“It’s exactly what I said.”
Matt looks between us, his face a mask of confusion and dawning horror. “Hold on,” he says slowly. “Ivan is not dead?”
“No. He isn’t.”
Viper pulls her arm free from my grip, stumbling back a step. “You’re wrong,” she says, but there’s no conviction behind it now, just a desperate, flimsy hope. “Murtaugh wouldn’t do that. He hates the tar.”
“Where the fuck is he?” I snarl, my control snapping.
I spin and lash out, clearing the entire shelf with one swipe. Every bottle shattering against the floor, the noise a violent alarm meant for Viper. It’s a calculated mess, a way to keep my hands occupied and far away from her.
I don’t stop there. Another shelf, but this time I don’t even need to touch it. A wave of pure force, and more bottles smash, liquid splashing across everything.
“Jax!” Matt shouts, his voice tight with fear. “Stop! She doesn’t know!”
I grab another bottle and hurl it against the far wall. It bursts into a thousand glittering shards.
“Where would he take her?” I press. “Think.”
Viper’s chest rises and falls faster now, her eyes darting around the room like a trapped animal. “I don’t know.”
“Think,” I roar, the sound making the walls vibrate.
She presses both hands against her temples, her face a mask of terror. “I don’t know, Jax, I swear—”
“Ten years ago,” I cut in sharply. “Ivan said he saw you.”
Her movement stops. I can fucking hear her frantic heartbeat from across the room.
“There was…” she says slowly, the words dragged out of her.
Matt turns toward her, his own face pale. “What?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know if it’s still there.”
“Where?” I demand.
“There was this place he used to go. Right after we met you.”
“What place?”
She hesitates.
“An old storage facility,” she says finally. “Under the old rail yard. He said there were samples to collect there.”
Matt stares at her.
“He told me the city sealed that place,” she says. “I’ve only been there once to bring him supplies.”
It has to be it, because if there’s one place in Tar City that connects directly to the tunnels beneath the pit—it’s the fucking rail yard.
I lunge forward and grab Viper’s wrist. “You’re taking me there.”
Her eyes widen, the panic finally overflowing. “Jax—”
“Now.”
Matt steps forward immediately, putting himself between me and the door. “Hold on.”
“I haven’t been there in years,” she says, panic creeping into her voice, making it high and thin. “I don’t know if I can—”
“Jax—” Matt starts.
I tighten my grip, feeling her bones strain under the pressure. “If something happens to Sisk because you hesitated, I swear, Viper, I will peel your skin from your bones while you’re still breathing.”
“She didn’t hesitate,” Matt snaps, his voice full of a courage I don’t give a shit about. “Let’s go.”
I yank Viper toward the door. “She’s coming with me.”
Matt steps toward us.
“You want to come,” I tell him without looking back, my voice dripping with contempt, “then you keep up.”