Chapter 75 #2
Viper cries out a horrified sound, a gagging sob that I don’t even have a second to process it because Ivan is already moving.
I lunge forward, but the warehouse is collapsing faster now. Dust fills the air, turning the room into a choking gray haze that stings my eyes and clogs my throat. Through it, I see Ivan dragging Sisk’s chair toward the center of the room.
“NO,” I roar.
The concrete beneath them fractures, breaking out in a hundred different directions. The floor splits open, the ground collapses inward as the tar beneath the warehouse surges upward like a living well. Black liquid churns inside the jagged opening, swirling hungrily. Another pit is rising.
I shove forward, climbing over another beam. As I pull myself across it, I slam my palm against a jagged edge of metal, slicing my other palm open. Dark liquid spills from the cut, mixing instantly with the tar already crawling along my arms.
Ahead of me, another massive part of the ceiling has fallen, creating a wall between me and Sisk.
I plant my feet, raise both hands, and the tar flows freely now, coating my fingers.
Ivan laughs. “She will never be yours again,” he shrieks, his voice cracking with glee. He shoves the chair, the legs scrape across the ground and it tips over. Sisk’s body falls toward the open tar.
My arm lashes out. The tar erupts from me like a whip, shooting across the room and wrapping around her waist just before she disappears into the black. I catch her, holding her suspended over the churning abyss.
Holding her there takes everything, the tar between us stretches tight, a black cord vibrating with the strain. My muscles scream, locked in place.
Across the room, Ivan runs. His bare feet slap against the floor as he bolts toward the back corridor. I can feel him getting farther away, a fleeting presence I’m powerless to stop. All I can do is hold on to Sisk with everything I have.
The tar beneath her pulls greedily, a hungry mouth trying to drag her down into the darkness. My vision blurs, the effort of fighting it making my head throb. All I can think is reaching her, and so the tar inside me reaches out, touching the tar inside her.
The connection snaps into place and I hear her.
Let me go.
Her voice echoes inside my skull.
Let me go, Jax, Sisk pleads softly. It’s going to be okay.
“No!” I shout, sinking to one knee as the strain tears through my body. The pit pulls harder in response.
Let me go, she whispers again. Set me free.
For a second—just one—doubt flickers through me and The Pit feels it. It senses my weakness and the tar below her rises higher, swirling greedily as it tries to swallow her whole.
That’s when I understand. This isn’t Sisk.
My eyes close and I stop fighting the pull. Instead of resisting it, I let the connection deepen. I reach further than I ever have before, pushing past the narrow thread linking us and plunging into the vast network beneath the city.
The connection widens and I can feel everything at once. Not just the tar under the warehouse, the tar under the whole fucking city. I can feel the veins of it stretching for miles, a network of black shit under every street, every building. It’s endless.
I can feel its hunger. A deep, gnawing ache that makes my own stomach clench. I see flashes in my head—streets collapsing, buildings sagging as the pit tries to drag it all down to me. There’s no stopping it.
Sisk is still hanging there, the tar stretched tight between us.
The strain is burning through my arms, my chest, every fucking inch of my body.
All I see is her. All of her. The first time I kissed her, the taste of her on my lips, the way my world fucking stopped.
The last time I touched her, the feel of her skin on mine.
Every smile she ever gave me, every stupid fight we ever had.
It all crashes into me at once. And then I’m there again, standing with her, her hand on mine, pulling it down to rest on her stomach.
I can feel the warmth of her skin. I can hear her voice, soft and certain, saying the words that rewired my entire soul. “You’re going to be a daddy.”
A St. Clair heir. The one thing The Pit was supposed to protect.
And then… I hear them. The St. Clairs, all the ones who came before me.
Their fucking bargains are still echoing down there, buried under years of blood and this endless hunger.
I push deeper, digging through the darkness until I find the first one, the source.
I hear it, clear as day: “Let this city prosper and we will always answer to you.” The original deal.
I tighten my grip on the tar and shove my mind deeper into the veins.
I show it, I force it to see the streets above: the alleys; the losses; the broken-down shops with boarded-up windows; the families starving while the city rots around them.
I show it the poor and the desperate. All the dying neighborhoods The Pit has been feeding on for years.
This isn’t prosperity. This isn’t the deal.
The first vow was simple, and Tar City is falling apart.
The deal has already been broken. I shove that truth right into the tar itself, making it see what it’s become.
For a beat… the hunger stops, the movement under the city dies and the tar goes still.
In that one moment of silence, I move. My eyes snap open and I raise my hands.
The tar holding Sisk obeys. The black liquid retracts, folding in on itself as I lift her away from the edge and set her down on solid ground.
Matt and Viper rush forward. He sinks beside her while Viper grabs her face. “Sisk! Stay with me!”
The tar beneath the warehouse churns violently now, a black, frothing sea sensing what I’ve done. The silence is over.
GIVE US THE HEIR OR ALL OF YOU DIE. AND WE BEGIN AGAIN.
Outside, the ground groans as another section of the city collapses inward.
Now I can see the truth, and I understand it all. The whole network, the source of the hunger, the center of the sickness. I understand with perfect clarity: the only way to stop it—is at the core.
I step toward the edge of the pit.
“Jax?” Matt calls, his voice tight with fear and confusion.
I glance back once.
“Take care of them,” I tell him.
I take one more step forward, then I jump.