Chapter 26
The sound came through the floor before anything else.
A shift in the air, a distant crunch of tires over gravel that my brain caught onto a fraction of a second before I consciously registered what it meant.
I stilled enough that the movement I’d been in the middle of lost direction. Then it clicked.
I turned my head. Zwierek was already looking at me. There was no question in his expression, no need to confirm it out loud, but the way his eyes held mine said it anyway. He heard it too. A car door slammed somewhere above us, muted through layers of walls and wood, but unmistakable.
“Ready?” he asked, sounding like he was asking if I wanted another drink, not… this. I held his gaze, then I nodded once and let go of her. Not completely, my hand lingered for a moment like it hadn’t gotten the message yet, like it still thought there was something left to hold onto.
I shifted her instead. It took more effort than I expected, her weight pulling in the wrong directions, forcing me to adjust twice before I managed to get her sitting against the wall.
Her shoulder hit it lightly, and I froze for a second, listening like that small sound might matter.
I crouched down in front of her, didn’t rush it, didn’t really think about why I wasn’t rushing either.
Her eyes were still open. They caught the dim light in a way that made it look like she was still there, still aware, just… quiet now. I reached up without thinking. My fingers brushed her cheek first, a small absent motion, like something I’d done before in a completely different context.
“You shouldn’t have been here,” I muttered.
I pressed my thumb just under her eye and guided the lid down, then the other. They didn’t stay at first, but after holding them shut for a little longer, they did. Behind me, something scraped against the floor.
I glanced over my shoulder, Zwierek had already moved on.
A chair in the middle of the room, placed, not dropped.
The bag open on the table. Everything coming out one piece at a time, like he’d already gone over it all in his head a hundred times.
Strips, a small container that made a dull sound when he set it down, metal catching what little light there was.
He adjusted the items a few times until he seemed satisfied.
There was a pressure building somewhere low in my stomach.
I was about to say something, didn’t even know what, just something to break the silence before it settled too deep.
The front door opened, the sound carried straight through the house this time.
“Anna?” His voice, close enough now that it didn’t feel distant anymore.
I didn’t move, didn’t look at Zwierek, I just listened.
“Anna?” He called again, closer now. And just like that, there wasn’t anything left to wait for. One second there was still space to think, to hesitate, to maybe, just maybe, step back from it. The next, there wasn’t. There wasn’t really a moment where we decided it; it just happened.
Zwierek moved first, determined and quick, and my body followed before my head caught up.
His hand caught my sleeve and dragged me with him, back behind the staircase, back into that same narrow pocket of shadow where we’d been standing earlier.
Only this time it felt different, like the air had been used already.
As we stood in the cramped, suffocating room, I couldn’t stop wondering if Zwierek felt the same thing in his body that I did.
He always seemed so sure of himself, so calm in the middle of the insane things we were doing.
It was like every time my breathing turned shallow and weak, he stayed steady and controlled.
I was just about to open my mouth and ask when the sound of footsteps above us pulled me out of it. Coming down from above, each one carried through the wood in a way that made it impossible to ignore, impossible to mistake for anything else. My body reacted before I could think about it.
Adrenaline spread like something hot and burning slipping under my skin, settling into my chest, my arms, my hands, fucking everywhere.
My fingers twitched where they hung at my side, like they were trying to remember what they were supposed to do.
My pulse got loud. Like it was sitting too close to the surface, like it had nowhere else to go but up, pressing into my throat and my ears until it drowned out everything else for a second.
Then it all came back, hitting me in my fucking face and forcing me to acknowledge the reality I was in. The steps, the faint rustle of fabric, breathing that wasn’t mine.
You ever notice how time doesn’t actually slow down, little Ghost? Every second gets longer, but it still moves forward, still drags you with it, whether you’re ready or not.
The door above creaked faintly, then the first step, wood complaining under his weight.
Light spilled down the staircase before he did, a narrow beam cutting through the dark, shaking with each movement of his hand.
It skimmed over the wall, the edge of the railing dipped toward the floor, then steadied.
He reached the bottom and paused. The light shifted again, angling toward the fuse box, like that was the only thing in his head, the only thing he expected to find.
The light from the flashlight flickered a few centimeters too far to the side, and the sound that left his mouth told me immediately that he’d seen her. A breath caught halfway in his throat, like the air had been ripped out of him and forced back in.
“Anna?...” It broke on the second syllable as he moved fast towards her.
The light in his hand shook harder now, bouncing wildly across the floor as he dropped down in front of her, one knee hitting the ground, then the other, like his body couldn’t decide how to land.
“Anna… hey… hey…”
His hands hovered for a second before touching her, like he was afraid of what he’d feel, then they landed anyway, one on her shoulder, the other coming to her face. Trying to wake her, like this was something sleep could explain.
I watched him, didn’t step out, didn’t stop it, but Zwierek did.
He moved out from behind the stairs without a sound, in a straight line from shadow to him.
There was something different in the way he carried himself then.
He reached him in two steps. One hand came up, closing around the back of the man’s neck, firm fingers digging in just enough to take control without wasting time.
The man reacted instantly, confusion flashing across his face as he was pulled upright, dragged out of whatever fragile moment he’d been clinging to.
“What,” That was all he got.
Zwierek turned him, raised his clenched fist, and, with a strong and powerful blow, knocked him out.
His body gave out completely, like something had just been switched off.
For a second, neither of us moved. Just stood there with him on the floor, the echo of what had just happened still hanging in the air like something unfinished.
Then Zwierek exhaled through his nose, short, almost impatient.
“Seriously?” he muttered, glancing at me without really looking. “You planning on staring at him all night, or are you actually going to help?”
That pulled me out of it. I tilted my head, eyes still on the man for a second longer before I answered.
“What, you want a thank you first or…?” My voice came out low, edged with something that wasn’t quite humor, wasn’t quite irritation either, just something in between that didn’t sit right.
He didn’t bother replying; of course he didn’t.
I turned away before he could, stepping over toward the table Zwierek had set up earlier, the surface still laid out like he’d been waiting for this exact moment his entire life, everything placed too neatly.
My fingers closed around the plastic ties, the material biting into my skin as I picked them up, the faint, sharp smell of it mixing with the rest of the room.
Dust, something metallic underneath it, something older that clung to the air like it didn’t want to leave.
Behind me, I could hear movement. The scrape of wood against concrete as Zwierek dragged the chair into position, and forced the man into it, his body still slack, head lolling to the side like it hadn’t caught up yet.
I stepped in when he was done, crouching down, my hands moving on their own as I grabbed one ankle, then the other, pulling them into place against the front legs of the chair.
The plastic tightened with a final sound as I pulled it closed.
His wrists came next, dragged behind his back, bound together tighter than necessary.
When I stood back up, it was done.
We both looked at him. His head hung forward now, chin dipping toward his chest, breathing shallow but steady enough that it was obvious he wasn’t gone, just somewhere else.
The atmosphere in the room felt heavy, charged in a way that sat deep in my body.
I could feel the pressure everywhere. I rolled my shoulders back, and something cracked loudly beneath the tension as I spoke.
“So…” I let the word sit for a second before finishing it, almost like I was testing how it sounded out loud. “What now?”
Zwierek’s head snapped toward me, irritation flashing across his eyes so quickly it almost felt rehearsed.
“What now?” he echoed, like the words themselves offended him.
“Are you serious right now?” He let out a short laugh, but there was nothing amused about it.
“This is your fucking revenge, Rowan,” he said, voice dropping, hardening in a way that pressed against something under my ribs. “You tell me.”