Chapter 13
ANNIE
I’d spent two hours watching Valor preen for cameras and potential donors while barely acknowledging my existence except to drag me around like a fashion accessory. Two hours of my feet screaming in my stupid heels. Two hours of smiling so hard my face hurt.
But we were finally, finally, heading toward the exit.
I’d never been so grateful to see a doorway in my life.
Valor had been insufferable all evening, correcting my posture, criticizing my laugh.
At least Cipher hadn’t shown up. Small mercies.
It had been a week since that car ride with Cipher, since I’d told him our relationship meant nothing. A week of hiding at the Tower like a coward.
Damn him for being right. I’d run, exactly as he predicted.
My old room at the Tower had become my sanctuary this past week. A place Cipher couldn’t reach me, couldn’t kidnap me, couldn’t force me to confront the mess of feelings I’d been avoiding.
The memory of that day still made my stomach twist. I’d been so upset, so determined to push him away, that I’d forgotten to eat lunch while running errands for Havoc. When I’d finally collapsed into my office chair, exhausted and lightheaded, I’d found a delivery waiting.
He’d sent it even after I’d been an asshole to him. Even after I’d lied to his face and essentially told him he meant nothing to me.
I’d sat there staring at that stupid container of food, feeling lower than dirt. Because while I was busy trying to convince myself I didn’t care about him, he was still making sure I ate.
Being a heartless bitch is apparently harder than it looks.
“Remember, no press if you’re going out. We’ve had enough exposure for one night.” I reminded Valor as we reached the valet stand. At least I didn’t have to ride back with him to the Tower.
Valor waved dismissively, already chatting up a starlet who’d recognized him.
The car with Havoc’s insignia pulled up, and I collapsed into the backseat. My feet throbbed in protest as I kicked off my heels and let my head fall back against the headrest, eyes closed.
Sweet, blessed silence.
The tears came without warning. One moment I was fine—well, not fine, but holding it together—and the next, I was silently sobbing in the back of Havoc’s car.
I swiped quickly at the tears, willing them to stop.
Get it together, Bishop.
But I couldn’t. The weight of everything—Valor’s constant criticism, the fake smiles, the lies I kept telling myself about Cipher—it all crashed down at once, crushing my chest until I could barely breathe.
I’d spent so long being what everyone needed me to be. Havoc’s perfect Keeper. The Alliance’s cooperative pawn. Valor’s arm candy. Even with Cipher, I’d tried to be someone I wasn’t, someone who could walk away unscathed.
My reflection in the tinted window looked like a stranger. My lipstick had faded, hair falling from its careful arrangement. The perfect reflection of how I felt inside: disheveled, falling apart, barely holding the pieces together.
At least my mascara wasn’t running. Thank God I’d switched to waterproof, a necessity for when these moments hit me considering they’d been coming with greater frequency lately.
The cuff on my wrist felt heavier than usual, a constant reminder of another thing I was hiding, another part of myself I couldn’t acknowledge.
I was drowning in plain sight and nobody saw it. Nobody except Cipher, who kept throwing me lifelines I was too stubborn to grab.
Dawn had it so easy. One day she discovers her boyfriend is a League member, the next he’s on one knee with a ring. And she said yes! Just like that. No agonizing, no second-guessing, no running away.
What must it be like to forgive so completely? To have someone love you so openly that even after revealing their darkest secret, you’d still want forever with them?
Dawn hadn’t hesitated. Hadn’t run. Hadn’t pushed him away with cruel words designed to cut deep.
I stared at my reflection again, the tears making fresh tracks down my cheeks.
Hunter had lied to Dawn for months about being Menace. Yet somehow, she’d seen past the deception to the man underneath—the one who loved her enough to risk everything by telling her the truth.
I hated the jealousy I felt for their relationship.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to see the neon world passing by the window.
After about fifteen minutes of mental blankness following my breakdown, I realized we should have reached the Tower by now. I opened my eyes and glanced out the window at unfamiliar streets.
“Excuse me,” I called to the driver. “Where are we going?”
The driver adjusted his rearview mirror. “Taking an alternate route, Ms. Bishop.”
Something cold slithered down my spine. I reached for my phone, trying to appear casual as I attempted to message Havoc. No signal. Not even one bar.
The driver sighed. “Sorry, Ms. Bishop. Mr. Cipher has a change in your plans for the evening.”
“Son of a—” I bit off the curse. “What exactly does he have planned?”
I wasn’t afraid, just irritated. The driver was clearly one of Cipher’s henchmen, not an actual threat to me.
The driver didn’t answer, his face impassive in the rearview mirror. I slumped back against the seat and let out a breathless laugh. Havoc spent millions on security and Cipher had managed to infiltrate it and pluck me right out of the Alliance’s hands.
The knot in my stomach felt heavy with the anticipation of being at his mercy. The sickest part of me felt a profound wave of relief that he had finally taken the choice out of my hands. I wouldn’t have to be strong tonight. I just had to be his.
The car slowed, and through the tinted windows, I could see the chaotic flash of neon signs bleeding color across the wet pavement. The Neon Maze.
“What’s to keep me from running the second I get out of this car?” I asked, gathering my discarded heels.
The driver finally spoke. “Mr. Cipher will be notified immediately.”
Translation: He’d come after me himself.
The driver pulled the car to a smooth stop beside a particularly garish entrance where a wall of electric blue light cascaded down the building’s exterior. He came around and opened my door, extending his hand to help me out. I ignored it and stepped out.
The sidewalk pulsed with embedded lights that rippled outward from each footstep. Above, competing holographic advertisements cast my skin in alternating washes of pink, green, and gold.
The driver gestured toward the entrance, where the neon sign reading “MAZE” flickered rhythmically, the Z occasionally shorting out.
I stepped into the pulsing world of the Neon Maze, immediately assaulted by sensory overload.
The narrow corridor ahead split into three identical paths, each bathed in different colored light—crimson, electric blue, and acid green.
Holographic arrows pointed in contradictory directions, some flickering out of existence before reappearing elsewhere.
People brushed past me from all sides—tourists in sensible shoes with AR glasses, locals in cutting-edge fashion that changed color with the beat of music, and club-goers whose outfits left little to the imagination.
“Excuse me,” I muttered as a group of laughing twenty-somethings nearly knocked me over.
I pressed myself against a wall that rippled with digital koi fish swimming through invisible water. The surface felt warm beneath my palm, almost alive.
My phone showed no service bars, but the screen lit up with a text notification.
Let’s play.
A sharp spike of adrenaline hit my bloodstream as the memories flooded back of his body pinning me down and the thrill of being hunted. The game always ended the same way: with me breathless and begging.
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering uncertainly. I should text “truce.” I should walk away.
But my fingers refused to type the word.
Another message appeared:
Run.
My body responded before my brain could object. I pushed off the wall and plunged into the blue corridor, my evening gown hampering my stride. Around me, the walls pulsed like a digital heartbeat, matching my own accelerating rhythm.
I darted through the shifting crowds and my skin hummed with the certainty that he was tracking me.
The passage opened into a circular chamber where the floor itself was a massive screen displaying a swirling galaxy. Overhead, miniature drones carrying pinpoint lights darted like fireflies, casting moving shadows across the faces of the crowd.
I glanced back at my phone. Still no service. I should leave. Return to the entrance. Get a taxi back to the Tower.
But I didn’t want to.
I gathered my skirt in one hand, and ran across the galaxy floor.
My lungs burned as I pushed deeper into the Maze, but I welcomed the pain. Each breath felt like swallowing fire, yet somehow it was cleansing, burning away the perfection I’d been maintaining.
Had I completely lost it? Probably. But the burn in my muscles felt better than the numbness I’d been cultivating.
I darted past a corridor where the floor tiles shifted colors with each footstep, creating rainbow trails behind stumbling tourists. Nobody gave me a second glance. A woman running in an evening gown was hardly the strangest sight in the Neon Maze.
I veered left where a holographic waterfall of binary code cascaded down a wall, the purple digits reflecting off my skin like digital freckles.
The passage narrowed, the ceiling dropping lower until the walls seemed to press in from all sides, their surfaces rippling with abstract patterns that pulsed in time with distant music.
The crowd thinned as I followed a spiral staircase upward, its steps illuminated from within, changing from cool blue to warm amber with each footfall. My breathing came in ragged gasps, but I pushed on, driven by some instinct.
I emerged onto a narrow walkway that floated in midair, suspended between buildings. Below, the maze of passages twisted like neon arteries. Above, the night sky was barely visible through the haze of light pollution.
Wait—where was everyone? The walkway stretched empty before me, devoid of the usual crush of bodies.