121. Scarlett
Scarlett
T he SUV reeked of sweat, blood, and disbelief.
No one spoke for the first ten minutes. The only sound was the road humming under the tires and Kane messing with the air vents like it might fix the vibe.
I sat between Trace and Alden in the very back. Zeke was up front riding shotgun, eyes scanning the horizon like he was waiting for another betrayal to drop out of the sky. Rhett and Kane were sandwiched in the middle row, elbows knocking every time the road curved.
Kane was the first to break the silence. “Okay. So… did anyone else not see that coming? At all?”
“Which part?” Rhett muttered. “The betrayal? The sister bomb? The glowing fucking tattoos?”
“All of it,” Kane said, staring out the window. “Like I’m genuinely rethinking my entire sense of reality right now.”
Zeke shrugged. “Should’ve seen the phone thing.”
Kane sat back in his seat. “I’m still not convinced that shit actually happened.”
Trace didn’t look up. “It happened.”
Kane twisted around. “Your tattoos were glowing, man.”
“Yours too,” Zeke added, glancing back at Alden. “Both of you lit up like pyres.”
“It wasn’t us,” Alden said. His voice was low, deadly calm. “It was the manor.”
Zeke nodded slowly. “They were responding to her,” Zeke said, turning slightly. “The manor. The bond. Her choosing.”
I sat between them, their warmth bracketing me like a warning to the world. Even so, I felt cold.
“What now?” Rhett asked.
“We head to the safe-house,” Zeke answered. “Regroup. And figure out what the hell Lena’s next move is.”
Trace finally spoke—low, rasped. “And if she makes it first?”
Zeke didn’t hesitate. “Then we end it.”
Outside the window, dusk turned the sky the color of bruises.
And inside the car, we all sat with our own.
***
The safe-house looked nothing like I expected.
It wasn’t a run-down shack or a fortified bunker.
It was beautiful.
Tucked into a stretch of dense forest, the building rose low and wide from the earth, more creature than home. Its stone bones were blackened with age, overgrown with ivy and moss, but nothing about it felt abandoned. It breathed with purpose.
Black timber framed the walls. Tall glass windows stood like quiet sentinels, catching the moonlight in slashes of silver. A wraparound porch curved across the front, lined with thick pillars and a roof heavy with shadow. The scent of pine, smoke, and wet earth clung to everything.
A wrought-iron gate creaked open as we pulled in, the gravel drive long and winding. No lights flickered on. No motion sensors. Just the hush of trees and the engines cooling beneath the silence.
Zeke was the first out. He unlocked the front door like he’d done it a thousand times.
Inside, the air was cooler—dry and wood-sweet. The foyer opened into a long hall with dark floors and high ceilings. The lighting was minimal, warm sconces, lantern glow, no harsh bulbs.
To the right, a library, the kind that looked like it belonged to someone who read books to learn how to kill people better.
To the left, a stone-lined kitchen and open living room, all shadowed beams and clean minimalism, broken only by the massive fireplace roaring to life when Zeke hit a switch.
A staircase curved up along the wall. Another curved down.
“There are seven bedrooms,” Zeke said. “Split how you want. There’s a cellar. A panic room. Weapons under the floor in the master.”
Kane let out a low whistle. “Why the hell haven’t we been hiding here all along?”
No one answered.
Because everything in us already knew—we weren’t hiding anymore.
We were preparing.
***
Rhett found the bottle because fate meant him to. Dust covered, it in the back of a cabinet—aged tequila in a dusty glass decanter sealed with black wax. No label. No hesitation.
Trace leaned against the kitchen counter like he was debating leaving the room entirely. Alden sat at the edge of the couch, head in his hands. Zeke watched me like I was a grenade already rolling across the floor.
I sat in the center of it all. Hoodie unzipped, knees scraped raw. My voice barely back from screams and shocks it had taken earlier. Thirelin still hummed beneath my skin, even now that we’d left it behind.
The safe-house wasn’t safe. Not from what we’d become.
But when Rhett passed me the glass—I drank.
The burn was welcome pain. It cut through the noise. Through the ache.
“Oh no,” Kane muttered. “She’s in that mood.”
I tipped the glass back again. “What mood?”
“The one where you make us all regret surviving,” he said.
Alden looked up. “Scarlett…”
I spun slowly, eyes on all of them now. “What? We’re in a hidden fortress in the woods, betrayed by the girl I swore was my best friend, bonded by prophecy and shit none of us even understand…
surrounded by silence like it’s holding its breath.
” I smiled—sharp, unraveled. “Might as well be drunk while we wait to die, right?”
Trace looked like he might break the glass in his hand.
“I’m kidding,” I said, smiling too wide. “Mostly.”
Zeke stood. “You need to rest.”
“I need a fucking lobotomy,” I said. “But tequila will do.”
Rhett poured another round while Kane clinked his glass to mine.
The fire cracked low.
The bottle was half-empty now. My glass full.
They were all talking—finally. Voices layered, circling the room like smoke. Not loud. Not angry. Just tired. Tense. Truth slipping out in pieces.
Zeke stood by the map on the far wall, tracing lines with his finger like he could still fix it all with strategy. Kane paced. Rhett leaned on the arm of the couch, sipping slow, sharp-eyed. Alden hadn’t moved in ten minutes. And Trace—Trace sat across from me like gravity tied him there.
“Lena…” Rhett said under his breath. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“She knew everything,” Zeke added. “That you were sisters. That your father was alive. She knew the bond had formed—and she wanted it broken before it rooted too deep.”
Kane ran a hand through his hair. “So what now? We go hunt her down? Pretend we’re not walking into a war?”
Trace’s tattoos had stopped glowing hours ago. But I could still feel the heat of them on my skin. The way Thirelin had answered our presence. The way the walls had pulsed like it knew us—like it wanted us back.
Like it wasn’t done with me.
“—the Codex doesn’t even say how the bond ends,” Kane said. “Just that someone always breaks.”
“Well, maybe it’s different this time,” Rhett muttered.
Zeke laughed once, dry. “It’s never different. That’s the point.”
“Y’all just had to seal the bond, didn’t you?”
Kane muttered under his breath—half-joking, but no one laughed.
It dropped like a blade.
“I didn’t plan it,” Trace said, voice strained. His grip tightened around the glass. “You think any of us wanted this?”
“You didn’t stop it either,” Zeke said.
“None of us did,” Rhett added.
I drank.
The burn was the only thing that felt honest.
“I’m still here, you know,” I said quietly.
They all turned.
“I can hear you.”
Kane’s mouth opened, then closed.
Zeke exhaled. “We’re just trying to figure it out, Scar.”
I smiled. “Then drink faster.”
And I tipped the glass again.
I don’t know how many drinks I’d had.
Enough that the fire looked blurry, and the boys looked softer around the edges.
Enough that I didn’t care who was watching.
They were all still talking in circles, trying to find a way out of prophecy with logic and guilt.
Trace hadn’t moved from the chair across from me.
Alden stood near the kitchen now, one hand braced on the edge of the counter, the other fisting like he was trying to hold something in.
Kane had gone quiet while Rhett just kept drinking.
Zeke somewhere down the hall, probably trying not to kill all of us.
I leaned back on the couch, my legs stretched across the cushions like I owned the place.
And maybe I did.
“I didn’t choose this,” I said. “But I’m not running from it either.”
Alden went still, tension coiled through his shoulders. Trace didn’t speak, his knuckles pale against the armrest. Zeke walked back in expression darkened, unreadable, like he was already piecing together a new threat.
I lifted the glass again. “So you can talk around me all you want. Strategize. Blame. Drink. But this time—I lead.”
Silence.
Zeke muttered under his breath, shaking his head once. “Well, damn. Looks like someone finally remembered who the fuck she is.”
The fire hissed low behind me, as if it, too, held its breath.
Rhett lowered his glass first, something reverent flickering across his face. Kane didn’t speak, just leaned forward like he was seeing me differently now—not as the girl they’d protected, but the storm that had always been waiting to rise.
Alden stayed frozen, one hand curled tight on his knee. His gaze was locked on mine. Not with doubt—but with something weightier. Respect. Grief. Love. He’d known this would happen. Maybe he’d always known.
“You lead. We follow,” Trace said, crossing the room, glass still in his hand, but his eyes were only on me.
I turned slightly, eyes sweeping over all of them.
“Then we start tomorrow,” I said. “Training. Codex research. Answers. I want to know everything. About the bond. About the Red Veil. About what they feared enough to hide me.”
Zeke gave a single nod. “You’ll have it.”
Kane raised his glass. “To the heir, then.”
I didn’t toast. Just looked at the flames and whispered, “To the end of pretending.”
And let the fire answer for me.