And the biggest one?
Where the hell is my best friend?
How could they let their father send Reign away—hide her like some shameful secret in a locked room while the rest of them pretended she was just… gone? How do you do that to someone you love? How do you let them vanish, buried under the weight of your father’s filth, and keep breathing like the world hasn’t ended?
But now’s not the time. Not yet.
We remain silent—two ghosts orbiting the same graveyard, both carrying too many dead things inside us.
When I’m done, I don’t look back. My steps stay light and deliberate as I move toward the edge of the lot, where the night bleeds into pavement and swallows me whole. Ronan doesn’t try to stop me. He only watches, eyes sharp and predatory, already cycling through a thousand possibilities. Always calculating. Always hunting.
My monster feels him—senses the way he studies me like prey he hasn’t quite figured out how to trap yet. But she isn’t afraid of him. Not even close. She likes the attention. She stretches inside me, curious and entertained by the chase.
So, I let her indulge.
As I slip back into the shadows, I toss him a kiss across the lot—taunting, unapologetic—before disappearing down the bike path. My body hums with adrenaline as I go, my exit clean, my presence erased.
Once I’ve put enough distance between myself and the building, I slow just enough to pull out my phone. My fingers don’t shake. This part—the ignition—it’s ritual now. Controlled. Clean.
I dial. The connection clicks. A breath of pure silence stretches tight between two points in time—before and after.
Then, the world behind me erupts.
Flames roar to life, consuming steel and glass in an instant, lighting up the night like a sunrise made of vengeance.The blast rattles windows and kicks heat down the street in rolling waves. My hair whips around me, the purple strands catching the blaze—swirls of violet wrapped in flickers of orange, red, and gold. For a moment, I appear as if the fire’s made me part of it.
Even from this distance, I swear I can feel the flames licking at my back. Not enough to burn, but just enough to remind me what it felt like.
My scarred arm tingles beneath the fabric of my sleeve—an echo of pain, memory, and fury stitched into the healing of the skin.
And still… Ronan doesn’t come after me.
I know he’s there. Watching. I feel him like a steady pull along my spine. But he doesn’t shout. Doesn’t chase. Doesn’t try to stop me.
He lets me go.
Aside from the cocky smirk that had tilted across his lips when I blew him a kiss—sharp, knowing, like he was already three steps ahead—he gives me nothing. No chase. No challenge.
Because Ronan’s not the type to make a move too early.
He’s going to play the long game.
And now that he knows I’m alive… I’ve just become the prey he plans to stalk, inch by inch.
Only he doesn’t know I stopped being prey a long time ago.
I hunt, too.
And I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.
Chapter Eleven
Emerson
Ronan’s disappeared like a damn ghost—no heads-up, no trace, just gone. Off chasing shadows and fists, chasingher. The underground fighter the crowd keeps chanting for as if she’s some kind of legend wrapped in blood and silk.Cupcake.A ridiculous name for someone that dangerous, but there’s something about her.
Something that’s got him unraveling by the second.
He’s been unpredictable for weeks, but ever since we laid eyes on her at The Underground, it’s like something inside him cracked wide open. I can see it in his eyes, in the way he moves—more restless, feral. Like he’s caught between the present and something clawing up from the past. And if I’m not mistaken, Rowen’s feeling it too. He pretends to be stone, all cold logic and indifference, but I know him. I see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw tightens when the name Cupcake echoes through the crowd.