by Jessica Gunn
I swallowed hard and kept looking at him. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but I sure as hell hadn’t thought he’d open up completely. But I’d finally gotten a glimpse into what really made him who he was… and found it was as dark, if not darker, than what I’d survived that had made me—me.
We were two broken people, both victims to Talon and the Trade.
That was why Ben had partnered us together. And that was why we’d finish it as partners.
I reached for Kian’s hand and was surprised when he let me wrap my fingers around his. “I will never leave you behind, Kian. And if we ever get separated, I will come back for you. I will always find you.”
He nodded. The light from above danced in his brown eyes. He leaned forward, closer, until his warm breath brushed against my lips. For a moment, I thought he might close the distance between us and actually kiss me. My heartbeat thundered in my chest, a desire growing and blooming there. I wasn’t sure when the shift in our relationship had occurred. From rivals to partners, partners to friends… or whatever this moment was that was something more. But in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kiss him. As if the action alone would bind us, keep us safe.
But Kian pulled away first, a soft smile tugging on the corners of his lips. “Mission first, sweetheart.”
My own smile faded. He had called me ‘sweetheart’ on the night we’d first met in Midnight’s ring. He’d meant it as a taunt back then. And so right now, I couldn’t decide if he meant it for real or as a reminder that all of this, even our partnership, was the result of a job for which he was getting paid.
Maybe it wouldn’t matter either way, not until Veynix was dead and this was all over. There was a good chance one of us wasn’t going to survive anyway.
“You’re right,” I said and stood from the couch. “Then let’s get to work.”
Kian frowned for a moment before a look of resolve settled on his face. “To work, then.”
Chapter 22
A teleportante later found us walking the streets of New York City, heading ever closer to Midnight on foot. We avoided anyone with sunglasses, even at night, as they could be hiding demonic eyes. Sydney had armed us with a few more weapons before we left. Now all that was left to do was get to Midnight, kill Veynix and save Will, and then figure out what the hell Kian had meant by calling me ‘sweetheart.’
Kian’s phone rang from his pocket.
I froze, staring at him. “You left your phone on this entire time? We’re trying to stay hidden.”
“I forgot,” he said as he looked down at the caller ID. “Shit. I should pick this up.”
“Who is it?” I asked, but he was already swiping his thumb across the front screen.
“Hi, Krystin,” he said.
My stomach dropped. Krystin knew what was going on—she had to have figured it out between me asking her to find Will and me disappearing from Headquarters hours ago. Or maybe Bria had told her after all.
“No,” Kian said into the phone. “I haven’t seen Ava.”
Maybe not.
I glared at him. Didn’t he know there was no point in trying to hide me from her?
He grimaced at something she said. “Well, then, yeah. I do see her.” He mouthed the words locator magik at me. “What happened—What?” His eyes grew wide. “Are you serious?” He waved me over. “Krystin said they received five more poisoned Hunters and one demon. The demon was already dead. He had ID on him—a Daniel Reed. He came with a message.”
My heart plummeted at Dan’s name. We’d by no means been anything close to friends, but he was yet another death on my hands.
There’re too many. I had to end this, to stop this poison from spreading. But I was beginning to think that killing Veynix wasn’t going to be the answer I wanted it to be.
“We need to go,” I whispered to Kian.
“No, Krystin, we’re not heading for Veynix,” Kian said. “Ava left something at Midnight.”
I glared at him for even mentioning the location. “No more.”
He seemed to understand my meaning because he nodded. “We’ll wait. See you in thirty minutes.” He hung up the phone. “Apparently, it’ll take them that long to assemble a team of Hunters from the available ones in the top tier.”
Read: magikally-inclined. And since her team currently able to fight consisted solely of her and Rachel… I shrugged. “We’re not top-tier, though. No magik.”
Kian smirked. “Not even close. This means we should probably hurry if you don’t want to involve them.”
“I don’t.”
He hesitated for a moment before asking, “Why don’t you want their help?”
“You know why,” I said, staring at him.
“Then why are you letting me tag along?” he asked.
I swallowed hard but kept holding his gaze. “Because you were the only one to believe all along… even if it took you six months to admit the truth.”
He pressed his lips into a hard line and nodded. “I’m sorry it took six months.”
“Get out of this alive and I’ll let you make it up to me.”
Kian cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
I began walking again. “Guess you better survive if you want to find out for sure.”
“Guess so.”
Kian caught up with me and I grinned to myself. Nothing would erase the fact that he’d known the truth the entire time and said nothing, but I was willing to forgive him. Christine might not have, especially not right after the attack. But Ava would.
I was starting to think that who I was before Veynix’s attack no longer existed. The more distance I put between me and that person, the more I realized that maybe I never wanted to go back to being her.
It also helped that Ava didn’t rhyme with anything Veynix had been able to come up with so far. I was no longer his venom.
I’d be his death.
We continued along the street for another three or so minutes before finally arriving at Midnight’s fighting ring. From the outside, Midnight looked like another old building in Manhattan. But the inside was a completely different story.
We entered the first floor of the building. The front door was always unlocked, mostly because to get into the ring itself, you had to know where to go. Kian and I hurried down into the basement and pulled the brick from the wall that triggered a section of it to swing open.
“Ready?” Kian asked, staring at the hidden staircase that led down into Midnight’s main lobby.
“Sure. You know, I’ve never seen the ring before opening hour,” I said as I stepped past him and into the stairwell.
“Me, either,” he said. Kian’s presence vibrated behind me, my body ever aware of where he was. It was reassuring, if not also highly distracting.
“Let’s hope it’s empty.”
We continued on in silence, down the two-story staircase. The closer we got to the lobby, the more lit the space became. First with intermittent lights, then every few feet with silver and gold decorated lamps along the passage. Every step downward twisted tighter a coiling ball of nerves that had settled low in my stomach, sliding and churning all my fears and guilt.
It’d all come down to this.
Finally, we stepped from the stairwell out into the open air of the lobby, a story-and-a-half-high space with screens displaying bets placed on fighters and their chances of winning. Nitro, an air-elemental demon in his regular life, was now at the top of that list, followed by Ivy, a human witch.
A pang of envy squeezed my chest. Nitro was a fantastic fighter. Oftentimes, his fights were lead-ins to mine, but we’d never fought. I always assumed Midnight never wanted their top fighters to knock each other out. Now, he’d been crowned champion without any effort at all.
I’d worked my ass off for that title. And then lost it all in a single, distracted second.
I snuck a quick glance at Kian, frustration squelching the envy and blooming more into anger the longer I stood in the presence of that fighters board. It
was his fault, Kian’s. I couldn’t remember now the blow that had knocked off my mask. What I had been doing at the time that had allowed Kian to get into my space so quickly. But my loss of anonymity was his fault, and I had no choice but to follow him back into Midnight anyway.
Except it wasn’t Kian’s fault. Not really. I was the one who’d chosen to fight in the ring, to no longer place my trust in the Hunter Circles.
I blinked and turned away, swallowing my anger. And my pride.
The plush red carpet beneath our feet disguised our light footfalls. Kian eyed the empty bar with longing. I didn’t blame him. Turning down the free drink at Night Fire had been stupid. My nerves now twisted around themselves, making my hands shake. I busied them by drawing the dagger I’d tucked into a sheath at my back. My heartbeat thundered behind my ears, which took every creak and groan of the old establishment’s walls and transformed it into an incoming attack. But no one was here, not a single usher or bartender.
When I finally jumped at the sight of a rat, Kian laid a hand on my shoulder. “Calm down,” he said. “Don’t lose yourself before we’re even in the fight.”
“Easy for you to say.” Veynix hadn’t killed his team. Veynix and Talon hadn’t stalked him, left cobras on his body for him, hadn’t threatened his family and his best friend. All for the sake of loving the hunt, the torment, the pain, regardless of Talon’s orders to track us down and kill us for what we knew.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled in a deep breath to center myself. Kian might not have experienced those things, but Talon was after him, too. And Kian had been abandoned by his team after something horrific. We were both alone, in the same position. And yet he’d chosen to come with me to face my demons—and put a dent in his own.
An eerie calm settled over me. I lifted my gaze to Kian’s. “I’m good now. Let’s go.”
“You sure?” he asked, his eyes searching mine for something. “We can still turn back.”
I nodded. If I ran now, I’d lose Will—something I’d never forgive myself for. Grip tightening on the dagger, I pushed forward. “We’re doing this.”
Kian nodded, his jaw set hard, and gestured toward the entrance to the seating area. We bypassed the stands and rows of chairs arranged in a circle around the lip of the ring, instead opting for the door leading to the hall down to the locker rooms and the managers’ area. As we went to pass the managers’ door, I grabbed Kian’s arm.
“Wait,” I whispered. “What if they’re here?”
He pointed to a security camera above the doorway. “They’d already know. That no one’s come to get us means it’s only Veynix. He must have bought them off.”
“Or they’re complicit,” I said. In fact, since Riker had known who I really was the entire time, I was starting to wonder if Midnight’s managers did, too. I wouldn’t put it past them to be recording this entire confrontation right now to use as pre-show filler later on tonight.
“Probably,” Kian said in agreement.
After passing the managers’ offices without issue, we jogged down to the hallway that split in two ways, one leading to the locker rooms and one leading up to the cage entrance for the ring. We headed for the latter.
“Maybe we should have looked to make sure he was down there first,” I said.
Not that it would have done us much good. Veynix had telekinesis, so the only way to fight him was to get inside his space after distracting him.
Kian must have sensed my train of thought because he didn’t voice the same answer I’d given myself. Instead, he led me through the cage door and into the ring, staring up at the giant spotlight above.
I looked around at the empty ring. The dusty floor still looked the same as it had on the night my life had changed irrevocably. But no bloodstains remained, either from my fight with Kian or any that had occurred since. With the light shining overhead, I could barely make out the audience seats above us.
“He’s not here,” Kian said, his voice as rigid as his body. “What the hell?”
I stepped closer to Kian until we were nearly back-to-back, just in case. “He must be.”
“It took us too long to get here.”
I shook my head. “Trust me, Kian. I’ve been through this with Veynix before. He’s definitely here. It’s too poetic to pass up—making me fight in the place I’d come to feel safe in. The place that’s the reason he was able to find me again so quickly after you unmasked me.”
I peered around again, up into the seating area. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I sang, hoping he’d take the bait.
Laughter exploded across the arena, flooding through the giant speakers that hung above the audience seats. The laugh sent chills down my spine, a shudder I couldn’t stop.
Veynix’s laugh.
“I see you got my message,” said Veynix through the speakers. “I’m glad you could make tonight’s events.”
“Like I had a choice,” I spat under my breath. Then I shouted up at the speakers, “I’m not going to let you keep killing people!”
Veynix laughed again, full and deep. Another wave of ice-cold chills sprouted down my body. “My dear, I’m afraid you’ll have little choice.”
A brilliant flash of bright yellow light zipped across the arena. I brought up my arm to shield my eyes until it passed. When I dropped my arm, it was just in time to watch as a dome of yellow ether fell over the ring like a shield, trapping us inside. Except for one point: a hole in the shield along one of the ring’s walls, barely big enough for a person to crawl through. Through the hole in the shield, I spied a crack in the wall itself, also open enough for us to climb into.
A crack that hadn’t been there before.
“If you’re so confident you can stop me, come and find me,” Veynix said. “And then we will end this dance of ours once and for all.”
I looked at Kian, whose eyes had grown wide. “We’re trapped.”
He shook his head. “Maybe not.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed my fingers tight. “Teleportante.”
The pull of the teleportation word-magik came over me, but we hit something solid and were flung back to the ring’s dusty floor. I fell on my ass and banged my elbow.
“Shit,” I hissed, forcing myself to stand. “What the hell, Kian?”
“Had to try,” he said, looking around. “Had to know how fucked we are.”
“Fucked,” I said. “I told you this was probably going to be a one-way trip.”
“But trapping us in like this?” he asked. “That doesn’t seem like Veynix. He likes the chase.”
I glanced toward the hole in the wall. “Today he wants to play maze master. As long as it’s a game to him, he’s happy. This is the chase today.” I set off across the ring and toward the hole that split part of the ring’s wall and waved over my shoulder. “Come on, Kian. If there’s no way out, the only way to finish this is to get through it.”
Kian reached for my hand again. “Ava, that’s not the point.”
I turned to him to tell him to screw off, but he pinned me with a deadly serious stare.
“If we can’t get out,” he said, “then Krystin and whatever back-up she’s bringing can’t get in. We are alone.”
Chapter 23
The jagged edges of the cement hole and exposed rebar scraped at my clothes. Thank God I’d chosen to keep the leather jacket on. I wiggled through the opening, then took point on the other side while Kian—somehow—managed to wedge his larger form through the makeshift door.
“Where do you think this leads?” Kian asked in a whisper. I wasn’t sure why. Veynix already knew we were here, which meant any extra forces he had for us to fight were also already aware of our presence.
I shook my head. “I have no idea.”
So far, the hole had opened up to a narrow hallway four feet wide that led to darkness in either direction. I was clueless about this area of the building. I’d never gone anywhere but the path we’d taken today, and had only gone to Midnight to fight and get pai
d, not explore and network with demons and other Hunters who would probably recognize me.
Now, I wished I had.
“Turn on your phone’s flashlight,” I said.
“Right.”
A few seconds later, the app’s light flooded the small tunnel. To our right, the space was blocked off with cement, leaving us only one direction to follow.
“Shall we?” Kian asked, pointing the light to the left.
Despite the crude opening to this tunnel through the ether shield, the space itself was cleaned-up. The cement blocks were aligned perfectly, creating a seamless mini-hallway with a solid stone floor.
Midnight—or worse, Talon—had been using this tunnel for some time now.
My stomach sank with another reality. “Talon owns Midnight.”
Kian turned to me. “What?”
“They must. How else would Veynix know about this?”
He shook his head ruefully. “With all of their resources, I wouldn’t be surprised if Talon had a hand in Crimson too.”
“Lady Azar had her hands in everything in the Northeast thanks to her control of Landshaft and Shadow Crest. That probably means Jerrick now controls it all after her death.”
“And the fighters in Midnight aren’t a total jump from those being passed around the Trade,” Kian said under his breath. “Minus the demons, anyway.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Make the humans and witches fight until one becomes victorious. Once they’ve run their course, turn them over to the Trade and make them a powerful demon.” This plan would be flawless for the Trade.
My words sent a chill coursing through me. Autumn Fire–when transformation magiks were at their peak—was only a few months away and Darkness turned as many demons as possible at that time. If I’d continued winning at Midnight, would Riker have handed me over to the Trade for one last big payday?
