She winces, a small, sharp intake of breath that hits me harder than any physical blow Charles ever dealt.
"I've got you. We’re almost there," I lie.
We aren't almost there, but I need her to believe it. I can't take her to the hospital. Every ER in this city is a sieve for the High Council’s informants. To take her there is to hand her back to the man in the porcelain mask.
I head toward the industrial district, toward the one place no one knows exists. My sanctuary. My hidden apartment.
As I weave through the midnight traffic, my mind is a dissonant roar of static and fire.
He’s alive. The thought sits in the back of my throat like bile. I knew he was, but the way he looked at her, like she was a pawn, a leash, a weakness. The fact that he knows about her existence. A red light flashes by. I don't slow down.
I glance at Madeline. Her skin is too pale against the midnight silk of her dress. The sapphire fabric is ruined, soaked through with a dark, heavy crimson that matches the stain on my soul.
This is your fault.
The thought repeats with the rhythm of the windshield wipers. You brought a creature of light into a room full of shadows. You thought you could control the chaos. You thought you could keep her clean.
"I'm sorry," I mutter, the words feeling foreign and clumsy on my tongue.
"I'm so sorry, little storm."
Vengeance and guilt fight for space in my chest. I want to turn this car around and burn that estate to the ground until there is nothing left but ash and Charles’s teeth.
But then she shifts, a soft moan of pain escaping her lips, and the rage is instantly swallowed by a suffocating, paralyzing fear.
I’ve spent my life deciding who lives and who dies. I’ve mastered the anatomy of the end. But looking at her, I realize I don't know how to live in a world where her heart doesn't beat.
I pull up to the unmarked steel shutters of the apartment. My hands are slick with her blood as I punch the security code into the keypad. The shutters grind open, revealing the cold, clinical glow of my private infirmary. The one I tortured Jake in.
"We’re here," I whisper, killing the engine.
The silence that follows is terrifying even for me.
I unbuckle her, lifting her into my arms again. She feels heavier now, as if life is slowly leaking out of her. I carry her toward the surgical table, my mind already cataloging the supplies I’ll need. Sutures, lidocaine, antibiotics.
I am the man who cleans up messes. I am the man who erases mistakes. But as I lay her down under the harsh LED lights, I realize this is the one stain I will never be able to wash away.
"I won't let you go, Madeline," I whisper, my voice dropping to a low, lethal vow.
"Not to the Elite. Not to the shadows. And especially not to me."
My hands, usually as steady as a mountain, are vibrating with a frequency I can’t suppress. It’s not just fear. It’s an inferno of pure, unadulterated rage.
As I prep the suture kit, my mind spirals into a dark, calculated fantasy. I see Charles’s porcelain mask shattering under my boot. I see the High Council, one by one, gasping for air as I collapse their empires and their windpipes. I will hunt them through the vents of their mansions. I will turn their gilded world into a slaughterhouse.
I will kill them all. The thought is a rhythmic pulse in my temples. Starting with the man who gave me life just so he could try to take hers.
I look down at Madeline, my "Mali", and the guilt slices through the anger. My mind is spiraling uncontrollably. I might have some kind of fucked up personality disorder.
I let this happen. I let her get close enough to the blades.
I pull the surgical stool closer, my jaw so tight it feels like the bone might crack. I will never let her out of my sight again. I will build a fortress around her, and if the world wants to touch her, it will have to crawl over my corpse to do it.
"Stay still, Mali," I whisper, my voice thick with a protectiveness that borders on obsession.
I work with a feverish precision. I clean the wound, the sting of the antiseptic making her flinch even in her daze. Every time she whimpers, I feel a fresh wave of hatred for my father and myself.
I stitch the torn skin, my movements a blur of silver needle and black thread. I am a man who mends what others break, but I have never felt so broken myself.
