“Not very original, are they? Their leader seems to think of themselves as some kind of poet.”
The Awakening was what the humans and historians called the time supes showed themselves to humans because their worlds were shrinking. It was also a time before the Syndicate was formed. A time of war.
“The only other thing I got out of the poor bitch was that they were trained outside the U.S., which leads me to believe their main base isn’t here.” A pause. “That’s all I got before her heart… melted.”
“Melted?” The word left a bitter taste in my mouth.
From the background, I heard the steady clatter of a keyboard, which meant she was still at her desk. Of course she was.
“Yes. Whoever’s in charge is using a variation of the silencing spell with inconsistent consequences.”
My brows pulled together, gaze narrowing on the road ahead. “That doesn’t track,” I said, the words coming out slower as I worked through it. “Traditional silencing spells don’t vary. Same trigger. Same outcome.”
On the other end, keys clicked in a steady rhythm.
“Some hearts rupture,” she continued, almost clinically. “Some collapse in on themselves. Others… Liquefy. There’s no clear pattern… not yet.”
I didn’t need her to say the rest. She wasn’t done, not by a long shot. She would push until therewasa pattern, a thread we could follow. Hell had no rest for the wicked.
“If there’s a variable, I’ll find it,” she added, tone sharpening just slightly before smoothing again.
“Just keep Calix on task,” she said next, her voice cutting clean through the line. “I don’t want him burning out, but I don’t want him drifting either. Understood?”
Again, my gaze flicked, unbidden, to the empty passenger seat.
Dark hair. Red-tipped ends. Tearful bright eyes. The way his attention had locked onto her earlier.
She was a problem, something that could pull him off course, and I couldn’t let that happen.
“I understand.”
“Good.” She waited for a beat. “I trust you, Rack. Always have.”
I blinked once, the words hitting harder than they should have. My jaw tightened, a slow swallow following as my shoulders pulled back on instinct. I let out a steady breath through my nose before answering.
“You can always count on me, Ezra.”
Silence stretched for a second before her voice snapped back into its usual edge.
“If I hear anything else, I’ll let you both know.”
“I’ll keep you updated on our end,” I replied.
Another pause, then the line went dead.
I stared ahead, the quiet in the car pressing in as her words replayed.
Excitatio. Day by day, we were getting closer to whatever they were really planning.
My fingers tapped the wheel once before going still. Calix couldn’t afford a distraction. Not now. Not when we were this close. My thoughts circled back to her. Olivia Savin. The way he’d looked at her. The way she’d looked at him. How he’d reacted this morning.
She was a risk—one I couldn’t ignore.
My jaw set.
If there was something there, anything remotely incriminating about her, I’d find it. There had to be something that would break the connection before it rooted too deep. He’d make the right call once he saw it. He always did. At least that was what I told myself.
But even as the thought settled, my pulse ticked up. Her image slipped back into my mind, along with something else.
