Pieceslined the inside of the alley.
Cyrus came to stand on her other side. "Is that…?"
What was she looking at?
It took a second for her mind to catch up to what her eyes were seeing.
"Body parts," Rhyden said. "Those are fucking body parts."
On the screen, body parts filled the alley. Red splattered on the snow like dark paint on a white canvas.
Lucien came to stand behind her, his hand settling on her shoulder, warmth radiating through her back. "Why are they arranged like that?" His voice was thick.
"It—" Auren broke off as the reporter spoke again.
"We believe this mass murderer has left a message. It appears the body parts have been arranged in a code, spelling out what forensic experts believe to be a name?—"
The image shifted to a different view of the alley below, and as Rin stared, she saw in sudden clarity the staggered, gory letters.
"Coming up, a first look with a witness who claims she spoke to the suspect—according to Lunar City PD—earlier today at an establishment by the name ofSalli’s Smoke Shack."
A woman with thick curly hair, tumbling over her shoulders and wide, purple eyes filled the screen. She stood on a street, a microphone shoved in her face, clearly unprepared to speak. "Ah—yeah, and he was a bit odd. But he didn’t seem to want to hurt anyone…"
Cyrus made a small sound at Rin’s side.
The words were drowned out by the sound of Rin’s heart thundering in her ears. She turned to meet Auren’s eyes, unable to do anything, think anything, with the sudden terror gripping her. "You reaped them all, didn’t you?"
Auren’s expression was grave. "Yes. It was beyond reckoning."
Rin wondered how the Soul Searcher could see such carnage and still be so kind. "Auren, I’m so sorry."
Auren squeezed her hand. "It is my duty."
"You know what this means, right?" Rhyden cut in.
Rin nodded, words almost escaping her. Her flesh tingled with remembered shocks, images of a destroyed planet, and a bouquet of Nightfell roses. When she opened her eyes, the screen had shifted back to the helicopter’s view of the alley.
And the eight letters ofhername, placed upon the snow with countless, dismembered body parts.
AVformed with ripped arms, anEwith legs still clad in torn clothes. TheIwas dotted with a head.
Rin’s lower lip trembled, but god, she wouldn’t let herself be weak—not when she was the whole reason this carnage had come. "Kit’s already found me."
7
COUNTERFORCE
Delayne Nessen moved quickly down the dark halls. His fingers clutched the small glass vial in his pocket.
He descended the metal steps, which ended at a steel-reinforced door. A small rusted panel at its side revealed a keypad. He typed in the code that only he and Rhyden knew.
Nessen let his forehead fall against the cool steel, breathing shakily.
Whatever made the Nova inside Vesperin different from the Rogues was the key. The key tostoppingthis, to ridding Earth of the Rogues.
Researchers had tried and failed. Nessen himself, at one point, had been employed at a research facility working on a cure to return Rogues to Souls, so they might find peace in the Stars—but funding was cut, the project deemed useless.
He couldn’t help but be intrigued by the anomaly dropped at his doorstep, driving him to shuffle into the lab while everyone was sleeping, test her blood, and compare it to the Rogue samples.
