“Murtaugh,” I growl.
He steps in front of her.
“You shouldn’t have come here. You don’t know?—”
My hand rises. Black tendrils, thick as my arm, shoot across the room and wrap around his throat and chest, lifting him clean off the ground. He chokes, his feet kicking uselessly high in the air, the syringe clattering to the floor.
“Jax, wait—!” Viper screams from somewhere behind us.
Too late.The rage tearing through my body is bigger than reason now. The tar tightens around Murtaugh’s throat—then spreads. The tendrils split and shoot in opposite directions, wrapping around his arms, his legs, his chest.
For a moment he just hangs there, suspended in the air, then the tar flips him sideways and pulls. His body jerks violentlyas the tendrils stretch outward, dragging him in different directions like ropes pulled too tight.
Viper screams as the tar pulls harder. Murtaugh’s bones crack, his limbs stretch at unnatural angles, the sound of tearing flesh and snapping bone filling the air. He’s meat in the grip of a monster, and the monster is me.
The tension snaps completely, his body bursts apart in a violent spray of red mist and bone fragments that scatter across the warehouse floor. The tar retracts slowly, letting what’s left of him—a mess of blood and shredded clothing—fall to the ground.
Viper cries out a horrified sound, a gagging sob that I don’t even have a second to process it because Ivan is already moving.
I lunge forward, but the warehouse is collapsing faster now. Dust fills the air, turning the room into a choking gray haze that stings my eyes and clogs my throat. Through it, I see Ivan dragging Sisk’s chair toward the center of the room.
“NO,” I roar.
The concrete beneath them fractures, breaking out in a hundred different directions. The floor splits open, the ground collapses inward as the tar beneath the warehouse surges upward like a living well. Black liquid churns inside the jagged opening, swirling hungrily.Another pit is rising.
I shove forward, climbing over another beam. As I pull myself across it, I slam my palm against a jagged edge of metal, slicing my other palm open. Dark liquid spills from the cut, mixing instantly with the tar already crawling along my arms.
Ahead of me, another massive part of the ceiling has fallen, creating a wall between me and Sisk.
I plant my feet, raise both hands, and the tar flows freely now, coating my fingers.
Ivan laughs. “She will never be yours again,” he shrieks, his voice cracking with glee. He shoves the chair, the legs scrapeacross the ground and it tips over. Sisk’s body falls toward the open tar.
My arm lashes out. The tar erupts from me like a whip, shooting across the room and wrapping around her waist just before she disappears into the black. I catch her, holding her suspended over the churning abyss.
Holding her there takes everything, the tar between us stretches tight, a black cord vibrating with the strain. My muscles scream, locked in place.
Across the room, Ivan runs. His bare feet slap against the floor as he bolts toward the back corridor. I can feel him getting farther away, a fleeting presence I’m powerless to stop.All I can do is hold on to Sisk with everything I have.
The tar beneath her pulls greedily, a hungry mouth trying to drag her down into the darkness. My vision blurs, the effort of fighting it making my head throb. All I can think is reaching her, and so the tar inside me reaches out, touching the tar inside her.
The connection snaps into place and I hear her.
Let me go.
Her voice echoes inside my skull.
Let me go, Jax,Sisk pleads softly.It’s going to be okay.
“No!” I shout, sinking to one knee as the strain tears through my body. The pit pulls harder in response.
Let me go, she whispers again.Set me free.
For a second—just one—doubt flickers through me and The Pit feels it. It senses my weakness and the tar below her rises higher, swirling greedily as it tries to swallow her whole.
That’s when I understand.This isn’t Sisk.
My eyes close and I stop fighting the pull. Instead of resisting it, I let the connection deepen. I reach further than I ever have before, pushing past the narrow thread linking us and plunging into the vast network beneath the city.
