Page 12 of Property of Scar

I move along the wall, methodical, reading the scene the way I’ve read a thousand scenes across lifetimes of managing the kind of chaos most people don’t know exists, and near the base of the brickwork, I find it, a shell casing, small and bright, sitting in the shadow of a drainage gap like it fell and didn’t roll far enough to matter.

I pick it up between two fingers.

Turn it.

Silver-core ammunition. Custom loaded by the look of the casing stamp, not something you buy over the counter or a casual hunter bothers with. This was purpose-built for things that need silver to slow down and something heavier behind it to finish the job. I hold it for a moment longer than I need to, then slide it into my jacket pocket, because evidence belongs to the person who finds it, and I found it first.

My phone comes out, and I photograph the scorch marks from four angles, capturing the fracture patterns at the edges, the contained ellipse of the burn site, and the precise absence of collateral damage to the surrounding wall. Whoever worked this fire knew exactly what they were doing. There’s no wild spread or panic, just clean, controlled burn marks laid down by someone with a steady hand and way too much practice.

That certainty sets my body on edge more than anything else.

I straighten, pocket the phone, and take one last look at the alley, this slice of my territory that something moved through without permission, acknowledgment, or the basic respect of letting me know there was a problem requiring a solution. The irritation that’s been simmering since I first stepped into the dark here sharpens into something colder.

Whoever you are, dhampir, you’ve made yourself my problem now.

And I don’t let problems breathe long without answers.

The garage side of the clubhouse is lit up when I pull in, the wide doors thrown open to the June air, and I hear it before I see it, a shriek of delighted, startled laughter that cuts clean through the rumble of the engine, the kind of sound that belongs to a person caught completely off their feet.

Then Raze’s voice, low and amused in a way he’d deny under questioning, “Lean into it, firecracker. You’ve got it.”

Another shriek.

I kill the engine.

They’re at the center of the garage floor, Roxy sitting astride Raze’s bike, focused and wide-eyed, fully aware she’s in over her head and doing it anyway, her knuckles tight on the handlebars.

Raze stands right behind her with his hands locked on her hips, holding her steady while he watches the room like he’s ready to tear it apart for her if he has to. The look on his face catches my attention mostly because I’ve rarely seen it there before. His jaw loose, his eyes bright with something uncomplicated and openly warm, all that banked violence he carries as though it’s a second skin temporarily forgotten in the simple pleasure of watching someone he loves attempt something that terrifies them.

The bike rocks.

Roxy’s entire body lurches to compensate, and another peal of laughter tears out of her as she grabs his forearm to steady herself, and Raze laughs, too, pulling her back against him before the bike can tip further.

“I’m going to die on this thing!” she informs him, completely cheerful about it.

“You’re literally immortal now.” His chin drops to her shoulder. “You can’t die on it.”

“I can absolutely die of embarrassment, which is so much worse.”

I cross the garage floor. Raze clocks me in the same moment Roxy does, her posture brightening with that warmth she has for everyone in this club, the kind of instinctive openness that still occasionally catches me off guard because it has no agenda behind it. She swings off the bike with considerably more grace than I’d expected, and Raze stays where he is, hands in his pockets, watching me with unhurried attention, the kind that says he knows something is coming, and he’s content to wait and see what.

“Scar.” The warmth in Roxy’s voice doesn’t waver. “You look like you found something you didn’t like.”

“I found something I don’t understand,” I correct her, because the distinction matters. I pull out my phone and hold the screen toward her. “Tell me what you see.”

She takes the phone without hesitation, with her full attention, and studies the photographs, scrolling through them once, then again more slowly. I watch her face, because that’s where the information will be before the words are, and it happens fast.

Her magic flares. I feel it before I see it, a warm, electric shift in the air, the frequency that Roxy’s power throws off when something touches it that it recognizes, and the color drains from her face in the same breath. Her hand goes still, thumb hovering over the screen, and for a moment, she doesn’t speak, simply looks at the image with an expression that has moved several miles past surprise into something considerably more serious.

“Roxy.” Raze’s voice drops, the amusement gone as though it was never there. He moves to her side, one hand settling at the small of her back. “Talk to me.”

She looks up, first at him, then at me. “There are scars beneath the ash.” Her voice is level, but I can hear the effort behind the levelness. “They’re ritual channels. Blood magic… old, dark, the kind that witches abandoned centuries ago because the cost of using it made it more curse than craft.” She looks at the photograph once more, as though she’s hoping she’s misread it, then lowers the phone slowly. “I’ve only seen diagrams of work like this in books. Books that were locked for a reason, Scar.”

Raze’s hand presses flat against her back. “How dark?”

Roxy is quiet for one beat that lands like a stone in still water. “The kind that costs lives to perform.”

Raze’s jaw tightens, a flicker at the corner before he goes still, that quiet, dangerous kind that means something just got personal. And with him, it always does when it comes to his people.