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PROLOGUE
4 months ago
VEX
I woke alone.
I woke—which was something, I supposed. I woke with a fragment of peace: the briefest huddle of seconds as my addled mind turned on and there was nothing wrong: Aisha was here. My mother was here.
And then I blinked my eyes open and reality crashed in.
I woke, today, at the beginning of what I knew was my ending, for I truly, finally had nothing left.
I was in a cramped room with an IV in an aching arm. The bag hooked to my windowsill above me was empty. The last of the fluids had drained, but there was something wrong with my arm.
I sat up, staring at it, trying to conjure the street smart instructions on what to do with… whatever had happened. My flesh was swollen and aching where the fluids had entered, looking like a sad blob of jelly.
My mind was sluggish, and I didn’t care as much as I should.
Not now that I was alone.
Finally, I dragged up the lesson that one of the omega harm reduction clinics had given me. I thought perhaps the IV had gone interstitial… maybe? That word floated around meaninglessly. I didn’t know what it meant, I just knew it was bad.
“For doubles, go warm,”one of the sweet nurses there had told me.“Double red or double blue—that means warm. But if it’s both red and blue, go cold. And do it quick.”
I stared at my arm. Pale for blue, inflamed for red. It was pale.
I reached out and touched the swollen flesh. Cool for blue, warm for red. It was cool.
Double blue.
Double’s meant warmth.
Good, because I didn’t have any ice.
I staggered out to the bathroom, grabbing a towel and running the water until it was steaming hot. Then I wrapped it around my arm and left it there, waiting for the swelling to go down, finally forced to face my thoughts.
Still reeling from the drugs that had just blitzed my system, I was too shocked to cry.
Aisha was gone, and I’d all but crawled home and somehow jammed an IV into my arm with trembling fingers before vanishing from the world.
One more heat, I’d survived, but this time I’d survived it alone.
ONE
Hour One
LOVE
Vex had been taken.
It was a truth that unravelled my sanity with every inch it seeped into my mind. Ebony had the phone now, expression dark as he played the video again.
“Just… turn it off.” Drake’s voice was strained. “We should text them, t-tell them we’ll give them anything.”
“Can’t.” Ebony’s gaze was still fixed on the video, and I could see the fire in his gaze. I’d seen it before. That fire, once lit, would never be sated.
Not without vengeance.
