Chapter 62 Love Hurts
Crow vanished in a scatter of black feathers, and though the room emptied, his voice lingered as if the air itself carried it. “Estrella Alta, I will be waiting there.” The words gnawed at like a command I didn’t want to follow but couldn’t resist.
I changed quickly, forcing myself into ritual. The suit was familiar against my skin, the weight of the bonnet mask grounding , the porcelain mask hiding whatever weakness my face betrayed. I fixed the hat in place, checked my cards, slid grenades into my pockets, and this ti added a gun to the mix. My grappling hook was gone, and broken, so I have to work with what I have.
Several blocks away I found a cab, slipping into the back seat like just another passenger. The driver barely looked at until I pressed the muzzle against the back of his head and told him where to go. He laughed, mistaking it for a sick prank, and reached under the console to draw a hidden sidearm. His bullet passed through harmlessly, the round whining against the tal fra. That was when his laughter died. His hands shook as he gripped the wheel, sweat running down his temple.
“Drive,” I said flatly. “It’s going to be a long night.”
He didn’t argue after that. The cab rolled through the city, dusk painting everything in long shadows. I watched the skyline shift, Estrella Alta looming closer, its glass façade glinting like a stage prepared just for .
“Call the Vanguard for , would you? Tell them Eclipse is going to murder soone tonight.”
When the car finally stopped, I slipped out without a word, leaving the driver pale and trembling behind . I phased through the outer wall of the building and entered the lobby unnoticed, moving directly to the elevators. My finger hovered briefly over the numbers before I punched them in. The ride was silent, no one brave or foolish enough to share the confined space with .
The doors opened with a soft chi. I stepped into the floor where Crow had last t and Silver. The scene felt staged, deliberate, every detail sharpened to unsettle . Crow sat at a table as if he owned the place, eating with slow, deliberate bites, utterly at ease. Across from him, Onyx was bound in thick ropes, her dark hair hanging limp over his face, body straining against bonds that bit into him.
Crow looked up, calm and unhurried, his voice smooth as polished glass. “Don’t do anything drastic,” he said, wiping the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “You’ll ruin my al.”
My eyes darted to the ropes, to the way Onyx slumped forward. Her chest rose shallowly, faint but steady. “Onyx,” I asked, voice catching despite myself, “are you okay? Where’s Silver?”
Her head stirred, hair brushing away to reveal a weak grin. “Took you long enough, Nick.” Her voice rasped, but the sarcasm clung to it stubbornly. “As for Silver… she’s asleep.”
“Not anymore,” Crow interrupted smoothly. He snapped his fingers, and like a scene flipped in a theater reel, Onyx was gone. In her place sat Silver, her silver hair spilling over her shoulders, eyes wide with sudden wakefulness. She gasped, frightened, scanning the room until her gaze locked on .
“You’re a telepath,” I muttered. The words carried more accusation than certainty.
“He’s not,” Silver answered quickly, fear curling around her voice. “Nick… he’s an empath.”
Crow leaned back in his chair, smugness dripping from every syllable. “Empath is only the start. Umbrakinetic-8. Empath-5. Hypnosis-2. Of course, the SRC misfiled . They think I’m a Shifter because I can make so-believable copies of other people. But they’re not copies, Nicholas.” He gestured lazily, feathers swirling out of the air.
When the storm cleared, my mother stood beside him, her expression weary and pleading. “Please, Crow, don’t do this. My son deserves the truth, but not like this.”
Her voice was like a hook in my chest, dragging every buried mory with it. I reached forward instinctively, then she burst apart into feathers, scattering into nothingness.
Crow’s eyes lingered on , studying, savoring. “Let’s get the show on the road, shall we?” He stood, napkin folded neatly onto the table as if this were just another dinner party. He stepped to Silver, dragging her chair across the floor with an awful scrape until she sat turned toward .
I felt my fingers twitch against the deck of cards hidden beneath my sleeve. Every instinct scread to fling one, to cut him down before another word could leave his mouth. But nothing ca. My hand froze mid-thought, as if held by invisible threads. My jaw clenched.
That fucking Hypnosis-2. A lie. Had to be. He made it sound so small, so harmless, but I knew better. I rembered Seamark’s Captain, how the mont stretched unnaturally, how my gun rose without my own will. I rembered the gunshot. The ss.
And now Silver sat across from , eyes wide, while Crow smiled as though the whole scene was a script written by his hand.
Crow leaned casually against the desk, one ankle crossed over the other, as though this was a theater he’d staged and Silver and I were the unwitting actors. His hand made a small gesture, like a conductor cueing the next note. “Tell him, dear,” he coaxed, voice silken. “Tell him what you told .”
Silver’s face twisted with sha, tears streaking down her cheeks as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Nick. I didn’t an to do it.”
My stomach tightened. “What do you an?”
Her words tumbled out, raw and fractured. “It’s all my fault, please… please don’t leave alone. I… I didn’t an to do it.”
Crow’s smile stretched wider, almost pitying. “Empaths are very emotional, very obsessive creatures. They latch onto a single idea, a single thread of aning, and grip it until their entire world warps around it. Sotis, they even turn into the shapes of their most ideal person. And to her?” He glanced at Silver like she was a specin in a jar. “Guess who that is.”
Silver’s voice broke again. “I didn’t an to do it. I love you.”
The words cut sharper than any blade. For a mont, I wanted to believe, to let them carry , but Crow was circling like a vulture.
“That is true,” he said, as though confirming so great cosmic truth. “But Eclipse, the real question is… do you feel the sa about her?”
The answer should have co easily, but it didn’t. Doubt gnawed at the back of my mind. Crow wasn’t just twisting Silver; he was twisting . My hands curled into fists. Silver and Onyx weren’t my enemies. They were my allies. My only allies. I wouldn’t let him make believe otherwise.
“So that’s your angle,” I said sharply. “You’re trying to drive a wedge.”
Crow chuckled, the sound dismissive. “If you think my angle is to sow discord between you, then you are sorely mistaken. All I want to do is teach you. Enlighten you.” He leaned closer, the feathers around him whispering with his movents. “The world is not about loyalty or love or so illusion of belonging. It is about use. People use and get used. That is the cycle, and the only difference lies in the degree of awareness.”
He turned to Silver again. “Tell , is Eclipse’s feeling of belonging and him cherishing you an artificial phenonon?”
Silver’s eyes burned with guilt. “Yes.”
“Does Eclipse killing Royal have sothing to do with your own feelings?”
She swallowed hard, trembling. “Yes.”
Crow’s questions ca like a steady hamr, and every ti she answered, it was the sa word, the sa blow, the sa yes. I wanted to scream at her to stop, to fight it, to resist, but the sound never made it past my lips.
Crow’s eyes glead with triumph as he stepped behind . His voice was low, intimate, and brushing against my ear. “Empaths exist to express an emotion and have it reciprocated in full. Her anger becos your anger, and her love becos your love. This is what’s going to happen, Eclipse. This will be your final test. Take your free will back, and tell what you want to do with it. Satisfy , and I will support any decision you make, whether you want to stay with or not.”
His hand pressed firmly against my back, a mockery of reassurance. “I’ve got your back.”
I froze. My body was rigid, but inside I was trembling. Because the truth hit harder than his words… I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.
I asked, my voice cutting through the tension, “And how do I know any of this is true, and that you’re not just manipulating—”
He cut off with that smooth, dismissive cadence of his. “Of course I’m manipulating you. That’s what I do. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. She’s been saying nothing but the truth, because she has no choice. Denying her feelings would hurt her just as much as a blade running through her flesh.”
My jaw tightened. “Let talk to my mom.”
For the first ti, Crow faltered. His eyes flickered, the corners of his mouth twitching as though I’d broken through sothing he hadn’t prepared for. But he relented. The air thickened with shadows, and there she was. My mother. Nicole.
She appeared in front of , fragile and yet radiant in her familiar way. My hands trembled as I reached out, desperate to touch her, but my fingers passed right through, brushing only cold mist and fog. My heart dropped into my stomach.
Her voice was soft, soothing in a way I hadn’t heard in years. “Everything is going to be fine, Nick. You only need to take this single leap.”
I didn’t know what leap she ant. My breathing grew ragged, my fingers brushing my coat for sothing, anything, that would anchor . My hand found a piece of card. I pulled it out, and of all things, it was an ace of hearts.
I stared at it, the edges biting into my trembling fingers, and thought of the past month. Despite the blood, the fights, the near-deaths, they had been the best days of my life. Tears blurred my vision, hot rivers running down my face.
Silver’s voice broke through, shaky and torn with guilt. “I-it’s going to be fine, Nick. J-just r-rember… y-you’re a bad guy… but I-I’m the worse. Y-you shouldn’t rember fondly, p-please.”
Her tears matched mine, falling as her whole body shook. My chest ached, clenching painfully as if soone had wrapped chains around my ribs. I rembered her touch. Her playful kisses. The sweet words whispered when no one else could hear them. And in that instant, I broke free of the haze Crow had wrapped around .
“No,” I muttered. My hand slipped beneath my coat, and I drew my gun with a clarity that felt like rebellion itself. Without hesitation, I aid straight at Crow and pulled the trigger.
The gun roared, a hail of thunder echoing in the room. Bullet holes tore across his chest, each impact snapping his body back. But there was no blood. No sign of weakness. He simply straightened, eyes heavy with disappointnt.
“I suppose,” he said, his tone colder now, “allowing you to have dialogue with the real Bunny was a mistake. But still… I admire your resolve.”
In a burst of dark feathers, Crow vanished, reappearing in a blink beside Silver. My cards slipped between my fingers, sharp and ready, and I hurled them in a desperate barrage. But before they could strike, my mother’s form lted into a black silhouette, its shadowy arms wrapping around . The embrace was suffocating, pinning in place.
Her voice whispered, fading like smoke, “Please, Nick, don’t do this to yourself.”
I stared at Silver, desperately reaching for her.
“Take care of Nick for , Onyx.”
I struggled, screaming for her, but Crow only extended his hand and pressed his palm against the crown of Silver’s head. She convulsed, her whole body trembling violently as though his touch alone had opened so hidden wound. Her shadow scread, tearing away from her body in ragged streams of black.
Crow’s nose and eyes bled as he bore down with the pressure, his grin twitching from the strain. He pulled sothing intangible from her, invisible to except for the raw anguish pouring out of her throat. And then, with a cruel certainty, he clenched his fist and crushed it between his fingers.
The air went dead, heavy with the kind of emptiness that kills sound itself. Silver’s once-bright hair dimd, darkening strand by strand until it was black. Her body slumped against the ropes.
The silhouette behind vanished, dissipating like smoke into nothing. My knees hit the ground hard, and I scrambled forward, pulling her into my arms, my tears dripping onto her pale, unmoving face.
“Silver, Silver, are you there? Hey, wake up!” My voice cracked, desperate. “Hey! Don’t do this to !”
Her lips trembled, and her eyes opened slowly, but they weren’t Silver’s eyes anymore. They were darker, heavier, filled with grief. Onyx looked at , her cheeks wet with her own tears.
Her voice was barely above a whisper, breaking as she spoke. “Nick… she’s not here anymore.”
Her face twisted in sorrow, and she choked on the words. “My sister’s gone.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)