Chapter 237
Rotten Souls.
My heart lurched, my breath catching in my throat. “The fuck you w
He moved before I could finish. Faster than I’d ever seen him move. His hand tangled in my hair, yanking my head back so hard my neck screamed. Then his mouth crashed against mine; it was nothing soft, nothing tender, just possession and anger and teeth. I shoved at his chest, fought against him, but he was ali brute strength and rage, pinning me in place like I was thing. I bit him hard on his nasty lip. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, and he jerked back, hissing through his teeth, and for a moment, I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d won this round. Then he spat in my face. The blood hit my cheek
hot and vile.
“You’ll fucking learn your place here,” he snarled.
He shoved me, hard. My knees cracked against the stone as I hit the ground, my palms scraping raw. The world tilted for a second, I blinked up, breath ragged, and saw him standing over me, chest heaving, blood still smeared at the corner of his mouth. I refused to look away.
“Go to hell,” I whispered, voice trembling but loud enough to cut through the silence.
His lip curled. “Oh, I am already there, sweetheart.”
He turned and stalked toward the curtain, his boots grinding against the rock. The heavy fabric fell behind him with a dull sweep, and then he was gone.
I sat there for a long moment, frozen. My scalp burned where he’d yanked my hair; my jaw ached; my hands were trembling so hard they left smudges of blood on the floor. The silence pressed in, thick and endless. Somewhere in the distance, a drip of water echoed through the cavern, steady and cruel. I drew a shaky breath and wiped my cheek, smearing the blood away. He thought he’d won something just now. Thought he’d made his point, but all he did was make a mistake because I wasn’t going to wait for someone to save me. I wasn’t going to cry or beg or break. No, if Dean thought he could cage me, he’d find out what it was like to trap something that bites back. I looked around the room again, more carefully this time, really seeing it. The candles. The bedposts. The stack of crates. He might think I was helpless, but I wasn’t the scared girl he assumed he dragged in here. No, I’m the daughter of death itself, and he will regret ever thinking he could cage me.
Elliot
The night air at the lookout was sharp, flashlights cut through the trees like thin blades, sweeping over rocks and brush, and still nothing, not a goddamn trace of her. We’d tried everything. Every bit of magic, every portal, every method we knew. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, Noah, Envy, all of them taking turns to channel her essence, her link to the Veil, her heartbeat, anything, but every time, the portal flared to life and spat us out somewhere random. The forest. The coast. Once, in the middle of a goddamn shopping centre in Europe. Whatever was hiding her was old magic. It’s intentionally smothering her soul. I stood at the edge of the cliff, the wind slapping at my face as I stared out into the dark valley below, my chest aching with the kind of pressure that only came when you were holding back too many emotions at once.
“She’s cloaked,” Levi said behind me, his voice grim. “Something’s covering her soul. It’s deliberate.”
No shit. Envy paced a few steps away, her hair wild in the wind, her eyes glowing faintly with Layah’s. She looked ready to tear the earth apart herselt “She’s not just cloaked. She’s trapped.”
Haiden crouched near the ground, sifting through the dirt. “Found her phone,” he said after a moment, lifting it up. The screen was cracked, the case scuffed, and mud caked along the sides. “Looks like it was tossed from up there.”
He nodded toward the cliff.
I swallowed hard. “She wouldn’t—”
“i know,” he said quietly
7:17 pm P P p
Rotten Souls.
I did
matter. The thought alone made bile rise in my throat. We’d been at this for hours. The others had fanned out, pack members scouring the nearby roads and woods, but every lead led nowhere. Every scent trail stopped like she’d just… vanished. Now, we’d circled back to the beginning.
“Tessa,” Envy said suddenly, her vore sharp with realisation. “She’s lying.”
Xavier turned toward her, his expression darkening. “You think she knows where Macey went?”
“I know she does,” Envy said, the faint tremor in her voice betraying the fury underneath. “Her story’s too easy. ‘She went out with new girls.’ What girls?
No one’s seen her with anyone new.”
Haiden stood, dusting off his hands. “Then we go there. Now.”
“Agreed,” Levi said, his tone clipped.
edge th I didn’t wait for them to move. I opened a portal with a thought, black flame curling at the edges the air rippling with heat. The pull of it clawed at my chest, heavy and tense.
“Elliot.” Xavier said carefully, stepping closer. “We do this calmly. Understood?”
I met his eyes, my jaw tight. “Calm left the moment she didn’t come home.”
Envy rested a hand on my shoulder as she passed me. “Don’t lose your head, son. We’ll find her, together.”
I nodded stiffly, but the truth was, patience wasn’t something I had left to give. Not when it was Macey. Not when every second that passed made the air feel heavier, the night colder, and my heart empty. As we stepped through the portal, I whispered under my breath a promise, Hold on, Mace. I’m coming for
you.
The world folded in on itself, and then we were standing in front of Tessa’s house. The porch light was still on, and the house was quiet. Odd, when you know your best friend is missing, that you would go to bed. Xavier gave a sharp knock on the door, but I didn’t wait for it to open. I could already feel it, something rotten beneath the surface of their souls. Someone here knew exactly what had happened to her, and I was going to make them tell me. Whether they wanted to do it here or in the pits of hell, well, that choice is up to them.
Comments
Kitten_81
oh hell naw dean…..THATS RIGHT ELLIOTT FIND MACEY AND KILL DEAN