Chapter 77

Chapter 77
Sheriff Grady had moved into a rental house on the edge of Hollow Creek after his old one went up in flames. It was a plain ranch-style place, white siding, a yard that hadn’t been mowed in weeks. From the outside, it looked tired, almost defeated. But Nathan knew better. A man like Grady didn’t just fold when his secrets went up in smoke. He adapted. He rebuilt. He hid deeper.

The night was moonless, a smear of clouds blotting out the stars. Nathan parked two streets over and walked the rest of the way, staying low, hugging the shadows. The whole town was on edge after the fire, rumors spreading like kindling. Officially, Grady had escaped by luck, “miraculously spared.” Nathan didn’t buy it. He knew fire had always been the Council’s tool, their ritual language. Grady surviving wasn’t accident—it was design.

Marlene had begged him not to go alone, but Nathan insisted. If things went sideways, if this turned into something worse than he imagined, she needed to stay out of it. She had the ledger now, tucked away in a lockbox only she knew the location of. That was their ace. He couldn’t risk her carrying it into danger.

The house sat quiet, no lights glowing inside. Nathan waited at the edge of the yard, listening. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. A truck rumbled past on the highway. But the sheriff’s new house stayed still, dark as a tomb.

Nathan slipped around back. The lock on the basement hatch was new, shiny against the weathered siding. His gut clenched. That’s where it would be. He pulled out a set of picks he’d kept since his time in the force, a skill learned more from necessity than legality. It took only a minute before the lock clicked. He slid the hatch open, careful not to let it creak, and descended into the darkness.

The smell hit him first—disinfectant, sharp and chemical, cut with the faint metallic tang of old blood. His flashlight beam swept across concrete walls, bare shelves, and then froze.

Cages.

Not just a few this time. A whole line of them, stretching across the basement. Heavy iron bars, each one reinforced, bolted into the floor. Inside, there was padding—thick mats, some stained dark, some torn apart as if by frantic hands. Chains were fixed to the walls of each cage, their cuffs worn, scratched, like they’d been clawed at by desperate wrists.

Nathan’s throat tightened. This wasn’t just holding. This was containment.

He crouched near one of the cages, his fingers brushing the padding. It wasn’t for comfort—it was to keep the noise down. To muffle the screams, the thrashing, the terror. He saw faint burn marks etched into the floor beneath one cage, a circle scorched into the cement. Symbols he didn’t recognize, blackened by fire.

His stomach turned. He thought of Jace, of Elijah. Had they been here? Had these cages held boys before the rituals, breaking them, preparing them?

One cage near the end caught his eye. It was different—larger, its padding fresher, the chains newer. And inside, lying in the corner, was a scrap of fabric. Nathan picked it up with trembling fingers. A shirt sleeve, torn, small. The kind of thing a child might wear.

Rage boiled in him, sudden and choking. He slammed his fist against the bars, the clang echoing through the basement like a gunshot. His breathing came heavy, uneven. Every instinct screamed to tear the place apart, to bring the whole rotten house down on Grady’s head.

But movement froze him. A sound above—the creak of footsteps on the floorboards. Someone was home.

Nathan killed his light and pressed into the shadows. The footsteps moved slowly, deliberately, across the floor. Then the sound of the front door opening. Closing. Silence again.

He waited, counting the seconds, his pulse thundering in his ears. Finally, when the house settled back into stillness, he forced himself to breathe. He couldn’t lose focus. Not now.

He swept the cages one last time, searching for anything he could take. Proof. Evidence. His beam landed on a clipboard hanging by the wall. He snatched it up and scanned the papers. Lists. Dates. Initials. Beside each: notations like “prepared,” “unfit,” “transferred.” His hand shook as he flipped through page after page. The most recent entry bore a name he knew too well.

Hale, J. — prepared.

Nathan’s grip tightened on the clipboard. They had marked Jace. Officially. Not just in whispers, not just in rituals. On paper. He slipped the clipboard into his jacket, the weight of it pressing cold against his chest.

He started toward the hatch when another sound pricked his ears. A faint rattle. Chains.

Nathan froze. Slowly, he turned back. One of the cages—its door slightly ajar. He hadn’t noticed before.

Something moved inside.

He raised his flashlight, the beam trembling as it cut through the dark.

A man crouched in the corner. His body was thin, wasted, his clothes ragged. His face was shadowed, but his eyes—wild, burning—caught the light.

“Help,” the man rasped, his voice raw. He lifted his wrists, the skin chafed bloody from the chains.

Nathan’s heart hammered. This wasn’t just storage. Grady was still keeping someone. A living prisoner.

Before Nathan could speak, the man lurched forward, slamming against the bars. The door clanged wide open. Nathan stumbled back, the flashlight swinging wildly.

The man crawled out, his movements frantic, unsteady. He collapsed on the padding just outside the cage, gasping like an animal freed from a trap. Nathan crouched, instinct kicking in.

“Who are you?” he whispered harshly. “What’s your name?”

The man’s cracked lips moved, forming sounds but not words. His eyes darted, panicked, then settled on Nathan with a terrible focus.

“They… they feed the fire,” he croaked. “Always the sons. Always.”

Nathan’s stomach twisted. He reached for the man’s arm, trying to steady him, but the prisoner jerked violently, pulling away. He scrambled toward the wall, his body convulsing. A seizure. His mouth foamed, his limbs thrashing against the concrete.

Nathan reached for him, but it was too late. The man’s body went rigid, his eyes rolling back, and then he went still. Silent.

Nathan knelt there, shaking, his breath ragged. Another life, snuffed out in Grady’s basement. Another secret buried.

The weight of it threatened to crush him, but he forced himself up, forcing the fury down into something colder, sharper. He had the clipboard. He had seen the cages. That was enough for now.

He climbed back up through the hatch, locking it behind him, his every nerve buzzing with adrenaline. The night air hit him like ice, but it didn’t clear his head. The images stayed burned into his skull—the chains, the padding, the wasted man’s eyes.

As he slipped back into the dark, one thought consumed him.

Grady wasn’t just complicit. He was the keeper. The one who prepared them, who softened them for the Council’s fire.

And Nathan knew then, with a clarity that chilled him: if Jace was ever taken, it would be to those cages first.

Not while I’m breathing, Nathan swore to himself. Not while I’m still standing.