Chapter 86 86

Chapter 86 Part 2-Chapter 3
By the time we left the corridor, my skin felt too tight. Like the fog had soaked into my bones and settled there. Raines kept glancing at me while she drove, checking and rechecking, as if making sure I hadn’t shattered somewhere between the warehouse and her car. I didn’t blame her. I felt like I might.

“What he said…” Raines started, then stopped. Her jaw clenched. “Marked? For lineage? What the hell does that mean?”

I stared out the windshield. Seattle blurred past in streaks of gray and streetlight. The city looked tired. Worn down…kind of how I felt.

“I don’t know,” I finally murmured.

“That’s not an answer,” Raines scolded.

I shrugged. “It’s the only one I have.”

She exhaled sharply. “They keep dropping cryptic breadcrumbs like we’re supposed to magically decode their fucked-up cult language.”

That pulled a humorless laugh out of me. “I know. Right?”

“And this guy tonight. Who the hell was that?” she pressed. “Not Vassell. Not the first one. Someone older? What does older even mean? How many levels of freak show are we dealing with?”

My fingers tightened around the pendant in my pocket. It felt heavier now, like it absorbed every fear spoken aloud. Like it remembered things I didn’t.

“I think older means…” I hesitated. “Something closer to Cyne.”

Raines almost swerved into a parked truck. “Excuse me?”

“Not like him,” I corrected quickly. “But connected. Part of whatever he’s part of.”

“Okay, well, considering we don’t actually know anything about Cyne other than he’s a vampire, that does not make me feel any better.”

“Agreed,” I stated.

Silence filled the car, broken only by the wipers smearing mist across the glass. I watched the city’s glow pulse faintly through the drizzle, each block pressing harder against my chest. Every intersection felt like a missed opportunity to turn back, to pretend we hadn’t crossed some invisible line tonight.

Cyne vanished in this same fog. Taken, delivered…chosen? No single word felt right, because all of them did.

Raines slowed at a red light, the glow staining the interior in dull crimson. “He’s alive,” she said quietly.

I nodded. “Yes.”

She glanced at me. “You sound so certain.”

I offered up a sigh, then murmured, “That’s because I am.”

“How?” she questioned. “The pendant? Hope? That…weird sense thing you have going on with him?”

I flinched, and she noticed. “Hey. I’m not judging. I’m just freaked out.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I wish I could explain, but I…can’t,” I said softly. “I just feel him. Like a pressure behind my ribs. Like something unfinished keeps tugging.”

Raines rubbed the bridge of her nose. “That’s somehow comforting and terrifying at the same time.”

The light turned green, and we drove on.

By the time we reached Nightfall Investigations, the fog had thickened into something that looked almost alive. It pressed close to the streetlights, swallowing their glow.

“God, I’m sick of this damn fog! I’d kill for a clear sky,” Raines muttered as she unlocked the door. “Go. I’ll lock up.”

Inside, the air felt stale. Unmoving. Like the building was holding its breath. I walked straight to Cyne’s desk without thinking.

His chair sat exactly where he left it. His notes were stacked in impossible order. His pen lay diagonally across the top page, too precise to be accidental. He’d always been careful with the things he touched.

Except me.

The realization struck harder than I expected, sharp and intimate, and I shoved it down before it could turn into something loud.

Raines tossed her coat aside and dropped onto the couch. “Okay. Regroup. Preferably without passing out.”

“We need to start over,” I said.

She blinked. “From where? The Big Bang?”

“From the beginning,” I clarified. “Vassell. The corridor. Mara. Everything connects. We just missed the pattern.”

She groaned. “Please don’t tell me this ends with a murder board covering four walls.”

“It already covers two,” I told her, tongue-in-tooth.

She winced. “Oh my God. You’re right.”

A faint chill brushed the back of my neck. Not air. Not imagination. Something alerting. I straightened slowly.

Raines noticed instantly. “What?”

“He’s here,” I whispered.

Her spine snapped straight. “Cyne?”

“No.” I swallowed. “The presence from earlier. It followed us.”

Raines was on her feet, gun drawn. “Fantastic.”

The lights flickered, and my heart lurched as a distortion formed near the far corner. No body. No face. Just a wrongness in the air, like the room had forgotten how to hold itself together.

“Get behind me,” Raines whispered.

I shook my head, stating, “I don’t think that’ll help.”

The shadow drifted toward Cyne’s desk. Toward his chair, and as it did, the air sharpened, turning cold enough to steal breath. Slowly, deliberately, the chair rolled back an inch.

Raines choked. “Why is his fucking chair moving—”

The shadow pulsed once. A whisper brushed my ear. Not sound. Sensation. Yet, it was almost as if it was a spoken word… Soon.

The chair snapped back. The shadow dissolved. Silence slammed down around us, and Raines whipped around, staring at me. “Tell me we imagined that,” she breathed.

“We didn’t,” I returned, my own voice just as shaken as hers.

“Okaay…then tell me that means Cyne is coming back,” she implored.

I closed my eyes. “It means he’s reaching.”

Raines nodded slowly. “For us?”

“For me" I corrected.

She exhaled something between a prayer and a curse. “No pressure.”

I moved to the window, fog pressing against the glass. For the first time since the corridor, I didn’t feel hunted. I felt…noticed. Claimed, maybe. The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it hardened something inside my spine.

“We’re running out of time,” I said quietly.

Raines sank back onto the couch. “I can’t keep lying to the precinct. They’re watching me.”

“Take leave,” I said gently.

She barked a humorless laugh. “You think they’ll let me?”

“You don’t have a choice,” I replied. “Mara needs you in this. Fully.”

Silence stretched. Then she nodded once. “Okay. I will.”

I turned back to Cyne’s desk, fingers brushing the torn scrap of his coat. It felt like a promise and a warning wrapped together.

Something had changed tonight. Not just in the case. Not just in the threat.

In me.

“We’re going to get them back,” I said quietly.

Raines met my eyes. “Both of them?”

“Yes.” My voice didn’t shake. “Both.” Because whatever my lineage was, whatever mark threaded through me like a curse, I was going to learn what it meant…and how to use it.