Chapter 90 Severing the Leash
Maverick’s gaze dropped for a second to his forearms, to the dark lines burned into his skin. The sigils pulsed faintly, always there, always waiting. He could feel the distant, ghostly pull of Syndicate command through them, like a hand that had been resting on his shoulder for years, even when they pretended to let him off the leash.
He flexed his fingers.
He’d sworn, years ago, never to try taking the brands off himself. He’d seen what happened when others tried. Infection. Nerve damage. Flames that turned inward. The sigils weren’t just ink; they were carved paths for his magic. Ripping them up could rip him apart with them.
He thought of Lyra with a collar at her throat.
Risk recalculated.
“We’re going to need me off their grid,” he said.
Jonah followed his stare, then went even paler. “You mean—”
“I mean I’m done letting them use me as a tracking beacon.”
Jonah looked from Maverick’s face to his arms and back. “You tear those out wrong, you’re going to be very crispy and very dead before we even get there.”
“Then we do it right.”
“Right,” Jonah repeated faintly. “You do realize ‘right’ still includes ‘horrifying’ and ‘possibly screams’ and ‘definitely blood,’ yes?”
Maverick pulled the van off the road, into a narrow gap between two scrub trees where it was mostly out of sight. The cliffs were closer now, looming like a broken wall. Somewhere in there, South Ridge sat beneath layers of rock and arrogance.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said.
Jonah huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh in a different life. “We never do, do we?”
🔥🔥🔥
Lyra lost track of how long she sat on the bed.
There was no clock. No window. The fake sky didn’t change much. The light overhead dimmed slightly once, then brightened again, like someone flicked a switch and called it night, then day.
Food slid in through a gap at floor level twice. Nutrient blocks, sealed in clear plastic, and a bottle of water. No utensils. No human hand attached.
The first time, she ignored the food on principle. The second time, her stomach made a loud, humiliating noise and she decided principle could shut up.
The collar made everything fuzzy. Her magic, her senses, even her emotions felt… damp. Like someone had stuck all of her inside a tank of cold water. She could still think. She could still feel. It just took effort, like pushing through thick mud.
She tested the collar’s edges with her fingers, looking for a seam. There wasn’t one. It was a single strip locked somehow from the outside. Typical.
She tested the chain on her wrist. Solid. The hinge had the same faint rune-glow as the net had.
She talked, because talking made the silence less loud.
“So,” she said to the ceiling after her first meal, “welcome to day one of Lyra’s Unwanted Spa Retreat. Amenities include: anxiety, zero privacy, and a stunning lack of customer service.”
The camera lens in the door flickered, just once.
“Don’t worry,” she added. “I’ll write a very honest review.”
Nothing.
She lay back on the cot and stared at the sky-screen again, watched the same two clouds drift across, loop, and drift again. At home — if she could still call any place that — clouds meant rain, meant weather, meant change. Here they meant nothing.
Her eyes burned. She blinked hard until they didn’t.
She was not going to cry alone in a metal box just because some Syndicate assholes had slapped a collar on her.
Not yet, anyway.
🔥🔥🔥
The first sigil came off in pieces.
Maverick sat on a rock behind the van, sleeves rolled up. The air smelled like dust and fuel and old charcoal from some forgotten campfire. Jonah crouched nearby, a kit open between them — bandages, antiseptic, a small blowtorch, a sharp knife, a bottle of grain alcohol that had definitely not come from a licensed healer.
“You sure about this?” Jonah asked for the third time.
“No,” Maverick said. “Do it anyway.”
Jonah sighed and poured the alcohol over the knife blade. “You know, most people warm up with, like, stretching. Maybe a pep talk. You go straight to self-surgery. It’s unsettling.”
“Jonah.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He wiped the knife on a clean cloth. “Give me your arm.”
Maverick extended his left arm, fist clenched. The sigil there wrapped from his wrist to his elbow, a jagged pattern of lines and symbols burned deep years ago by a Syndicate mage who’d smiled the whole time.
“Cut along the edges,” Maverick said. “Don’t go for the center. It’ll bleed less.”
“Oh, well, if it’ll bleed less,” Jonah muttered, voice high and tight. “That’s comforting.”
The first cut burned. Maverick gritted his teeth as the blade sliced through skin where dark ink met flesh. It was like opening an old scar that had gone hard and numb—only it wasn’t numb. Not anymore.
Heat rushed to the surface. The sigil flared, reacting like a living thing trying to pull back together.
“Now,” Maverick ground out.
Jonah pressed the edge of the blowtorch to the open line.
Fire met fire.
Maverick hissed despite himself. The brand shrieked inside his nerves. He could feel the pattern destabilizing, the neat paths the Syndicate had carved for his magic fraying at the edges. It hurt. It was supposed to. Pain had been the point, back when they put them on. This was just returning the favor.
He held his arm steady until the worst of the flare died down. Smoke curled from the edges of the wound, the smell familiar and awful.
Jonah’s face was gray. “We’re calling that a good sign, right?”
Maverick exhaled slowly. The distant tug he’d always felt, that quiet pressure, eased just a fraction.
“One down,” he said. “Four to go.”
Jonah stared at him. “You’re insane.”
“Probably,” Maverick said. “Keep going.”
They worked in brutal, methodical silence. Cut, burn, bandage. Cut, burn, bandage. By the time they finished both arms and the one at the base of his neck, Maverick was sweating and breathing hard, his vision hazy around the edges. The world wobbled if he moved too fast.
But the constant, low-level hum of command on his nerves was quieter than it had been in years.
He flexed his fingers. Flame curled up over his knuckles, answering him faster, sharper. For once, the power felt like it belonged to him.
“Congratulations,” Jonah said weakly. “You’ve successfully voided your warranty.”
Maverick huffed out something that might have been a laugh. It hurt. Everything hurt.
He glanced toward the canyon.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Jonah blinked. “Now? You just peeled yourself.”
“They’re not going to hold her and wait for me to rest,” Maverick said. “Every minute we sit here is another minute they get to figure out how she works.”
Jonah muttered a few curses under his breath, but he shut the med kit and hauled himself into the passenger seat without arguing.
Maverick slid into the driver’s seat and started the van.
His hands shook on the wheel for the first mile. By the second, the pain settled into a low, steady burn. He could work with that.
He’d worked with worse.