Chapter 26 Wear it
Eva
The world fell silent after the church door slammed shut behind me. I kept walking, my boots crunching on the gravel, my mind replaying the look in Malach’s eyes as he let me go. It wasn’t a defeat. It was permission. He wanted me to walk into that trap. He wanted me to fight.
Nashville. Two hours away. The city lights a smear on the horizon, a beacon for a reckoning I wasn’t ready for. I replayed Ronan’s threat, the photo of Lily. I replayed Malach’s words, the burn of his blood on my skin. Two sides of the same damn coin, and I was the metal they were minted from.
I checked into a cheap motel on the outskirts of town.
The motel room smelled like bleach, old cigarettes, and the ghost of every bad decision ever made between these peeling floral walls. I locked the door, shoved the single chair under the knob, and still didn’t feel safe. Because the thing that wanted me most wasn’t on the other side of the door.
It was in my pocket.
I dumped the torc onto the bedspread. It landed with a soft thud that sounded too loud in the quiet. Under the buzzing fluorescent tube, it looked alive: silver veins pulsing faintly, like it had a heartbeat that matched the one hammering behind my ribs.
I stared at it for a long time. Then I started to plan.
I stripped out of my road-dusty clothes and stepped into the shower. The water was barely lukewarm, but it washed the church dust off my skin and the last of Malach’s blood from under my fingernails. I stayed under the spray until my fingers pruned and the mirror was a solid sheet of steam.
After that, I spread everything across the bed like a surgeon’s tray.
Glock 19, full magazine. Three silver-plated lockpicks, one still flecked with Malach’s blood. Six feet of piano wire with wooden toggles. Zip-ties. Miniature can of wolf-grade pepper spray, illegal in fourteen states and worth every penny.
A roll of duct tape. And the torc, gleaming like it was proud to be the star of the show.
I dressed for war: black cargo pants, black tank, steel-toed boots I could run or kick a face in without breaking my toes. Hair in a braid so tight my scalp hurt. I even painted my lips black because if I was going to die tonight, I was doing it looking like a nightmare.
I stood in front of the cracked mirror, torc in my hands.
One choice.
If I wore it, I became the perfect bait. Ronan would smell Malach’s claim and lose his fucking mind; his wolves would be too busy salivating to notice me cutting Lily loose.
If I wore it, I could probably never take it off again.
I closed my eyes. I saw Lily’s gap-toothed grin. I saw Malach’s eyes watching me from the shadows of a church. I saw my own hands, covered in my own blood and his, in a dozen lifetimes I couldn’t remember.
I opened my eyes.
“Fuck both of you,” I told the empty room. Then I slid the torc around my throat.