The Annihilator (Dark Verse, #5)

by RuNyx

The other man begging in noises, he kept Howard's neck tilted completely back, and touched the flame in the lighter to the liquid in his mouth. The fire took over, heating up the alcohol surrounding his tongue, the same tongue that had touched her. The man began to scream, struggling, but he held him immobile as the fire found its way into his throat just like the drug had gone down hers.

“Touch her and you die,” he remarked quietly. “Touch her worse, die worse. It’s a simple thing, isn’t it? I don’t know why you didn’t understand it.”

He left his lighter behind so the message was clear to everyone in the system—he knew their symbol, he knew who they were, and he would not hesitate in doing to them what he’d done here. She was off-limits.

He needed to finish his final mission before he took her home. He needed to get her home, get her trust and her loyalty before he opened the door to her past. But that was later. He was leaving breadcrumbs to figure things out, and that brought him enough time. For now, she’d be safe, she'd be unharmed, and he could live with that.

She was an idiot, that’s what she was. A fucking idiot for trusting the most dangerous man she could find, who played with her, had no allegiance to anyone or anything whatsoever. And yet, he had shown up every time she had needed him. And though it had been a trap for him, he had come for her again.

“I don't understand what’s so special about you,” the older woman remarked, her lips curving in a sneer. “He has been lining the street with bodies in your wake.”

“I don’t know what you got yourself into last night, but he killed Mr. H because of it.”

“What?”

“Yes, foolish girl. Mr. H died because of you. Do you know how good he was to the girls? How generous? Thanks...

“Congratulations, the higher-ups are going to watch you...

“Rest for a few days, and then get packed. Orders. You have a new... assignment. You’re moving.”

“I don’t know where they’re sending you, but it’s not good,” the girl whispered urgently. “Just... be prepared.”

She didn’t know what was coming, but she didn’t know if she was prepared for it.

“What do you think the deal is with the Shadow Man and Lyla?” someone asked.

“I didn’t even think he was real until all this. Now, I’m not sure what to think.”

“I think he’s just a client gone territorial,” another voice chimed in.

“Lyla hasn’t had a client since she came here,” a girl pointed out....

“Maybe he lov...

“That doesn’t exist here, Millie. Maybe he just wants to get her out.”

“But why hasn’t he already then? It’s been like... what six years?”

“I think he’s just using her for his own agenda, whatever it is. That's all ...

“Who are we going to?”

“Don’t know,” the guard told her. “I’m just the delivery guy.”

“You’ve cost my bosses a lot of money and a lot of men, Lyla,” the mean one, the leader clearly, spoke. “What should we do with you?”

“You’re too important to let go of, but too useless to the business. You were leverage against some powerful people, and now you’re also leverage against the Shadow Man.” The eagerness of the man’s voice scared her. “Do you know who he is?”

“The Shadow Man came out of nowhere about ten years ago. He became a legend in the underworld. Disrupted our path again and again, and to this day I don’t understand what his end-goal is. So, let me rephrase. Do you know anything about him?”

“You wouldn’t be lying now, would you?”

“Good,” he smiled, his face creasing in laugh lines that should have made him look nice. “We have traveled a long way to see you. Why don’t you ge...

“That would be signing your death warrant. He kills everyone.”

“We’ll risk it. If he cares about you, maybe he'll find us. If not, it's our gain.”

“Make the feed live,” the bald man instructed from his place at the head of the table. “Let him see how we break his little toy.”

He wasn’t there to save her, not like he’d told her, showed her, promised her he would be. And she couldn't save herself. He had lured her into a false sense of safety until she started relying on him, and now she was trapped because he had endangered her. He had lied. And he may kill everyone he wanted afterward, but it wouldn't be for her. It would be for himself, and it would never bring back the last piece of her that broke.

She wanted nothing of him. No reminders. Nothing of the man who had made her believe in an illusion of safety, only to push her into danger himself. He had betrayed her, time and time again, leaving her behind for the jackals to feed off her flesh.

Standing up, she went to the bathroom and grabbed a razor from the cabinet behind the mirror. Looking at herself, at her sunken eyes and her pallid reflection, at the hair he had been so fascinated with, she began to hack away at the long tresses she had never cut before. With each lock of hair that fell, she felt herself go, felt who she had been disappear as a silent doll took its place—good to use and play with, pretty to look at, but completely lifeless.

For months, she had been like that. Months of being confined to a room until her captors had realized she was useless, that whatever lure they believed she held she didn’t. She wasn’t leverage, just dead weight, and they finally relocated her again. Now, she danced on the stage at a club she didn't know and lived in one of the rooms above the building alone. But something had changed. She was scared of being near people now.

Thankfully, without incident, she reached, opening the locker after she checked that the coast was clear. She looked at the small sachets of blue powder she had stolen from some of the tables over a few days. Four packets. The first time they had drugged her, they had used only one. She was going to use all of them and make herself high while her heart gave out.

This club was more elite than all the others she’d been in, so it had a larger clientele that was top of the crème. Climbing the low steps lit by neon lights, she walked over to the fourth table from the back, her steps coming to a halt as she took in the group of men and women sitting at the table—three couples and one man, and not one of them looking like they fit in this part of the world. Well, no one except the giant man with an eye patch. He looked like he’d fit right in.

“You don’t get it!” one of the women, a brunette with glasses, exclaimed loudly, glaring at the man beside her who was looking down at the tablet she was showing him. “How can you not see this?”

Another woman, a beautiful modelesque stunner, just looked at them with visible amusement, sitting in the crook of an arm belonging to a well-dressed man in a suit. “Even I didn’t the first ...

The eye-patch man sat opposite them, a woman with blue hair close to his side. "He sent it to me last week. He's been ...

"I wonder why," the brunette with glasses mused out. "It's the first time I'm sensing some kind...

It was such an odd dynamic, one she had never seen before but immediately recognized. She felt a hollow pang go through her chest. Friends. F...

Taking the packets of blue powder from her shorts, she placed them in her lap, staring at them. A bottle of water sat on the floor by her leg, and she uncapped it. Ripping the packet open, she dumped all the four sachets into the water and gave it a good shake with trembling hands.

This was it. This was how it ended. Taking a deep breath, she brought the bottle to her lips. And she tipped it up. The bitter liquid went down her throat as she gulped, taking in as much as she could before her stomach felt full.

She let herself think of him for the first time in months. A nameless man who had changed her life for both the better, at least for a while, and then worse. A nameless man who had made her believe, in his own twisted way, that she was worth something, that her life mattered to someone, that she was cared for. Was that why her heart bled so much? Because he had abandoned her, left her lost and adrift like everything else? Because he had made her care too, and she had paid the price for it? Because in all the months since he had not once come seeking her?

Something was shaking her. “Look at me!” The loud, sharp command made her eyelids peel open to a slit, immediately locking with the devil’s gaze. Death had come to take her, after all.

“Take me gently, death. I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered, her mind dizzy, her eyes closing again.

“Open your eyes, flamma.” A low, guttural demand followed by a touch on her cheek had her eyes opening again. He checked her eyes, put his ...

“Tell me... tell me where he is...” “Live for me and I’ll tell you,”

“Please. It’s my last wish,”