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good-griief · 11 months

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Time ; Acceptance

third and final chap of my "time" series! i really hope yall enjoyed it cus angst is one of my fave things to write. i didn't want to drag it out too much but i was thinking of doing one-shots and some au's of this idea, so if ur interested in that, i'd be glad to know!

warnings ambiguous relationship between abby and reader, reference to romance, implications of unrequited love (it's not), she/her reader, lasting effects of torture to reader, morally grey reader, ambiguous/story-teller dependent interpretation of major past event between characters

tags @frogtits1 @sawaagyapong @augieee21 @sunkissedbibi @eden-nox

part one part two

part three on ao3

Ellie looked over the pictures she took from Leah as she and Dina sat in the theater, pausing at the sight of someone she didn’t recognize. “Who’s this?” She asked, picking up the photo. California was written beneath the picture of a girl and a younger-looking Abby, clearly candid as they leaned against one another by a bonfire. She flipped over the picture. Soon, was written with a heart next to it.

“Dunno.” Dina swiped a few pictures over to her girlfriend. “There are a few of her.”

Ellie looked them over, seeing Leah had written and scratched out Santa Barbara on one before scribbling hearts on others. Finally, there was a recent one. Your name was under the picture of you two together, and on the back was a small note. Finally back home was all she read before she stopped, realizing how personal it was and tossing it aside. It had nothing to do with her, and she refused to feel bad about anything pertaining to these people.

Abby found the pictures in the theater after finding Mel and Owen, taking them and stashing them in her bag.

She knew you’d seen Leah. She had the pictured proof of it, but she was hoping that night you would tell her why; tell her why, and tell her why, again, you didn’t stay.

“Just fucking stay here, then!” Your squad member had yelled at you, already being scared that you were so injured and now scared that you’d be leaving, when you debated whether or not to go and speak to your old friends. There was a tightness in your chest, stomach twisting as your heart raced to the point that it felt like one continuous, loud beat. This was all so familiar, but you weren’t going to leave this time. “Go back, see if they’ll take you in, but don’t come crawling back to us.”

You didn’t even have the option.

“What’s the verdict?” You asked one of the other medics back on the island after he looked over your recovering injuries; still having a severe pain in your stomach and hip that made you nauseous, flaring up to the point that it was debilitating at times.

It scared you; not being able to do your tasks. What if there was no use for you? Where would you be then? Alone?

And again by your own design.

He gave you a look. “You’ve got some pretty bad damage.” There was a big, splotched bruise on your stomach that hadn’t left in the days you’d been recovering. “Could be internal… We can’t have you over-exerting yourself. You’re our best medic.” You scoffed at that, nodding. “No more patrols, alright? At least, not until we can do something about this.”

It’d been months of this now, and you still weren’t better. You had a feeling walking around was making it persist, but you couldn’t just stop working. You refused. Even if it was killing you to do so— figuratively, of course.

Because of how distracted you were by that, you hadn’t noticed Abby’s distancing. You would set out a pouch of anti-poisons and poultice ingredients for her each time she went on patrol, but you hadn’t noticed she wasn’t taking them until they began to pile up.

You sighed, putting them in a basket to take to her. You hadn’t realized how heavy these were, as you’d been loading them up just for her, but you went ahead and began walking toward her and Lev’s home.

You hadn’t realized how far it was, but by the time you got there, you were feeling sick.

You knocked weakly, Abby not even realizing someone was knocking until you did again. She came to the door, surprised to see you. She couldn’t help the small smile that came to her face. You smiled back, but it faltered almost immediately. “Come in.” Abby stepped aside. “Are you alright?”

You sat down on her couch, setting the basket on the coffee table as you exhaled and held your hip. “Fine,” you forced. “You haven’t been picking up your pouches, so I thought I’d drop them off.”

Abby shut the door, coming over to you and kneeling. “Let me see it.”

“It’s just a cramp—“

Abby pushed you to lie back on the cushions, moving your hands and frowning at the clammy feeling. “Do you have a fever?” She asked, making you put your forearm to your head. You shook your head, but she lifted her arm to your head anyway. “God,” she muttered, moving to lift your shirt. The bruising was still there, still red, purple, and unfading. “What happened?” Her hands went to the cramping muscles in your abdomen, massaging to help break up the bruising and making you cringe in pain. “I’m sorry. It’ll help.”

“I know,” you sighed. “It happened back in Washington; your leader questioned me with some… weapon,” you said vaguely. “It’s just muscle bruising.”

“This looks like internal bleeding.“

“It was.” You sighed. “But it’s been like this for months. I’d be dead if it were internal bleeding,” you laughed out, though Abby didn’t find it funny. “The bleeding stopped before we left Washington. That’s why we stayed a few days longer; when I saw Leah.” Abby nodded along, her hand now resting on your stomach in a comforting hold, thumb running slowly over your skin. “That feels nice,” you mumbled, making her look down at her hand.

“Does it?” She was holding where the deepest part of the bruising was, right above your hip, your sentiment concerning her more than it should. “Did you hurt your hip?”

“Maybe on the trip back. Overexursion.” You nodded. “Sprain, or something.”

She frowned. “You should’ve just come back. Mel would’ve treated you.”

“They wouldn’t have waited for me.” You shook your head. “I didn’t want to have to go back alone— and don’t say I could’ve stayed. Not there.”

“I could’ve gone back with you.”

You didn’t realize that was something she might’ve wanted, making you pause and look down at her. “Would you have?”

“We all would’ve.” She pulled down your shirt, standing and getting you a bag of ice. “And even if they didn’t… I would’ve. If you asked, I’d go.”

“No you wouldn’t,” you huffed, laughing slightly. She sat next to you, holding the ice against your hip and pressing down to aid in compressing. She scoffed at you, shaking her head. “What? You would’ve just left?”

“For you? Of course.”

You grimaced, swallowing harshly. “Don’t say that.”

“What?”

You shook your head. “You have no idea what kind of guilt would burden you after doing something like that.”

There was a beat of silence. “I know how you felt,” she started, letting you hold the ice now that you were in less pain and seemed to be able to move. “Or feel. Even if you won’t tell me, I heard you say it… And I’ll be honest, I was angry that you left; that you were alive. We all were. But not at you. Never at you.” She kept her eyes away from yours, staring into the dead fireplace across from the two of you. “Just that… you couldn’t speak to us— And after what we did—“

“What you did?” You frowned over at her, shaking your head and objecting before she could continue. “I left—“

“The things we said—“

“No, Abby,” your voice was firm, wavering, but firm. “I left. That was my choice. When my friends needed me— when my family needed me, I wasn’t there because I left you. What I did,” you enforced with a tone she’d never heard directed at her from you before. “That is why I couldn’t speak to you.”

There was a long silence, Abby’s breath shaky as you sat back with a wince. She knew you shouldn’t be having this conversation right now, but it seemed like this was the only conversation the two of you could have.

And she just wanted to speak to you.

“I still would’ve left,” she concluded; a complete dismissal that made you scoff out a dry laugh. “I don’t care what you say; what stories you come up with to blame yourself.” You shook your head at her stubborn attitude. “I still would’ve left for you… And the only thing I’d feel guilty for, is caring about you more than I ever cared about anyone else.” You stayed quiet, letting her know she’d gotten your attention. “And I’m not asking you to feel the same—“

“Don’t do that—“

“—Or to change how you feel…” She spoke over you like you hadn’t even opened your mouth. “But I am asking you to understand me.” You knew she was choosing a time when you were vulnerable to come clean on purpose, making you grimace as you reluctantly listened to her try to get you to do the same. “Because you do know me, and you know that I would leave for you, even if you wouldn’t do the same for me.”

“Fuck you, Abby.” At your quiet voice, she knew she’d gotten through to you. Past your false passiveness and down to what you tried to hide from everyone. But you couldn’t hide from her. “I left for you.”

And she couldn’t from you.

“Don’t go there.”

“No, really.” You forced yourself to sit up and face her. “If this is what you want to talk about, then fine. We need to, anyway. No placating, no pacifying, nothing. Let’s talk.”

She took in a deep breath, turning to face you as she pushed herself to the other end of the couch. “Well?” Was all she said.

“Tell me the truth.” She immediately rolled her eyes; immediately got defensive. “That night, you wanted me to leave. Didn’t you?” You spoke slowly, meeting her eyes. “That’s why you feel so guilty; why you won’t let me. Because you wanted me to leave, and I knew that, and actually left.”

She was quiet, staring you down. “I thought you were going to leave.”

“Abby—“

“How many times do I have to say it—?”

“I know you. That’s what you just said.” Your tone became hostile quicker than she could process, making her look away. You knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. “So I know you wanted me to leave. I shouldn’t have, but that’s why I left, and you know that, and you regret it…” You spoke firmly, words clear and cutting into her with every pause you took to emphasize them. “So just tell me the truth. Please.”

She was quiet for a moment, chest tightening as she grimaced. “If you were going to leave, I wanted to be the one to decide that we wouldn’t see each other. I already told you that.” She tip-toed around the question, earning nothing from you and making her more on edge. “So, yes, I wanted you to leave. I wanted you gone for suggesting you go.” When you let out a breath of satisfaction, she continued over you. “But then tell me the truth. You weren’t planning on us going with you. Were you? You were suggesting to go alone.”

“You know me so well,” your tone was dry, mocking and almost demeaning. It was a blow to the chest, making her bite her tongue. “There was no point in suggesting you go, but I was. Even though I knew you wouldn't have gone. All you wanted to do was find him—“

“I would’ve gone in the middle of the fucking night and left eveyone else if you asked.” Clearly, the demeaning tone of your voice was too much for her, her tone biting without a second thought as you continued to push her to get the full truth before you opened up, too; why she wouldn’t just let you take the blame for something that was so clearly your fault.

“No you wouldn’t.” You were pushing for an argument now, tone lazed and grating on her nerves.

She always let things slip when she was irritated.

“You didn’t fucking ask. How would you know?” She was quick to say, feeding off your dismissive tone.

“You would’ve left Owen. Really?”

“For you?” She laughed at your naivety. “I’d do fucking anything.” She shook her head. “But you wouldn’t ask me to—”

“And Joel?” She shook her head, shrugging. You did the same, shaking your head at her. “You wouldn’t have left them— him? No fucking way.“

“That’s where you’re wrong.” You scoffed. “I would’ve left as soon as you brought it up, and I would’ve made everyone go with us, if that meant you wouldn’t fucking leave—”

“Oh, and you’re not angry at me—?”

“Fuck you.”

You laughed in response, shrugging. “You’re the one that wanted me gone—”

“And everyone blamed me for it!” You shut your mouth at her exasperated response, looking over her flushed face and glossed eyes. “They all knew if I didn’t say anything, you wouldn’t have left… And they all knew you wanted to leave, so they blamed me for letting you.” She paused, a thick swallow bobbing in her throat. Now, you were getting somewhere. “That night; when you looked at me… I just wanted to give you the choice.” She blinked rapidly, but couldn’t control the way her voice broke, “I wasn’t telling you to go.” She spoke over you when you went to comfort her, “I would’ve told you to stay if I knew you’d already decided,” she got out quickly, shaking her head at herself when she felt her eyes burn.

Somehow, you always got her this way. Even if she thought the conversation could go her way, you always found a way to get to her.

“If you hadn’t fucking said anything—!” Jordan pointed an accusatory finger at Abby.

Just as they’d flipped on you, they were doing the same to her. They’d all been on her side last night, but suddenly she was at fault.

“Fuck off, Jordan,” Owen huffed out. “You were being an asshole.”

“And you weren’t?”

“Why don’t we just stop arguing and go find her?” Abby suggested, exasperated.

“Like she’d come back,” Leah scoffed. “Just let her go.” She was flippant, shocking everyone. “What if we find a body? What are we going to do then?”

“What the fuck, Leah?” Nora scoffed at her.

“I’m not the one that said anything to make her leave in the first place,” she bit back, though she wasn’t immediately blaming Abby and instead looked between Nora and Mel. “And now you wanna go find her?” She then looked at Abby, scoffing at her avoiding her gaze. “Go fuck yourselves.”

“You’re not any better,” Mel said. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah? And what did you say, huh? Just go if you want to? What the fuck did you think—?”

“That’s enough, guys,” Owen spoke up, stopping them before they said anything else they’d regret. “She wanted to leave, so she left. It’s not anyone’s fault. It was a choice. Clearly, she decided to leave before she even brought it up.” Leah rolled her eyes. “I say we just go. We don’t know where she went, and we can’t track her.”

Abby could understand why Leah was the one you could speak to. How you could open up to her, and admit to her what you wouldn’t to the rest of them. She understood, but she still wished it was her.

She wished she could get to the gentle, comfortable part of the conversation without arguing first.

But that would never happen until you were honest with each other.

And that always took a fight.

The conversation had taken up so much emotional energy that you were in physical pain by the end of it; it continued on past Abby’s admission until she heard you tell her exactly how you felt. Just admitting it to her got you choked up, and seeing you that way did the same, but now you were holding the ice pack to your stomach as you curled up on her couch.

“Fuck, let me help.” Abby quickly got up and blinked away the feelings you’d just brought up, reaching out as she sat next to you and pulling you into her. There was really nothing she could do to help, but she told herself she was warming you up by holding you— helping tense muscles relax. “Try to relax.” She took the ice from you, setting it aside and pulling you closer.

You tried to even your breathing as she rubbed your back, but it only made you more upset. “I shouldn’t have started an argument. I’m sorry,” you muttered.

“I think this one was necessary,” she laughed, soothing you as you pressed your ear to her chest. “Even if you hate arguing, you were right. We needed to talk about it, and we never would’ve gotten here peacefully.” You laughed at that, wincing as you did. “But that doesn’t matter… What can I do?”

“Just…” You sighed, rolling your eyes at yourself. “Lie with me? You’re warm, so it… helps the muscle relax.” It was true enough, but Abby knew better. She knew you got scared when you were injured, and she knew being held helped.

Despite how you mocked her for one wrong judgment, she did know you. Even now. Still.

What she didn’t realize was how her embrace felt as comforting as it did when you were younger, not like the first time you hugged her— when you hardly recognized her touch. Even if you recognized her then, you recognized her touch even more now. The work she’d done to regain her strength brought feeling back to it. A lively, gentle feeling.

“You think you can walk to my room?” She asked tentatively, grabbing the ice pack as she stood and helped you up. You nodded, and despite her not believing you, she kept her arm around your waist and walked with you.

You looked down the hallway, huffing at the impossible length of it and forcing yourself to keep going until you faltered. Abby caught you quickly, scooping under your legs despite your protesting of “I’m fine” and carrying you the rest of the way.

She lied you down on her bed, making you lie flat to help the muscle stretch before lying with you and opening her arm for you as she set the ice aside.

“Now that you’re being all nice to me,” you said after a moment, earning an eye roll.

“I wasn’t being mean,” she countered.

“Why would you leave for me?” You asked as if she hadn't spoken. “Help me understand that.”

“I wanted to be with you. I told you that—“

“But why?”

She didn’t respond for some time, staring up at the ceiling. “You know why.”

“Abby,” you sighed, defeated. “Just tell me.”

She looked down at you with a frown. “Why do you need me to tell you?”

“Because, it doesn’t make any sense?” You scoffed at her, moving to sit up, but she held you down before you could cause yourself anymore pain. “I know how you felt about Owen, and I know how you feel about me. It’s not the same.”

“So you understand why he broke up with me then.” She laughed at that, as if it was the funniest thing she’d heard all day. You frowned. She hadn’t even told you that yet. “In the end, after seeing you that day, he wanted to come to Santa Barbara and find you too, but I guess he couldn’t understand why I held on all those years.”

“What do you mean?”

She pursed her lips, pushing herself up and going to her closet. She supposed it was her turn to show you all her keepsakes now, as she’d finally gotten them all back from the boat.

She emptied her backpack onto the bed, Leah’s polaroids and her old photos falling out. Books and folded up maps, too. Even an old journal.

You grabbed Leah’s pictures first, a smile coming to your face when you saw the one you took together.

“I know it��s a weird question, but can we take one together?” She’d asked after giving you pictures of your friends, to which you gladly agreed to before she had to leave.

You flipped it over, seeing the note she wrote and swallowing hard.

Finally back home

Again, I wish you’d stay, but I know why you can’t.

I don’t want to either. I don’t want to keep fighting.

I’m afraid that I’ll be gone before I get to see you again, but I’m glad we got this. Whatever it was.

Who would’ve thought that a few hours makes up for a few years apart?

You set it aside, lips pursed as you looked through the rest of them, all with notes just as feeling as that, some even sounding angry at the rest of your friends.

You looked to the maps, unfolding one and finding a small picture of you and Abby taped to it. Dots littered the paper, connected in a pattern that led to a circle around the picture, taped over central California. The next map was the same, towns being written out with information beneath them. The handwriting changed with each of the maps, getting clearer and clearer as Abby got older.

The last one was empty, only a picture taped to it.

The books had passages underlined, some annotated to show to you, or that you’d like them.

The last was her journal, binding cracked and worn but not because it was old. Because she’d written in it so much that the pages were worn, even teared with how hard she pressed into them, emotion sinking into the ink and through the pages.

You opened it to the middle, another photo falling out; one Abby had taken with Leah’s camera. Just of you.

There were entries upon entries, letters upon letters, and this one was the one you just had to open to.

It spanned for pages; pages, and pages of just one letter to you. One letter, pouring her heart out to someone who couldn’t— no, wouldn’t even reciprocate.

Your conversation, the one you turned into an argument for no reason other than to prove yourself right, replayed in your mind.

“I would’ve left.” For you.

“I’d do anything.” For you.

“If you’d ask me.”

“You wouldn’t ask me to.”

“If you asked, I’d go.”

You stared down at the book, her words repeating and repeating and making your vision blur as you finally took them in. “I’m not asking you to change how you feel.” That brought you closer to understanding, brows knitting together.

Even if you’d mocked her for it, she knew you well.

She knew you well enough to know you were finally letting yourself understand. She took the book from you, replacing it with her hands so she could pull you close, holding you to her chest just as her words sunk into your heart.

A blow to the chest.

I’m not asking you to feel the same.

#abby anderson x reader #abby anderson #abby x reader #abby tlou #abby anderson x fem reader #abby anderson fluff #abby and lev #abby anderson angst #abby anderson ff #abby anderson fic #abby anderson the last of us 2 #abby anderson x you #abby x fem!reader #abby x you #tlou abby #ellie tlou #dina tlou #tlou x reader

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leiawritesstories · 2 months

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PART SEVEN: JULY

Word count: 8.4k

Warnings: swearing, so so much scheming, pissy Rowan, snarky Aelin, innuendo, references to sexy times, breaking and entering and other criminal behavior, Maeve, violence, and a splash of angst

enjoy...? @house-of-galathynius i did an oopsie 😈

Masterlist

Read on AO3

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In the absence of Captain Westfall, Lieutenant Whitethorn has been made temporary head of the investigation into the Orynth Assassinations.

Rowan knew for a fact that multiple people in Orynth PD were fucking pissed about that memo, but it was jointly signed by the Chief of Police and Commander Gavriel Ashryver of the Terrasen Special Forces, so nobody could complain. Chaol’s murder had, apparently, been something of a kick in the ass to both the police and the TSF, and as a result, the special forces had openly partnered with PD in an effort to solve the case, arrest whoever was behind the murders, and put the Shadow Assassin behind bars.

In the meantime, Rowan had an entire investigative team now turned to him for directions, and he didn’t fucking know where to start.

The morgue was supposed to have the results of Chaol’s autopsy an hour ago, and he hadn’t heard a damn thing from them. He could allow a bit of extra time, but if he didn’t have autopsy results in his hand by the end of the day, he was going to be fucking angry. That autopsy was key to uncovering who had slaughtered Chaol, and once he had that information, Rowan could finally set into motion the part of his plans where he laid a trap for Celaena Sardothien.

Right on cue, someone knocked on his door.

“Come in,” he said brusquely.

Borte stuck her head into his office. “Autopsy report for you, Lieutenant.”

“About time.” He took the papers from her. “That’s all, Borte.”

“Sure thing.” She turned to leave. “Coroner should have his report in a week or so.”

“A week?” Rowan snapped. “What the hell?”

Borte’s dark eyes narrowed. “In case you hadn’t noticed, the coroner’s office is a little fucking busy at the moment. A week is the fastest he said he could get this case done, and only because it’s Westfall.” She’d never been one to take anyone’s shit—years of working as the medical examiner for Orynth PD had thickened her skin.

“Fucking hell.” Rowan ran a hand over his face. “Okay. Fine. A week it is.” He turned to the autopsy report in his hands, barely hearing the door click shut as Borte left. His eyes scanned the lines of text rapidly, noting the key observations from Borte’s examination. Some of it was expected—he’d found Chaol’d body, after all, so he knew the condition it had been in. Some things, though, made him stop for a moment and question his own thinking.

He’d been expecting the M.O. to match up with the string of homicides for which he believed Celaena Sardothien to be responsible, but the M.O. of Chaol’s murder was completely different.

Mentally, he slapped himself across the face. Get a fucking grip, Whitethorn! He should have known from the second he saw that note on Westfall’s forehead that it wasn’t Sardothien. She was brutal, but she never left a fucking calling card. Still, he couldn;t shake the part of himself that insisted there was some kind of connection between this Queen of the Night name and Celaena’s criminal outfit.

Maybe that was what she called herself to her crew.

Either way…if there was even a small possibility that Celaena was involved in the murder of Chaol Westfall, then Rowan needed to go meet with Aelin. Because there was a distinct possibility that with Chaol gone, the Shadow Assassin had decided there was no longer any reason to keep her cover, and that meant that Aelin could be in danger.

And Rowan would die before he let the Shadow Assassin threaten the woman he loved.

Near-invisible earpiece settled in her ear, Aelin paced across her office, gesticulating wildly as she yelled at Nox over the encrypted line.

“The fuck do you mean, can’t do anything about it? Owens, this is bad fucking news!”

“It’s too risky, Boss,” Nox retorted from the other end of the call. “He’s gonna be in the PD morgue by now, and we can’t take the risk of breaking into fucking PD.”

“Like hell we can’t,” Aelin snapped. “Owens, you’re a smart man. You know at least some of why I’m losing my shit over Chaol Westfall’s death. Tell me why.”

Nox paused for a short moment. “Well, I know he’s your inside man in PD. I know he’s been feeding you info on the investigation. And I know Maeve had him killed, because she left a goddamn note like she always does.”

“That bitch,” Aelin grumbled. “Keep going, Nox.”

“It sucks that he’s dead, but I don’t know what the big fucking deal is, Boss,” Nox admitted. “Maybe we don’t have an inside man anymore—so what? Maeve is the number one target now, yeah?”

“Do you know how we were able to get an inside man in PD?”

“I’m assuming you knew Westfall and…uh…convinced him?”

“Let me tell you something, Owens.” Aelin huffed out a tense breath. “Westfall isn’t actually Westfall. He’s Ren Allsbrook.”

There was a long, incredulous silence.

“What…the fuck?” Nox breathed.

“Ren Allsbrook. Internationally infamous spy, probably one of the most wanted persons in the world. Remember how he escaped prison way back in January? Yeah. That was me. I had a job for him, and he does—he did—that job admirably fucking well.”

“Bloody fucking hell. Westfall was your inside man.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Aelin twisted the ring around her right middle finger. “If and when PD finds out that Westfall wasn’t actually Westfall, they’re gonna start actually investigating shit.”

“And we can’t have that happening,” Nox said, voicing the unspoken end of her sentence.

“Definitely not.” She went quiet for a moment, thinking. “Owens?”

“Yeah?”

“What security system does Orynth PD use at their headquarters?”

“Uh…” Keys clicked in the background on his end of the call. “It’s an Axis system, most recently updated last year, so probably a current model, which tracks to CCTV and phone networks. I’d bet that a number of higher-ups have phone access to the footage.”

“Axis…they’re not known for subtle devices, are they?” Aelin asked.

“Nope, they’re more into wall-mounted stuff. Some of it is smaller-scale, but you can pretty much always visually locate it…wait a goddamn minute.” Nox’s tone slipped towards the accusatory. “Why am I telling you all this, Boss?”

Aelin shrugged, though Nox couldn’t see it. “Just curious.”

He scoffed. “And I’m the queen of Spain. Who the hell are you sending to PD?”

“Haven’t decided yet, but thanks for the info on the security system,” she said lightly. “Oh, and Owens?”

“What?”

Her voice was bloodied steel. “Question my thoughts again and I’ll hang you by your intestines.”

“That’s pretty fucking gory,” he deadpanned.

She sighed, knowing he only wanted to support her schemes. “I’m not squeamish, Owens.”

“Don’t I know it.” His keyboard resumed its clicking. “That all, Boss?”

“That’s all.” She ended the call with a click.

She took a deep, controlled breath, releasing it with a drawn out hiss of frustration tinged with fear. Fuck. For the first time in…possibly ever, she felt a surge of real terror knife through her blood. If Orynth PD discovered that the body in their morgue was clothed with a synthetic substance that absolutely nobody should know about, she would have real problems.

Which meant that she needed to get the SecondSkin back before they found it.

Three nights later, on silent feet, Aelin crept around the shadowed corner of the Orynth Police Department’s downtown headquarters, the brick exterior rough beneath her gloved hands. Reaching the edge of the bright floodlights that illuminated the property, she paused for a moment, reached into one of the pockets of her fitted charcoal-black cargo pants, and pressed a small button on a tiny remote. She waited for exactly fifty-two seconds, counting each one in her mind, and pressed the button again.

The eyes of every single security camera perched on the Orynth PD building, light posts, fences, even the ones hidden in the trees, blinked twice and returned to normal.

Aelin smothered a triumphant grin. Yes! The cameras would be on a loop of those fifty-two recorded seconds for the next hour, giving her exactly sixty minutes to slip into the building, find the morgue, locate Ren’s body, detach the SecondSkin, and return everything to its exact location before she left the building. Easy—right?

Not giving herself time to wonder, she darted forwards, still clinging to the fraction of shadowed space directly against the walls, located the nearest basement-level door, found the ID reader mounted next to the door, slid a generic fake police ID out of her pocket, and pressed it against the reader. The tiny red light flashed green, and the door unlocked with a muted clicking noise. She pushed it open just far enough to slip inside the building and carefully closed the thick metal door behind herself.

She was in.

Luckily for her, Orynth PD had convenient signage posted around their building, so she easily located the morgue—on the basement level, as she’d suspected—and keyed in the combination that she may or may not have hacked into the PD database to find. The morgue door unlatched with a hiss. Again, she smothered her smirk and ducked through the doors, bracing herself against the sudden chill, then turned to the…task at hand.

If her count was correct, she had forty-two minutes to extract the SecondSkin.

Thankful for the black half-mask that both obscured her face and filtered out some of the smell, Aelin crossed the sterile, eerily silent room and located the row of stainless steel doors. She forced her emotions to the back burner, flicking that mental switch that turned her from CEO to heartless criminal, and scanned the row of doors. Westfall. There he was.

She reached for the door’s handle and suddenly froze, overcome with the reality of what she was about to do, of who was inside that door, of how brutalized Ren Allsbrook’s body would probably be.

All of a sudden, Celaena Sardothien felt a spear of terror, of weakness, of…humanity.

Then she shoved it down, pulled open the door, and watched impassively as the high-tech cryo table slid out with a mechanical hiss and unfolded its legs from the bottom of the shelf. When the table was stable, she snapped a pair of sterile latex gloves on over her protective leather ones, exhaled a short sharp breath, and reached for Ren Allsbrook’s still, silent body.

The SecondSkin peeled away surprisingly easily, and it only took her about twelve minutes to remove all the pieces. She tucked that little fact into the back of her mind—Nehemia would definitely want to know that body temperature had an effect on how easily one could apply and remove SecondSkin. The fact that Ren had only been wearing the synthetic substance on his hands, face, and feet probably made the process faster as well. When every bit of the SecondSkin had been removed, she checked his body once more, still impassive to the wounds that marred his pale, cold skin, and tucked the pieces of synthetic material into a plastic bag that she then hid in yet another pocket.

Then, Aelin gently laid her gloved fingertips against Ren Allsbrook’s still, silent face and said a quiet goodbye. May we meet again in the next life.

Steeling herself, she pushed the button on the side of the table, and it retracted its legs and slid back into its slot. In her mind, she made a final goodbye, the ancient words of farewell that were uttered at every funeral coming easily to her tongue. When the door concealing Ren’s body clicked shut, Aelin took a fortifying breath, turned, and walked back out of the morgue.

She wove her way back through the halls of the building until she came to the same door she’d come in, and after checking to make sure there were no cops strolling down the halls, she tapped the fake ID to the reader, opened the door, and left Orynth PD headquarters. As she turned to make sure the door closed completely behind herself, she felt the slightly scooped neckline of her shirt dip, the back of the neckline dipping towards her shoulder blade. She ignored it, knowing she wasn’t on camera anyway and she could fix it when she was safely in the shadows.

Barely sure if she was breathing, Aelin crept back around to the same shadowed corner where she had reset the security cameras, and just as she had done to loop the feeds, she reached into her pocket and tapped the tiny remote once. The cameras blinked back into their usual motion, back on their normal recording circuit. Aelin watched them for a full minute before she nodded, exhaled, and turned on her heel, melting into the darkness of the night as she headed back towards her shitty apartment in the industrial sector.

She didn’t notice the tiny, near-invisible blue light blinking at her from a tree directly opposite the door that she had used.

Back at the Gal Inc. labs the next day, Aelin carefully logged each piece of SecondSkin that she had retrieved, checking it three times against the records. She breathed a soul-deep sigh of relief when she finally confirmed that it was all there, that nothing had been left behind at the Orynth PD morgue.

“Good news, Miss CEO?” Nehemia’s question broke into Aelin’s thoughts.

“Yeah.” Aelin closed the concealed door of the secret locker that held the SecondSkin. “All of it is there, nothing missing.”

“Well, that’s a good thing.” The engineer sat down on the stool opposite Aelin’s. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you doing okay, Aelin?”

Aelin tugged her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m fine.”

Nehemia gave her a flat look that screamed, bullshit. “I’ve known you for too damn long to accept that as an answer, boss lady.”

“Fine.” Aelin blew out a sigh. “I shut myself off last night, Nemi. It…it was like I turned off my humanity, for fuck’s sake. But I had to.”

“And you feel torn up about that, yeah?” Nehemia’s voice held no judgment, only sympathy.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Aelin said. “Ren was…I’d known Ren since we were kids, Nemi. It doesn’t feel right that he’s gone.”

“I know.” The chief engineer reached over and tucked her hand over Aelin’s. “I know.”

Abruptly, Aelin stood up and fiercely hugged Nehemia. “Thanks,” she murmured, her voice thick with emotion.

“Always,” Nehemia whispered back. She gave Aelin a small smile tinged with sorrow as they parted. “I’m here whenever, Ae.”

“I know.” As she walked out of the labs, Aelin expelled a deep breath, winding her emotions back into control. She hadn’t been quite herself since last night, partly from what she had done and partly from the tiny, niggling feeling that she couldn’t quite shake. The odd sense that something was off about her break-in, that the whole thing had gone too smoothly.

She shook her head. Everything is fine, Galathynius. She’d been in the business for so long that she might be embarrassed if she couldn’t pull off a simple break-in. It was probably just the unsettling reality of what she had done—taking the SecondSkin off of Ren’s body. There was something so wrong about that situation, something so tragic about seeing an old friend dead.

That lingering sliver of doubt was just her unsettled emotions. It had to be.

Besides, it would no doubt go away when all hell broke loose at Orynth PD, and she couldn’t fucking wait for that to happen.

When he had seen the notification from his security camera, Rowan had initially dismissed it as nothing important. The near-undetectable camera that he’d installed outside a back door of Orynth PD headquarters when he came onto the investigative team was just an extra measure for his own comfort; he was completely confident that the advanced CCTV system at the building was just fine. He simply liked to have a camera feed that went only to him.

He didn’t think anything of the notification—the system sent him occasional notifications at random times, and they were typically nothing more than something blowing across the field of the camera’s vision—until a couple of days later, when he happened to open the app and notice the alert.

Almost out of habit, he tapped on the notification and half-watched the footage, until a flicker of movement snapped his full attention to the video feed. He backtracked, slowed the playback speed, and watched the video like a fucking hawk, second by second, until that blurred flicker of movement came onto the screen again.

It was a person.

Fucking hell.

Rowan paused on the single, half-second clip of the person, scrutinizing their form and stance and any detail he could pick out from that tiny glimpse his camera had caught. He could tell from the person’s figure that it was a woman, dressed in dark, fitted clothing, with a cap and mask obscuring her face. She was a bare flicker of movement before she disappeared into the shadows, and…wait a goddamn fucking minute. Disappeared. Into. The. Fucking. Shadows.

He’d captured video footage—brief as it was—of Celaena Goddamn Sardothien. That had to be her—the clothes, the movements, the sheer speed with which she dodged the cameras’ range. He knew of absolutely no one else with that level of skill.

Burning hell. That meant…Rowan reached for his radio. “Luca.”

“Sir?” Luca answered instantly.

“Get the CCTV footage from July 6th night onto the monitors. I’m going over it with the team.”

“Give me two minutes.” As always, Luca was dependable and quick.

Two and a half minutes later, Rowan stormed into the bullpen, his jaw locked in a rigid line. He glanced at the monitors, where Luca had indeed projected the footage from July 6th. He’d managed to pull all the footage, which was perfect, but Rowan was primarily concerned with the cameras that had been recording the back of the building.

He cleared his throat. “On the sixth of this month, someone broke into this building.”

Gasps of shock rippled around the room.

“Luca, pull up just the cameras from the rear of the building.” Luca nodded and tapped rapidly on his keyboard, reducing the camera feeds down to six different angles. “Now, I have a suspicion of what we’re going to see, but I need all of you to watch. Hit play.”

Luca started the recording. The entire investigative team watched in utter silence as the CCTV footage played seamlessly, a seemingly perfect recording of absolutely nothing but the exterior of Orynth PD headquarters at night.

“What you don’t see is the criminal who waltzed right the fuck into our building and did gods know what before leaving without a trace.” Rowan’s jaw flickered as he gritted out the words. “I need analysis of the segment from 0330 to 0410 ASAP. Get it done.”

“Yes, sir!” Three of the team members clustered around one monitor.

Rowan turned and stalked out of the bullpen, heading back to his office to examine his camera’s footage, again, in the hopes that it would distract him from seething over the completely clean footage from the night of the break-in. He slowed the speed down even further, scrutinizing every tiny breath of time as the figure of Celaena Sardothien flickered across his screen.

A knock on his door interrupted his analysis. “Sir?”

“What.”

Luca popped the door open and stuck his head in. “Results, sir.”

Rowan went back to the bullpen. “Analysis? What’ve you got?”

Rem, one of the few women on the team, fiddled with her badge. “Well, it’s not good, sir. We found nothing in the recording, not even with different rates of playback.”

“Inconsistencies?” Rowan snapped. He didn’t give a shit about being rude—Rem had been trying to get her fake nails into his pants since the day he’d walked onto the investigation.

“None.” Her face tightened in irritation. “We suspect a loop, but no timing matches an ordinary loop. It’s too natural—no cyclical marks, nothing that crosses the screen at exact intervals, nothing.”

“Fucker,” Rowan grunted under his breath. “Did any of you even bother running a stopwatch to track if there’s any breaks in the footage?”

Rem’s bright pink lips turned downwards into a scowl. “Sir, there aren’t—”

“Fifty-two seconds, sir,” Luca interrupted. “Watch.” He slowed the camera footage to an excruciatingly slow pace and started a timer. At exactly the fifty-two-second mark, a near-seamless line blinked across the screen, almost completely undetectable unless the playback was slowed this far down.

“Shit,” Rowan hissed. “Good work, Luca.” He turned on his heel and left the bullpen, thoughts and theories flying around his head at the speed of light. On his phone, the blurry image of Celaena Sardothien’s back glared up at him, taunting him, as if the goddamned Shadow Assassin was laughing at him from wherever the fuck she was.

He glared at his phone, glared at the devious, black-hearted woman in the footage. It was so damn fitting that she’d choose to wear black clothing to match her heart. But that small sliver of skin revealed that she was human, no matter what the rumors said.

Sliver of skin???

Rowan zoomed in as close as he could, scrutinizing the grainy, blurry image. He hadn’t been mistaken—in that frame, the back of Celaena’s shirt had dipped a tiny bit, exposing a sliver of her back.

Exposing the licks of ink tattooed onto her spine.

Rowan’s mind abruptly went dead fucking silent, the cacophony of his thoughts and the noise of the police building cut off into throbbing, terrifying, heart-stopping silence.

Because those flicks of ink looked like fucking flames. And he knew exactly one person in the whole of Orynth—hell, in the whole of the fucking world—with tattooed flames licking up towards her hairline. He knew exactly one person with both the audacity and the personality to pull off a spine tattoo that boldly artistic.

Aelin Ashryver Galathynius.

Aelin.

His Aelin.

What…the fuck?!

Rowan jerked himself out of his chair, shook his head sharply, let his gaze dart around the room, and couldn’t seem to see straight. Crack! The harsh slap of his palm against his own cheek yanked him back into something resembling sanity, and he shook his head again before turning back to that goddamn image frozen on his phone screen.

Even paused—especially paused—the image was grainy and blurry, as if Sardothien had been moving so fast that the camera physically couldn’t keep up with her speed. Blinking, Rowan squinted harder at the blurry image, his mind churning through all the possibilities. First—and he could kick himself for jumping to conclusions so damn fast—how the fuck did he know the tattoo was flames? So many people had tattoos; clearly Sardothien was just one of many. Knowing what he did about the elusive criminal, it was probably some kind of fucked-up depiction of her torturing one of her victims or some depraved shit like that. He couldn’t see clear details from the grainy image, so he had absolutely no right whatsoever to jump to some half-crocked conclusion about Sardothien’s tattoo.

Still, knowing that she had a tattoo on her back was crucial information; it was one more definite physical descriptor that could identify her if she was caught. When she was caught.

As his breathing and heart rate returned to normal, Rowan dropped back into his chair, tapped out of his security camera app, and went to log the new findings in his notes. With the knowledge that Sardothien had broken into the fucking building, this investigation had taken on a new, more urgent tone. Clearly, the Shadow Assassin had moved into a new phase of action, one that targeted the police, which made it all the more urgent to get her behind bars.

If only the damn morgue would get back with Westfall’s scans and the coroner’s report, he would have a decent idea of where to go to hunt down Celaena Sardothien.

“How,” Rowan seethed, “in the fucking FUCK?!”

Every door in the hallway rattled on its hinges as he slammed open the meeting room’s door and stormed down the hall, a dangerously murderous gleam of rage lighting up his eyes. His hard, heavy steps burst into the bullpen, where every single person there snapped to attention as he slammed the coroner’s reports down on the table.

“We have a fucking problem.” His voice was deadly calm, tight with barely-leashed fury. A muscle ticked rapidly in the corner of his jaw.

The coroner’s report, its final version dated July 14th, contained extensive information on the postmortem state of Chaol Westfall, down to DNA analysis in case it was needed. Rowan typically found coroner’s reports to be incredibly helpful pieces of information, but this one…this one contained a little nugget of detail that had his head spinning in so many directions he didn’t know which way was up.

Luca broke the tense, shivering silence. “Sir? You received the report before any of us.”

Rowan flicked a bladed glare at the papers sitting on the table. “Look at the top one.”

“Of course.” Luca picked up the sheet, looked it over, and dropped it, his jaw falling open as if it had been unscrewed. “Holy fuck.”

“That’s about right,” Rowan grunted. “Like I said, we’ve got a fucking problem.”

The team clustered around the table, passing around the paper. Whispers, gasps, and murmured theories and ideas rippled throughout the room as more people discovered the new information that had turned Rowan’s brain into a goddamn washing machine on a spin cycle. The thoughts he’d been toying with—the ideas about Sardothien’s tattoo—flew out his mental window, lost in the maelstrom of finding out that Chaol Westfall was not Chaol Westfall.

Under the heading “DNA Analysis,” the coroner’s report had listed the DNA identification of Chaol Westfall’s body. But the name and identity given was not Chaol Westfall.

“DNA analysis finds identity of the subject to be Ren Allsbrook, 31M. Height 183cm, weight 81.6kg. Dominant hand: Left. Eyes: hazel. Hair color: brown.”

Ren Allsbrook.

All hell broke loose.

“He’s been in maximum-security federal prison for the last twenty-two months!” hissed one of the officers, his brows furrowing in utter confusion.

Luca snorted. “Did you forget the headline from January, dumbass? Allsbrook broke out.”

“And broke right the fuck in to Orynth PD,” Rowan muttered under his breath. He refused to acknowledge the part of his brain that was astonished at the sheer ingenuity and capability of Ren Allsbrook—the man’s reputation as the best spy in the world was clearly deserved. Fuck, the man had been waltzing around in plain sight as Police Captain Chaol Westfall since January, and every single member of the highly trained, highly skilled investigative team had even once questioned Westfall’s alibi.

“God-damn,” Rem whistled, sneaking what she thought was a sly look over to Rowan. “That’s six whole months with a fake Westfall here. I wonder why?”

“You don’t get paid to fucking wonder,” Rowan snapped.

Rem flushed with embarrassment, her icy blue gaze turning pouty. “That’s literally my job, I’m a detective.”

“That’s—”

“Connect the obvious fucking dots, Remy,” Luca interjected, cutting Rowan off before he could say something truly awful. “Allsbrook was a spy, the best one in the world if we believe his reputation. He’s been posing as Captain Westfall since January, which was when Lieutenant Whitethorn joined this investigation. That was also when we went public about the investigation.”

“So he was working for the special forces?” Rem frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense, because why would the TSF want to hire a spy if they already publicly gave us one of their men?”

“Wrong track,” Luca said. His dark eyes were alight with a look that Rowan recognized as frantic joy, a look that meant he’d formed a new hypothesis that he couldn’t wait to share. “What else happened in January? Hamel’s murder, among other murders. The Wilkins lot explosion, at which we found a mysterious scrap of fabric that lab analysis told us was completely foreign. Followed by more murders, more known criminals turning up brutally murdered or disappearing entirely, and a whole fucking lot of our trails going cold.” He paused for breath and raked his fingers through his frizzy curls. “We eventually identified a suspect in the homicide investigations, but that didn’t happen for months. Why? Because that suspect was the person who hired Allsbrook. That person was making sure we didn’t find her. Can’t you see?’ He spread his arms wide. “The Shadow Assassin hired Ren Allsbrook! He was her spy in the police department, making sure we stayed off her trail for as long as possible. He was Celaena Sardothien’s inside man.”

Even Rowan stared, slack-jawed, as Luca concluded his half-wild rant and caught his heaving breath. The younger man looked over to Rowan, hopefulness muted beneath his eager gaze. “What do you think, sir?”

“I think,” Rowan said slowly, “that you’re a goddamn genius, Luca.”

Luca beamed. “Really?”

“Absolutely.” Rowan nodded, latching onto Luca’s theory and immediately seeing how all the pieces fit into place. “We’d been locating the bodies too soon after Sardothien made her murders, and she needed a way to keep us delayed so that she could kill more and more people. The homicides did trail off; we haven’t had one in a few months. However, that does not mean she’s done killing. If anything, she was just using the time to get us all caught up in the murder scene analysis, probably working with Allsbrook to make sure we didn’t see any new developments until too late.”

“But…but what about Allsbrook’s murder?” Luca asked. “I can’t figure out why he’s dead, if he was working so closely with our suspect.”

“Because our suspect has an antagonist.” Rowan paused, waiting for that to sink in. “The note on Allsbrook’s forehead, nailed there after he was murdered, was stamped with the insignia of a criminal known as the Queen of the Night.”

Luca gasped. “She left a sign-off? She hasn’t done that in over a year; we all thought she’d fully shifted to the drugs and arms trafficking part of her, uh, business.”

“Well, she clearly decided to get back into this side.” Rowan’s tone was grim. “I think she’s working against the Shadow Assassin, but I can’t be sure. For all I know, they’ve joined fucking forces.”

And gods help them all if that was the case.

Maeve Ond, Queen of the Night, had always been drawn to the darkness. The lack of light spoke to some ancient part of her soul, calming her when she grew angry. The darkness had been her solace when she was young, and the darkness had quieted her rage when Celaena Sardothien killed her lover, Arobynn, and threw the world into loud, messy chaos.

Darkness was her shield, and as she sat in her darkened office, the deep purple floor lights casting eerie shadows behind her, and waited for her newest soldier to come in, Maeve felt calmness wash over her mind after the last few hectic hours.

With a discreet knock on the door, Fenrys entered the office, pausing briefly to let his eyes adjust to the dark.

Maeve smiled as the blonde man approached her. “Hello, Fenrys.”

“Ma’am.” He dipped his head to her. “How can I be of service?”

She tapped her violet acrylic nails on the edge of her desk. “I was impressed with how quickly you executed Farran, Fenrys. Even more so when you took care of that smug little police captain.”

Fenrys’s lips twitched towards that charmingly ruthless smile of his. “I pride myself on swiftness as well as skill.”

“I liked the touch with the note nailed to his forehead,” she said. “Creative. I admire creativity.”

“I was hoping you’d like it.”

She smiled. “And I did. I liked it so much that I want you to do it again.”

He blinked. “I…I can’t exactly kill a man twice, ma’am.”

“Of course not.” Maeve steepled her fingers, drawing out the pause before she hit Fenrys with his newest target. “I need you to kill Celaena Sardothien.”

His jaw slackened. “With all due respect, ma’am, I think she’d kill me before I got close.”

“I don’t.” Maeve had learned long ago that the best way to encourage men to do her bidding was to stroke their egos. “That snarky bitch might think she knows everything, but she isn’t invincible. You’re going to prove that to her.”

“Hmm.” Fenrys hummed, ideas glimmering behind that handsome, scheming face. “I may not be able to do that as quickly as I got to the police.”

“Most likely not,” Maeve agreed. “So, in the meantime, I have a smaller mission for you. Are you familiar with Galathynius, Inc.?”

“Of course.” Fen chuckled. “Who doesn’t know of that company?”

“Good.” She let her smile bloom, delighting in the way Fenrys recoiled just a bit at the threat of violence in her crimson smirk. “Their laboratory complex has a protected room that contains a secure locker. In that locker is something that Galathynius, Inc. is developing. I need that substance.”

“And you need me to get it for you?”

“Indeed.” She handed him a small flash drive. “Here are the blueprints of the lab complex.”

Fenrys gasped. “How the hell did you get these?”

“Arobynn,” Maeve replied simply. “They are complete, current, and contain all the details you need to get into the lab complex. I need results by the end of the month.”

He whistled softly. “I’ll do my best. What if I can’t get in by the end of the month?”

She shrugged. “With Connall’s assistance, I am sure you can.” She let him form the beginnings of a hopeful conclusion, then continued. “Connall stays with me, as I’ve grown appreciative of his skills.”

Fenrys’s face shuttered, going completely blank. “Of course, ma’am.”

Ah, the look of pure submission. She did love it when men looked at her like that. “End of the month, Fenrys. Dismissed.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded deferentially and left her office.

Maeve leaned back in her chair, let the dark silence of her office wash over her, and smiled. Her plans were coming together so beautifully now. Soon—so soon—she would avenge her lover.

Fenrys’s heartbeat was thundering.

The moment he was out of the Night Owl, he hopped onto his motorcycle and sped off towards a safe part of the city, down to the banks of the river, and he parked his bike and headed off down an old, half hidden, familiar path. He reached the edge of the river and dropped onto the grass.

Fucking hell.

First Chaol Westfall. Now…Celaena Sardothien. The very woman for whom he was already working. The very woman on whom he was supposed to be reporting to Lieutenant Whitethorn.

And if he couldn’t do what Maeve demanded of him, his brother was in danger.

Fucking hell.

On impulse, he reached for his burner phone and dialed Rowan’s contact. His head was spinning with everything that had just happened, and he needed to get at least one piece of information out before he went goddamn insane.

Rowan picked up after six rings—an uncharacteristically long time. “What.”

“Well hello to you too. I thought you were going to let me go to voicemail.”

“Don’t be a jackass,” Rowan grunted. God, it was too easy to push his buttons. “Info?”

“She’s going to make a move on the Galathynius labs.” Fenrys deliberately kept his words vague enough that Rowan could form his own conclusions about which “she” he was referring to.

Rowan swore. “When?”

“By the end of the month.”

“That’s in ten fucking days, Moonbeam.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Fenrys snapped. “She just told me.”

On the other end of the call, Rowan exhaled a tightly controlled breath that meant he was on the verge of his temper snapping. “All right. Anything else?”

“She mentioned something about a room with a hidden locker in it.” Fen had known Rowan for long enough not to be confused by his rapid subject changes. “It wasn’t that clear to me.”

“Room with a hidden locker,” Rowan echoed, probably writing that detail down. “Fine. Keep me posted.”

Fenrys rolled his eyes. “Of course, Lieutenant,” he simpered.

“In any other context, I’d beat your ass for that,” Rowan said, completely serious. “But you’ve given me a hell of a—”

“God above, do not finish that sentence!” Fen all but shrieked. “I’m not your damn girlfriend!”

“Jackass.” Rowan snickered. “You got me a new lead, Fen. Good work.” He hung up.

Fenrys sighed as he tucked the phone back into his jacket. He strolled casually down the street, taking a meandering path through the neighborhood before he headed back to his dingy little apartment down by the shipping district. With any luck, he’d be able to hear Sardothien’s conversation through the floor—if she was home. He could have sworn that she wasn’t home too often, but that made sense. She had a criminal empire to run.

And he had a criminal to catch.

“There’s so many more new leads unfolding that I don’t know which direction to go.” Rowan flopped onto his back with a deep sigh.

“I’m so sorry, love. That must be infuriating.” Aelin rolled onto her side, facing Rowan, tugging the rumpled sheets with her so the soft cotton laid against her bare skin.

He huffed in agreement, pushing himself up so he sat back against the pillows. “I still feel like my head’s about to explode every time I walk into work.”

A wry grin tugged at the corners of her lips. “We should swap offices for a day; you can have all of my employees drive you up the damn wall and I can try to deal with your cop squad.”

“Sounds bloody brilliant.” Rowan tugged Aelin into his lap, sliding his arms around her middle beneath the sheets. “If only that was allowed.”

She tucked her head comfortably into the crook of his shoulder. “Seems like we both need a day off. Maybe I should have Ells ‘clear my schedule,’ yeah?”

“I wish,” he mumbled, absentmindedly tracing his fingers up and down her spine, following the intricate paths of ink that made up her dragon tattoo. “For now, are we still on for Saturday?”

“Absolutely.” She kissed the spirals inked just below the corner of his jaw. “Don’t you even think about rushing off to another crime scene.”

He chuckled deep in his chest. “Love, you know I don’t control that.”

“Yes you do, you’re the head of the investigation.”

“It doesn’t exactly work like that.”

She grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling. “Ruin your girlfriend’s dreams, why don’t you?”

“I’d rather ruin something else.” His smirk turned devious, and he turned her around so she was sitting in his lap, her back flush with his chest. The sheets tumbled away from her body, and he murmured in admiration, tilting her head forward to kiss the inked flames that licked towards her neck. “Yes?”

“Yes,” she moaned, deliberately exaggerating the sound because of how feral it made him.

As if on cue, his dick stiffened beneath her. “You drive me fucking crazy, Fireheart,” he groaned. One hand brushed her loose, messy hair away from her back, allowing him to drink in the full, unfettered sight of the fire-breathing dragon screaming up the length of her spine. “Funny—you once told me this tattoo makes a lovely contrast with your sheets, and I’ve never seen that contrast.”

In response, she shifted to face him and caught his lips with an eager, heated kiss, giving his lower lip a little nip just the way he liked. “That’s because you’re always too fast to notice.”

His eyes darkened. “Are you sure about that, love?” He wrapped his free hand around her jaw, angling her head so he could take possession of the kiss. “What was that you were screaming just a little while ago, hmm?” The hot, heavy words brushed against her swollen lips.

“More,” she said. She pulled away and splayed herself on her stomach, arms folded beneath her chin, legs bent up at the knees with her ankles delicately crossed. With her hair scattered across the pillows and her wicked grin painted across her face, she looked to Rowan, waiting for his control to snap.

Jaw dropping, he stared at her, his burning pine gaze nothing short of possessive. “You…Aelin, love, you are fucking stunning.”

A soft pink flush brushed her cheeks.

Rowan traced the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone and down to her lips. “Now be a good girl and stay still for me.”

Covered head to toe in SecondSkin, the material of her suit snug against her limbs, Aelin slipped into one of the bland security rooms at the Gal Inc. labs, sat down at a computer, and keyed in an access code. She’d deliberately chosen a room where no one else was on duty, but she worked quickly anyway. It was her company’s lab, but for all anyone knew, she was a feared criminal, not an honest CEO.

The security system’s menus unfolded across the screen, and she scrolled through the lists of files and titles and drop-down boxes, clicking and tapping her way through the maze of code until she came to the little black box that held the system shut-down function. It was only accessible by admin privileges, so she keyed in her admin password and waited for the system to boot up. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually, one single line of green text popped onto the screen.

Temporarily Disable System?

She pressed enter.

The screen blinked off and back on, and Aelin smiled. Until she turned the system back on, the safety measures that protected her lab complex would be disabled. The security cameras would still be on, of course, but the numerous hidden traps—hallways that turned around, dummy doors, even a handful of booby traps near the room where the SecondSkin was kept—would be inactive until she turned them back on. It was nothing short of an invitation to anyone willing to brave the maze.

And she knew—because Fenrys had told her—that Maeve was sending someone into that maze by the end of the month. And it was July 31. It had to be today.

Aelin quickly navigated back out of the menus, unmasked the server IP address, shut off the computer, and slipped out of the room. She checked the hallway, making sure it was empty, then darted a few feet down the hall, pushed aside the grate covering the nearest airshaft, and climbed into the smooth metal shaft. She replaced the grate, checked to make sure no one else was taking the sneaky route down to the SecondSkin room, and then she started crawling.

When she reached the air vents above the SecondSkin room, she turned her wrist over and tapped the inside of her forearm twice. A small, darkened screen strapped to her arm illuminated, bringing up a feed from the security cameras outside and inside the room. When she was satisfied that it was clear, she crept over to a vent, pushed aside the grate, and swung herself out of the airshaft and into the steel rafters that crisscrossed the ceiling of the simple, sterile lab room.

Aelin crept through the rafters until she came to a spot where three beams crossed, forming a kind of makeshift seat that was far enough away from the door to obscure her in shadows but central enough to give her a decent view of the room. She crouched down into a seated position, tapped her forearm screen on, and waited.

Sure enough, she’d been watching and waiting for less than an hour when the door cracked open and a dark-clad, masked, hooded figure ducked into the room. For a moment, her mind flashed back to a near-replica of this exact scene, almost eight months earlier.

She knew they would try to come for her tech.

The moment she had reached a stable, functional form of SecondSkin, Aelin knew that the rest of the criminal world would want to get their grubby little hands on her tech. She suspected that the first person to make a move would be Arobynn Hamel, leader of the Assassins, supposedly the most ruthless, dangerous, heartless killer in the known world. It would be on brand—Arobynn had never been able to stomach the idea that anyone could outsmart him.

So, Aelin rigged a deceptively simple trap.

She armed the locker where she kept the SecondSkin with tranquilizer darts that would go off the moment someone opened the door, unless the combination that only she knew was keyed in. There were a few other combinations that opened the lock, but only she had the one that disarmed the trap. She drew up vague, enticing plans to that room, making only a few broad notes that she knew would have the entire criminal world foaming at the mouth when they discovered what she was working on.

She “accidentally” leaked those plans in the bowels of the dark web. A few hours later, she took down the plans, but they had been up just long enough for Arobynn to get his filthy hands on them.

Not even two weeks later, he made his move.

The plans that she had “leaked” were confidential, but the blueprint of her lab complex was public domain, since she had filed the permits with the city like any normal businesswoman would do. Naturally, Arobynn had gone and checked the plans and used them to carefully plot his path to her supposedly secret room. What he didn’t know was that she had planted a lot more hidden traps along that path, but just for him, the traps were disabled. Arobynn strolled into the SecondSkin room bold as brass, thinking that he’d finally get to pull one over on Celaena Sardothien, the youngest crime boss of Orynth, the woman who had humiliated him in front of his close circle of assassins and crime lord buddies the last time they had crossed paths.

And the instant he opened the locker, the tranquilizers skewered his neck.

The last thing Arobynn Hamel ever saw was his dream of victory slipping right through his greedy, slimy little fingers.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true—the last thing he had actually seen was the inside of Aelin’s river warehouse, where she’d kept him for two and a half weeks, letting her men work on him, before she treated him to a full day with just her and her weapons for company. At the end of that day, he was dead.

After Arobynn had been…dispatched, Aelin made some changes to the trap on the SecondSkin locker. The first thing she did was re-rig the tranquilizer darts, but this time with poison, since they had worked so well before. She reorganized the traps leading up to that room, even spread some of them down other halls to deceive anyone else who thought they could get smart and try to break into her lab.

The other change she made was a small addition to the trap on the SecondSkin locker. She emptied the locker, moving the SecondSkin to a different one in the same room, and replaced the canister with an identical one, except that the new canister contained a precisely measured dose of modified hellfire suspended beneath a trigger chemical. The instant that locker door opened, the trigger would drop, and the hellfire would explode, ripping through whichever scum tried to steal Aelin’s tech.

SecondSkin would never get into the hands of anyone who would abuse it. Not on her watch.

From her perch in the rafters, Aelin tracked the movements of the man who had entered the SecondSkin room. As expected, he glanced around the room and crossed over to what he thought was the locker containing the SecondSkin. His gloved fingers danced along the edge of the panel until he found the tiny, hidden spring, and he pressed it down and slid aside the masking panel. He glanced at the back of his hand briefly, then pressed a series of keys on the electronic combination lock that secured the locker. On her screen, Aelin zoomed in on the combination, smirking when she saw the same sequence of numbers that Arobynn had used.

Maeve thought she was better than her former lover, but her man had taken the same route.

The lock blinked green, and the man paused for a moment, then gingerly reached out and took the handle. He was a little smarter than Arobynn; he at least anticipated some kind of trap. Aelin smothered her anticipation—she knew something that the man didn’t know. She knew that no matter how slowly or carefully that door was opened, the hellfire would be triggered. It didn’t matter if this man opened the locker by micrometers. The explosion was inevitable.

With a short, sharp breath, the man pushed open the locker door.

BOOM.

Aelin didn’t need camera footage to see the blindingly bright burst of blue-white flame blast out of the locker, crashing right into the man’s upper chest, throat, and head, obliterating his clothes and probably melting his skin. He barely had a millisecond to scream before the poisoned darts embedded themselves in his throat, and his body dropped to the floor with a thump.

Aelin counted to twenty, and right on time, the powerful fire extinguisher system flicked on and doused the body and the ruined locker with white foam. A blast of water followed, rinsing away the foam, and she tapped her screen back on so she could see the intruder’s corpse in more detail. She zoomed in on the body, her gaze skipping over the charred remnants of his chest, and scanned his mangled masked face. The mask had melted into his skin with the force of the explosion, and his features were partially destroyed but still somewhat distinguishable, and she saw the faint lines of twin scars…

Twin scars slashed down his ruined cheeks.

Aelin’s blood turned to ice.

“F-Fen?” she breathed, one gloved hand shakily floating up to cover her mouth. “It—no—it can’t—Moon Moon?”

She stared at the footage, frozen numb with shock and horror. “M-M-Moon Moon? Fenrys!”

What had she done?

~~~

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