Chapter 277: Chapter 277 Past Lover?

Vanessa kept her foot on the gas until the van’s engine began to protest. Tree-lined asphalt whipped beneath the headlights, and the night air rushed past the side mirrors. She’d driven thirty straight minutes south of the city, not slowing once. Sighting a rusted highway sign half hidden by vines—she eased up and rolled to a stop on the shoulder.

Gravel crunched beneath the tires. The engine ticked in the sudden quiet.

She cut the lights, killed the ignition, and stepped out. Cool air hit her face, and for a moment she just breathed. She could still taste the adrenaline in the back of her throat.

“How the hell did SWAT find me?” she muttered, shutting the door softly. “How did they know it was me under that mask?” She paced around the front bumper, glancing up and down the empty road. Pine trees hemmed in both sides like walls. No headlights, no sirens—just the low hum of insects and the distant rustle of night wind.

She clenched her fists. There hadn’t been any trackers on her motorcycle. She’d taken country roads, killed every camera feed within range. Yet they’d still found her.

As she stood there piecing it together, a sudden gust swept over her. Leaves stirred, dust lifted. The breeze pressed down, as if something huge had displaced the air above her.

She looked up.

Two vast black wings sliced through the night sky, blotting out the sliver of moon. A silhouette—tall, lean, broad-shouldered—glided overhead, feathers so dark they swallowed light. It circled once, then folded its wings and dove.

Boots hit asphalt ten feet in front of her. The figure straightened—six feet of muscle draped in matte tactical fabric. The wings settled behind him like a curtain of shadow. Red embers glowed where eyes should be.

Vanessa’s heart flipped. “Clark?” The name came out halfway between hope and disbelief.

No answer. He stood silent, face half hidden beneath a dark hood, staring at her with an intensity that scraped her nerves raw.

“Clark, did you sell me out?” she snapped, forcing steel into her voice. “Since when can you fucking fly?”

Still nothing. Just that burning gaze pinning her to the spot. She had known clark two years ago: ex-military, solid ethics, flirting smiles in the armory. They’d nearly—but not quite—crossed that line from friends to something more. He’d been purely human. No power. No wings. Now he looked like some nightmare angel scrawled in charcoal and blood.

He tilted his head, lips curling into a grin. A low rasp rolled from his throat. “They all know who you are now, Vanessa. SWAT, the local PD, the crimson hand know you hit their base. There’s no safe house left. No back door. No running.”

Shock warred with anger on her face. “Who twisted you into this?” she whispered, taking one hesitant step back. “What did they do to you, Clark?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said—the voice deeper, rougher. As if gravel lined his vocal cords. “I’m here for your life, and I’m not leaving without it.”

He lifted the black metal rod he’d been holding. With a sound like grinding steel, it elongated, edges sliding free until it became a full-length sword—dark as obsidian, edges humming with a red glow.

Vanessa’s pulse slammed into overdrive. She knew that weapon; it was an adaptive exogen blade—she had seen her father with one before. “What the—” she started, but Clark blurred.

He was on her in a heartbeat, sword arcing for her neck.

She dropped low, her body unraveling into gray smoke. The blade sliced through empty air, carrying a hiss of displaced particles. Vanessa rematerialized three meters away, kneeling on one knee, hand pressed to her throat. Warmth spread across her fingers—blood. The sword had grazed her, leaving a thin red line across her skin.

She stared at the smear of blood, disbelief twisting her features. Clark hadn’t pulled the strike. He hadn’t held back. He’d swung to remove her head in one clean cut. Two years ago he’d been the only one who looked at her like she mattered. Tonight he looked at her like prey.

Clark straightened, wings flexing. “Second swing won’t miss,” he warned, voice flat.

Vanessa rose slowly, eyes never leaving his. The shock burned off, replaced by something cold and sharp. She lifted her right hand and triggered her suit’s palm disk. A thin blade of violet energy snapped from the bracer, crackling with static.

“You want my head?” she said, voice steady. “Come earn it.”

Clark’s grin widened. He surged forward, sword carving a scarlet arc.

Vanessa met him halfway, energy blade sparking as it slammed against obsidian steel. The impact rattled up her arm. Clark’s strength was monstrous now—every strike heavier than the last. Asphalt cracked beneath their feet as they exchanged blows: her flickering energy edge against his hell-lit sword, sparks flaring on contact. Wings battered the air, each down-beat kicking dust into whirling eddies.

Vanessa darted sideways, body melting to smoke, reappearing behind him. She slashed—but one black wing folded across his back, catching her blade. The energy hissed, slicing feathers but not bone. He twisted, elbowed her ribs, sent her skidding across the pavement.

She rolled, came up on one knee, breathing hard.

Clark stalked closer. “You’re out of your league,” he said.

Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. “You used to laugh when I said that.”

He lunged, sword overhead. She dove aside, the blade smashing into the road, carving a molten groove. Bits of glowing asphalt splattered.

She kept moving, phasing short hops of smoke to dodge his reach—left, right, back. But he pressed, herding her toward the ditch. One wrong step and she’d lose footing.

A thought flashed: Liam could fight him. I can’t.

But Liam wasn’t here.

She had one shot—speed, not strength. She flicked her wrist, ejecting a cluster of mini-darts from her gauntlet. They streaked toward his exposed flank. Clark swept his wing, deflecting them all. One dart ricocheted, slicing a shallow cut in his cheek. Dark liquid oozed—thicker than blood, glowing faint red.

He touched it with a gloved finger, looked at the smear, and laughed—a dark, broken sound. “That all you got left?”

She clenched her jaw, tasted copper in her mouth, then spat a thick glob of blood onto the ground. The metallic taste lingered on her tongue.

She wiped her mouth roughly with the back of her hand and glared at the figure approaching her—his wings stretched wide, his sword glowing faintly in the darkness, his eyes still burning crimson.

“You know I didn’t kill your sister, right?” she said through gritted teeth, her voice hoarse but steady.

Clark didn’t hesitate. His face twisted with rage as he charged forward, sword already in motion. “You didn’t kill her,” he growled, “but you’re the reason she died… and for that, you deserve to die!”

His sword carved the air in a diagonal arc, fast and brutal.

Vanessa shifted to the left just in time, the blade missing her by inches—but she barely had time to regain balance before his leg swung around.

The kick smashed into her stomach like a battering ram.

Her breath exploded out of her lungs as her body lifted off the ground. The world spun around her as she flew backwards through the air. The force of it sent shockwaves through her core. She didn’t even have time to brace for the fall.

But before she could hit the ground, her body dissolved into smoke. With a quiet whiff, she vanished—reappearing thirty meters away with a sudden pop of displaced air.
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She didn’t land well. Her momentum carried into the teleportation. She tumbled across the cracked asphalt, dirt and gravel digging into her skin as she rolled once, twice, three times—before finally stopping on her side with a painful grunt.

She coughed again, more blood staining her teeth.

Cursing under her breath, she reached up, tore the slim black mask from her face, and flung it aside. It skittered across the road before vanishing into the night.

“This is suicide…” she whispered, dragging herself to her feet.

Trying to fight him head-on wasn’t going to work. Clark was too strong. Too fast. Too changed. That thing with wings and red eyes wasn’t the man she used to know. Whoever he was now, she couldn’t beat him. Not in this state.

Her pride screamed inside her chest. Everything about this moment burned her ego—but she forced it all down. Survival had to come first.

Gritting her teeth, she turned around and disappeared into smoke again.

Teleportation—100 meters max, she reminded herself.

She reappeared on a rooftop nearby, took one glance behind—

Clark was already mid-air.

His wings sliced the air with terrifying power, and he flew like a missile toward her. He was covering the distance she just teleported in a little over two seconds.

She jumped off the roof and teleported again before hitting the ground.

Appeared in a narrow alley.

Took one step—

A gust of wind hit her from behind.

She teleported again, this time reappearing behind an abandoned truck on the highway. She barely had time to gasp in a breath before his shadow passed overhead again.

He was relentless.

No matter how many times she blinked away, he followed. Every escape bought her only two seconds. Three at most. And she couldn’t keep this up forever. Her stamina was dropping fast with each jump. The internal strain of smoke-shifting this much was brutal—her vision was starting to blur, and her knees felt like jelly.

She grit her teeth harder and pushed off again, disappearing in a cloud of smoke. Her heart hammered like a war drum. Her lungs burned. Her teleportation dropped her behind a collapsed billboard.

And again—whoosh!

He passed overhead.

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