Chapter 14: What lies ahead

Somewhere in Chicago.

Pop.

The bubble burst sharp against the dead-quiet room with an ominous snap. Pink gum clung to the woman’s glossed lips for half a second before she sucked it back in, her jaw working slow….like she was bored.

Her eyes— wintry, thick with mascara and glitter never took eyes off the scene infront of her.

Three men swung down on some poor bastard curled on the concrete, bats and crowbars coming down in ugly, wet thuds. Screams of pain and agony went unanswered as bones cracked under the sheer weight of their melee weapons.

She stood at the center of it all.

A studded, blood-slick bat rested across her shoulders, her arms loosely draped over both ends. Her bedazzled letterman jacket clung tight to her curves, rhinestones catching the hues of the barely working lights of the room. The push-up bra beneath it strained under her chest. Her low-waisted shorts rode up her thighs on purpose— complementing the boots that reached all the way up, cutting off the sight of supple skin.

Curly blue streaked pig tails tickled both her shoulders, bouncing as her weight shifted.

She gave a minty sigh— her goons freezing at that.

The man on the ground choked out a gurgling plea as she leaned forward, just enough for the light to catch her smirk.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, dick-for-brains…”

A slow tilt of the head—cute, lethal.

“…where’s the shit we lent your little group?”

The man was barely able to look up at her under swollen eyes. He coughed up blood between words.

“I was…telling the truth—…people came in and wiped out Sheldon and the rest of us…I was the only one who—”

Her expression snapped. The words died in his mouth.

“You think you’re cute enough to screw with me?”

Her voice rose— causing even her own men to flinch.

“HUH!?!”

He couldn’t even answer. Her boot came down— crushing his face sideways into the concrete. In that moment, her attack seemed as if it caused more damage than the bats and crowbars combined.

She paced around him slowly, twirling the bloody bat off her shoulders with one hand.

“So let me get this straight,”

she began, her voice sugary-sweet in the way poison can be.

“We loan you guns. Ammo. Grenades.”

She tapped the bat against her boot.

“We even help you idiots kidnap the one person you said you wanted so damn bad…”

She stopped directly over him.

“And you’re telling me you dorks all got wiped out? By…a basic septum piercing having bitch and her little toy soldiers?”

Her smile dropped.

“You think the guns we gave your school shooting incel group came easy?”

There was silence— safe for a ragged, wet whimper.

“No one, and I mean no one fucks with the Crucible. Understand me?”

From the far corner of the room, a single ember flared to life.

A sharp inhale followed— the end of the cigarette glowing orange against her features every time she took a hit— piercings glinting along her brows, lip, and cheekbones.

They watched the whole ordeal with cold eyes.

Liberty spikes—tall, uneven, bleached at the very tips—framed their head like a crown of knives. The rest of their hair was pitch black, falling messily over the collar of their jacket.

“That’s enough, Cherie. We don’t kill our clients.”

She finally spoke through the fumes surrounding her.

The woman froze mid-swing— her bat hovered inches above the man’s shattered ribs before she slowly lowered it, lips pressing into a thin line as her eyes flickered to the woman behind her.

“This is a waste of time.”

The weapon wielding goons stepped back instinctively after hearing those words.

The punk girl pushed off the wall, cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth. One hand in her pocket, she walked forward with the casual confidence, boots clicking against the cold bloodied floor. Her narrowed, a faint, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of her mouth.

“My intuition’s never wrong,”

She said, flicking ash onto the ground without looking at it. Her eyes stayed locked on Cherie’s.

“And I’m thinking our little friend here…”

She nudged the half-conscious man with the tip of her boot.

“…is pretty useless when it comes to supplying us info like that.”

Cherie’s brow twitched. That’s when the punk girl smiled— eerie, slow, like she was delighted to mention what she was gonna say next.

“I’m almost certain I had a run-in with that kid the piggy’s group was after,”

Cherie frowned.

“On a metro train. Cute, but someone else was beside him. Might be his girlfriend or something.”

She dragged in one last breath of smoke, then exhaled it in a thin, ghostly stream.

“If our shit is anywhere,” her voice grew into something colder.

“They’re with him. But by the looks our friend’s story…he might have other allies now.”

Cherie’s bat lifted back onto her shoulder in a single motion.

“How are you so sure you aren’t just gonna put us on some kind of goose chase? Where do we even—”

When the punk girl smiled, Cherie’s words died in her mouth.

She was never wrong when it came to things like this.

“Well then,” Cherie began, “looks like we’ve got ourselves a little scavenger hunt.”

There was silence. For a moment, the men looked dumb founded as they watched the conversation die. Cherie snapped.

“You heard what I just said, right!? Get the trucks ready!!”

A frustrated sigh escaped her throat as they scrambled. With that, her eyes flickered towards the barely conscious man. Battered, bruised.

Yet she spoke to him like she was sure he was still alive.

“You. You’re coming with me.”

….

Somewhere else in Chicago entirely,

I could feel the morning hues burn through my closed eyelids. Damn it, already?

Ugh… my head hurts.

The first thought that drifted through my skull hit harder than the sunlight shining through my curtains. I lay there for a moment— eyes half‑lidded, my brain stuck between sleep fatigue and the memory of last night.

The lady. Her eyes. The blood. Everything.

I didn’t even want to think about it. I felt physically sick every time i did.

I never felt like getting up with that in my mind. And honestly… who the hell could blame me? That was by far, probably one of the most traumatic things I’d ever lived through.

Yet, my elbows struggled beneath me as I pushed myself upright, muscles stiff with leftover panic. My bedsheets slid off my torso, cold against sweat‑damp skin.

The warm light grazed my face, pushing that unwanted urge to get up. To feel fresh air, see people, hear voices that weren’t screams for a change.

Anything but this suffocating room felt great to me.

I swung my legs off the bed, feet hitting the floorboards with a dull thud, before something fluttered beside me.

It fluttered, the sound thin. Paper?

I blinked, frowning, and looked down. A note lay on the floor, like it had been tucked near my pillow and slipped free the moment I moved.

Maybe it was these people thanking me for my service.

….

Maybe not.

My pulse spiked the second I read the first line.

“Your frightened face was so adorable yesterday.”

My throat closed. Was someone fucking with me?

The next line hit like a blade gently pressed to the center of my ribs:

“Maybe if I choked you to death,”

“I could look at it forever.”

The note crumpled slightly in my hand as I read those words over and over again. I couldn’t get a break, could I?

My mind began to wander off as I stared at the wall infront of me. Who’d even—..?

No. That was obvious.

This was Lila’s doing. It had to be her.

My pace when I burst out from my door never screamed a morning stroll. Thoughts of anxiety, frustration, and fear loomed over my mind like a dark pillar I couldn’t push down.

I brushed past people walking in my opposite direction— some carrying crates of supplies, morning greetings abruptly cut mid-word when they caught sight of my unwashed face, my eyes rimmed red with exhaustion and dread. Despite everything, nobody lingered. Nobody cared to ask what was wrong.

Perfect.

When I rounded the corner, my momentum slammed into a softer body, a wall of desperation.

Lila.

Her eyes were wide, frantic, glinting with worry I hadn’t seen since that night. Bullshit.

“Baby, I was so worried about you after last night! Are you hurt anywhere???”

Her hands hovered over me— trembling, bruised. My pulse spiked, hammering against my skull. I took a sharp, shallow breath, trying to steady the sudden rush of adrenaline.

“Don’t give me that shit, Lila. We both know what you really think, you psycho.”

I felt scared even saying those words so suddenly. The last thing I wanted to do was push her off the deep end completely.

Lila frowned, genuine confusion cutting across her face. I slowly grew confused too at that.

No. This was just another one of her tricks. She obviously knows what I know.

My shoulders stiffened, reflexively pushing back, but there was nowhere to go.

“…Why’ve you been so cold to me lately? Ever since the warehouse, you’ve—…”

Her voice trailed off.

I looked at her in complete, utter silence.

With sudden movement, she pressed against me, backing me into the wall, her grip tightening around my hands until my wrists ached. My breath hitched, shallow and fast, and a shiver ran down my spine.

“You don’t possibly think I’d want to hurt you, do you, Adrian?”

I didn’t answer.

“Baby…please, answer me. We were doing so well before it all happened…”

Desperation bled through every syllable.

Tears pooled in her eyes, reflecting the harsh morning light. She leaned closer, and my stomach churned.

Then—a slip. A paper fluttered to the ground.

Both of us froze.

Lila’s gaze snapped to it, and she snatched it up almost immediately, her fingers curling around the edges. Her expression shifted instantly—eyes narrowing, mouth parting in disbelief.

What was she even playing at?

“Who gave that to you?”

Her voice trembled. Rage, confusion, and hurt all tangled together.

And for the first time, I realized— I really had no idea what was happening around me.

It wasn’t her.

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