Page 46 of Whispers in the Quarter

Blood evidence [Multiple Types]

Structural damage to east wing

Missing files: Deveraux case

The warehouse airhangs heavy with river moisture and old memories. My footsteps echo against concrete as I move through shadows I know aren’t empty. He’s here. I’ve felt his presence since I left Lucas’s lab, my skin still humming from brilliant madness and barely contained chaos. But this... this is a different kind of danger.

“Getting sloppy, little shadow.” His voice emerges from the darkness, still smooth as aged whiskey and twice as dangerous.“The scientist? The musician? What’s next—a confession to your FBI agent?”

I turn slowly, my hand steady near the knife in my boot. Alex steps into a shaft of moonlight, impeccable in his dark suit despite the warehouse grime. He hasn’t aged a day since he taught me to kill.

“Hello, Alex.” My voice doesn’t shake, though my body still bears evidence of Lucas’s “experiments.” I wonder if Alex can see it—the slight tremor in my hands, the marks hidden beneath my collar. “Your intelligence seems a bit outdated.”

“Is that all you have to say to your mentor?” He moves closer, each step measured and precise. “After everything I taught you, everything I made you?”

Memories flash unbidden—Alex’s hands positioning mine on a garrote, his voice calm as he describes exactly how much pressure it takes to end a life. Hours in abandoned buildings learning to move silently, to become shadow itself. The first time he made me kill.

“You didn’t make me.” I hold my ground as he circles me, fighting the urge to touch the bruises Lucas left—claiming marks so different from Alex’s lessons in pain. “You just shaped what was already there.”

He laughs, the sound echoing off metal walls. “And now look how you’ve twisted that shaping. Falling into bed with a mad scientist, playing music hall romance with a reformed criminal.” His voice hardens. “Letting emotions cloud your judgment. I taught you better.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket—probably another cryptic text from Lucas about his ongoingexperiments. The thought of what he might be up to in that lab almost makes me smile. Almost.

“You taught me to survive,” I match Alex’s circle, keeping him in view. “Nothing more.”

“I taught you to be perfect.” Alex stops, his eyes glinting like knife blades. “A weapon without weakness, without attachments. And now you’re compromising everything for what? Love?” He spits the word like poison.

I think of Jazz’s steady warmth, of Lucas’s brilliant chaos. Of how neither of them try to make me perfect—they want me dangerous and broken and real. “You’re just angry because I’m not your puppet anymore.”

His movement is blindingly fast. Suddenly he’s behind me, one arm around my throat in the hold he taught me years ago. “Aren’t you, though? Everything you know, every skill you use—they’re all mine. Even your precious poisons are just variations on my formulas.”

I almost laugh at that. They aren’t his. They never were.

They belong solely to Grandma. Maw Maw.

I could break his hold. He taught me how. But something keeps me still, that old instinct to listen when he speaks. My phone buzzes again, a constant reminder that I’m not alone anymore. Not just his shadow.

“I’ve been watching you, little shadow.” His breath stirs my hair. “Watching you play your games with Perkins, with the others. Sloppy work. Leaving evidence for your scientist to find, letting the FBI agent get too close.”

A third text makes my phone dance. This time I catch Lucas’s name on the screen, something aboutevolutionandbeautiful chaos.My brilliant madman, always pushing boundaries I didn’t know could bend.

“Let go of me.” The words come out stronger than I expect, carrying echoes of Lucas’s influence—chaos instead of control.

He releases me with a gentle push. “You’re not the only one with interests in New Orleans. There are larger games being played, bigger stakes than your personal vendetta.”

“Celeste’s murder wasn’t a vendetta.” I turn to face him, my hand absently touching where Lucas’s teeth left marks earlier. A different kind of lesson about pain and power. “It was justice.”

“Justice?” He laughs again, colder this time. “Is that what you call leaving bodies across the city? Trading secrets with a corrupted medical examiner? Playing cat and mouse with a fed?”

My phone lights up again.

Lucas:The most fascinating transformations occur under pressure, my Chimera. You should see how beautifully righteousness breaks down...

“Better than being a hired gun for the organization.” The words hit home—his jaw tightens slightly.

They could never keep me, and that is what his problem is. I’ll never willingly work forthem.

“At least I know what I am.” He reaches into his jacket, withdrawing an envelope. “The organization has plans for this city. Plans your little crusade is threatening. But it doesn’t have to be this way.”

---