Page 37 of Nocturne
Turn the faucet, but only annoying drips come out — not enough. Damn it.
I scan the open cabinet again, digging until I find a bottle of alcohol. Perfect.
I rush back to Damon, tear off his shirt, strip every piece of clothing he’s wearing — pile it on his legs to shield him from the biting cold sneaking in through the cabin, courtesy of the snow outside.
“Damon!” I shake him hard, slap his face slowly.
“What the fuck do you want? Can’t you see I’m almost dead?” His voice is a thread — rough, bitter.
“This is gonna fucking hurt.” I growl, twisting the alcohol bottle open and pouring the liquid straight onto the open wound.
He lets out a loud groan — a sound that cuts through the air and twists my gut. I think about those masked bastards with skull balaclavas who might be hunting us. Fuck them. “Fuck... it’d be easier to just leave me to die.”
“Well, look at that, talking again.”
“Fuck off.”
I open the backpack and find some painkillers. I hand three to him, my voice low, firm. “Take these. They’ll help.”
“I don’t wanna your help.” He rolls his eyes, cynical as always.
The cabin has no other place besides the only bed where Damon is lying, so we’ll have to share — at least for today, until someone comes to rescue us. Until then, we’ll stay together. Even if he hates me, even if he hates being here, my obsession with him only grows — and, for a reason I don’t even fully understand, I’m liking it.
Night falls, heavy and slow, but Damon can’t sleep. He moans softly, pain stronger than the painkillers, restless, unable to settle. I don’t sleep either. And I don’t care. I’m so close to him I can smell it — that strong, woody perfume mixed with sweat and cigarette soaked into his skin. I see the tattooed arm, the marked jaw, every detail my brain insists on fixing even though I can’t touch. We’rethere, centimeters apart, and it’s impossible not to feel every fiber of my body ignite.
No one’s messaged yet — neither about our disappearance nor about the mission. And, honestly, I’m in no rush to leave here.
I feel my cock harden inside my underwear, hard as fuck. Carefully, I pull it out, plunged in absolute silence, praying Damon doesn’t hear anything, that he doesn’t turn his face my way. I start to moan quietly, imagining how it would be — Damon watching me, feeling everything, coming with me. Slow, calculated movements, while my gaze gets lost in his face next to mine. Even dressed, my mind throws the party alone.
When I’m about to come, I lean toward Hunter’s neck — really close — and inhale deep his scent: perfume, cigarette, sweat. The smell of my ruin. The smell of my obsession.
CHAPTER 5
DAMON
I took a knife to the gut during one of those runs with Hunter—bled like a motherfucker. Shit hurt, but there was no time to stop. We were barely out when the damn car blew up right behind us. Flames, glass, that burnt metal smell… whole scene lit up like a fuckin’ warzone. We ran like two bastards with nothing left to lose.
Now, I gotta put together a technical report on what happened — but the problem is, I don’t have a single piece of physical proof. What’s left of the car stayed behind, burned to ashes, vanished.
I push through the main door of the warehouse, and silence swallows me whole like the world itself disappeared along with the rest of that shitty mission. The place is empty, no sound, no faces, no presence, just me. And at least I can do this job in peace, with no one breathing down my neck.
The warehouse is soaked in silence so thick it presses down on my shoulders. Every step I take echoes off the bare concrete walls like the whole place is listening. The industrial lights up on the high ceiling throw a cold, metallic glow over the boxing ring in the center, the only thing alive in all this absence. It’s spotless — ropes tight, floor flawless, like it was just set up. But there’s no one here. No shouts, no gloves hitting bags, no muffled laughs in the corner. The emptiness stares back at me with a calmso fierce it’s almost hostile.
Around me, everything’s frozen in time — like the world is holding its breath with me. To my left, a frame of bars and suspended rings rises like a forgotten cage, cold and silent, a still monument to abandonment. The punching bags hanging on the wall sway slightly, rocked by an invisible wind, like ghosts of punches that never landed. On the sides, bars and plates lie lined up, metal bones casting long, sharp shadows across the matte black floor, stretching out like silent claws.
At the back, exposed brick walls and scorched cement exude a heavy, dark tone, filling the air with a rough scent of dust and old iron. The suspended mezzanine watches everything from above, impassive, like a silent sentinel over a forgotten territory.
This is where gangs seal their truces — where, in theory, no one’s supposed to die. But now, with empty benches and stagnant air, it feels more like a mausoleum than neutral ground.
I boot up the computer, hands shaking from exhaustion, and drop into the chair like it’s the last support I’ve got. I beg myself silently to just get this over with, even knowing it’s gonna be a long, shitty grind. This was the only time I could get it. Carter won’t stop bugging me, wants me to wrap this damn investigation up fast — he wants to find the rat as soon as possible. And when he does, shit’s gonna hit the fan, I know it.
I open the folder with the latest logs: inspections, recalls, replaced parts, who messed with the car recently. The list’s long, but what fucks me the most is that theserecords were only made by the Nocturne Pact members — the gang that owns the car.
The rat? My gut screams it’s someone from the fucking Iron Requiem, but my head, that rational part of me still clinging to life, knows you can’t trust anyone that easy. Even though I consider Nocturne Pact my family, everyone’s out for their own ass, everyone plays the game their own way.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" His voice slices through the silence like a damn blade. Deep. Way too close.
I roll my eyes, fighting the urge to curse him out. Shit, I just wanted a little peace. A place to breathe, to pretend the world isn’t fucking falling apart.
