Page 68 of Nocturne
So no, I didn’t kill Hunter.
But I destroyed everything else.
Burned every piece of what was his world.
And I know he’s hurting, even if he pretends he’s not. He’s just as broken as I am — cracked, bleeding, trapped in this same hell that’s devouring me.
And that shit is what binds us more than any loyalty, more than any promise.
The pain — that shared pain that eats us from the inside — is what keeps our connection alive, even when everything around us falls apart.
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
The phrase echoes in my head again.
I might not have killed him, but I know that with thewar coming, maybe it’ll all finally happen. Maybe those two graves will finally be filled. And maybe that’s how it should be — because even though we’re still alive, it’s been a long time since we were whole. Just what’s left after everything got dragged down to hell.
They always said I wasn’t strategic like the other members of the Nocturne Pact.
That I’m too impulsive. Too unstable.
That’s why they threw me out into the field like a living weapon — useful, disposable.
I’m the one who lives in the shadows, who kills fast, without hesitation, without questions. The missions they give me are simple: get in, eliminate, disappear.
No doubts. No feelings.
In the world I grew up in, that shit doesn’t exist.
Feeling is weakness. Thinking too much gets you killed.
But now… after everything that happened, after losing what I couldn’t afford to lose, after burning everything and everyone around me — I finally understood what had to be done.
Not like a loyal soldier.
But like someone who’s got nothing left to lose.
I shove the wooden chair back. The harsh scrape of it dragging across the concrete floor echoes through the stuffy room, drawing attention I didn’t mean to. “One beer,” I say, raising a hand, voice hoarse and dry.
Behind the bar, Liam “Hawk” Gallagher stares at me.
He doesn’t say a word, but his eyes sayeverything.
Hawk is a name that should be dead.
Ex-Iron Requiem. A rogue who ran after seeing something he wasn’t supposed to.
The kind of man who’s only still breathing because he’s always been quicker than his own damn fate.
No one knows he’s still alive.
No one but me and Zachary Hayes.
He told me exactly where to find him — some hole-in-the-wall bar buried in one of Boston’s forgotten corners, where the smoke hides secrets and the booze erases memories like they never existed.
He lives like a ghost — but today… he’s gonna talk.
Because there’s a war coming. And I’m not just a weapon anymore.
