Page 2 of Map of Pain
Gianmarco pressed cool lips to Nick’s forehead.“It won’t happen again if you’re good. You can be good for me, can’t you?”
“Yes,”Nick sobbed into expensive fabric.“I can be good.”
A melody drifted through the chaos—wordless, haunting. Nick knew this tune somehow, though he couldn’t place where he’d heard it before. The confusion cut through his fever-fog like cold water, pulling him up through layers of memory until—
A metallic clang shattered the music.
Nick’s eyelids snapped open, his body jerking upright with violent force. The sudden movement sent lightning through his infected stump—six months of untreated amputation site screaming its protests. Where was he? The box under Gianmarco’s bed. No room to move. No air to breathe. Silk restraints cutting into his ankles.
Truck bed liner scratched against his cheek. Not silk. Not the box. The junkyard. His territory for the past month, chosen because the rusted cab blocked sight lines and the drainage ditch offered quick escape routes.
Nick uncurled from the tight ball he’d unconsciously formed, arms wrapped protectively around his torso. Old habits carved deep by two years of ownership. His muscles screamed from holding the position. How long had he been unconscious? Darkness pressed against his tarp, but that could mean anything when fever time moved like thick honey and he’d lost track of day and night cycles weeks ago.
Cold air sliced through sweat-soaked clothing, then heat crashed over him in waves. His skin burned from the inside out while his bones felt packed with ice. The infection cycledthrough him—freezing, burning, freezing again. Reality wavered like heat shimmer off summer asphalt.
His right fingers tingled with pins and needles. He flexed them to restore circulation, then watched phantom digits curl in response from his missing left hand. The stump ached worse than the real appendages ever had, nerve endings firing signals into space where Marcus Graves’ machete had carved away his future.
The makeshift tarp roof fluttered against wind, creating shifting shadows across his carefully constructed shelter. Stolen hospital blankets lay tangled around his legs. Three water bottles—one empty, two half-full—lined up against the cab window in precise military formation. His territory. His prison. His sanctuary.
Another metallic sound drew his attention to the perimeter. Small bells strung on fishing line surrounded the truck bed—his early warning system, refined through months of paranoid engineering. One bell chimed softly, wire still vibrating. Something had disturbed his outer ring of defenses.
Monster or human? Both wanted him dead for different reasons. The Daylight Society would execute him for betraying his handler, Henderson, and saving his brother. Vampires would kill him for being exactly what he was—a hunter trained to put them in the ground.
Nick pulled himself upright, fighting the wave of dizziness that followed. The stump needed checking again. Even in the dim glow from distant streetlights filtering through his tarp, he could see angry red streaks climbing his forearm like infection highways. Yellow-green drainage had soaked through the last bandage, the smell sharp enough to cut through his congested sinuses.
The plastic bottle of gasoline sat within reach—his only antiseptic, stolen from an abandoned car three blocks away.Nick unscrewed the cap with shaking fingers, breathing through his mouth to avoid the chemical burn of fumes. The rag he used as a bandage was filthy, crusted with old blood and fresh pus.
He poured gasoline directly onto the stump.
Teeth clenched against the burn. A high-pitched whine escaped through his locked jaw. This pain was clean, controllable. Not like the spreading fire that consumed him from within, turning his blood to acid and his thoughts to fragments.
Nick knew it wasn’t working. The gasoline couldn’t stop what was happening. The infection climbed higher each day, fever burned hotter each night. He was running out of time. Running out of stolen antibiotics. Running out of strength to steal more.
But the mental fog burned away like morning mist, replaced by crystalline clarity. Nick’s pulse slowed as his mind shifted gears—tactical, focused, cold as winter steel. The hunter stirred inside him, protocols engaging automatically after hundreds of missions. His fingers mapped familiar weapon positions: steel hunting knife strapped to his calf, crossbow with three remaining bolts hidden under truck bed liner, makeshift club fashioned from tire iron and barbed wire.
Two escape routes plotted and memorized. Drop through the rusted hole in truck bed floor, roll behind the engine block for cover. Sprint for drainage ditch, use concrete culvert as chokepoint if pursued. Four hiding spots within twenty yards. Twelve within fifty. Every angle calculated, every advantage catalogued.
The hunter’s inventory was automatic. Precise. Comforting.
Nick’s hearing sharpened as adrenaline and training working together. Footsteps approached his position, but wrong. Too light, too precise for human locomotion. Human feet would drag, stumble on uneven junkyard terrain. These moved with unnatural grace across broken glass and twisted metal.
Target identified. The silent monster he’d been tracking for months.
He slid from the truck bed, landing in a crouch that sent fresh lightning through his infected arm. Irrelevant data. Pain was information, nothing more. His feet found purchase on oil-stained ground as he moved between shadows, using abandoned vehicles as cover.
Twenty yards to the triggered trap. Nick controlled his breathing, forcing his fever-weakened muscles into compliance. The crossbow felt impossibly heavy in his grip. He braced it against a rusted car hood, steadying his aim through pure willpower.
Movement flickered between two derelict buses. Nick became part of the darkness, every hunter instinct screaming. The figure emerged, still moving with dancer’s grace despite the crossbow bolt protruding from its side. One of his perimeter traps had found its mark. Center mass. The bolt should have dropped a human instantly—lung shot, possibly nicking the heart.
The target paused, head tilting as it scented the air. Tall, lean silhouette against dying light. No steam from its breath in the April night chill. No labored breathing from the injury. Its movements were too fluid, too smooth for something that should be bleeding out.
It reached down, fingers wrapping around the bolt’s shaft and extracted the projectile from its torso. No cry of pain. No stumble or weakness. It examined the bloodied tip with academic interest, like a scientist studying an interesting specimen.
Monster.
The word echoed in Nick’s mind with religious certainty. Four months of surveillance had confirmed what his hunter training screamed—this was the thing that moved through homelesscamps like death wearing kindness. Distributing blankets and supplies while hunting the vulnerable. Playing with its food.
Nick squeezed the trigger. The crossbow kicked against his palm, bolt whistling through darkness toward center mass. Three seconds to reload. His muscles operated on automatic—grab, notch, raise—movements drilled into him through thousands of repetitions in Society training facilities.
