Page 104 of The Collector
Uncle San drove. Raven couldn't take his eyes off the blinking green dot on his phone. As long as it pulsed, he had hope. Hope she was alive. Hope he could bring her home.
"I'm sorry we didn't get you to the safe house before all this went down, Stoker," Raven said.
Stoker shifted in the seat behind him. "Don't worry about me right now. I know you don't want to hear this, but being here with you—in this moment, on King's business—it's healing me more than any bed rest ever could. I'm just sorry it's under these circumstances. Sorry, your girl's missing."
Raven's jaw tightened. "Could be the Stallions—Could be your brother. At this point, I'm as in the dark as you are. No ransom, no message. I think that's what scares me the most."
Stoker turned to him, eyes narrowing. "You think this might be for some sort of retribution?"
Raven nodded, thumb hovering over the screen. "Yeah. It's possible they took her to make a point."
Uncle San's voice cut through the silence as he eased the car past the rusted gates of Holy Cross Cemetery. "We're here. Time to find out. Everybody packing?"
The gravel crunched beneath the tires like bone. The cemetery sprawled ahead—rows of headstones, mausoleums, it felt too still, hidden in the grayness of the looming thunderstorms in the sky. Raven hoped it wasn't a sign of what was to come. Raindrops landed on the windshield as they pulled up to an old mausoleum that hadn't been cared for properly over the years. The green dot blinked forty feet from the car now behind the weathered wood door.
This was it.
No more waiting. No more guessing. No more blinking dots on a screen.
Time to get her back—dead or alive.
Chapter 28
Mynx
Mynx blinked, fighting to surface from the heavy layers of sleep that clung to her like wet cloth. Her body begged her to stay under—stay numb, stay quiet—but something was wrong. The air buzzed. Not with light or sound, but vibration. A low, mechanical hum that wrapped around her like static. Familiar. Wrong.
Her arms ached. A deep, grinding pain that pulled at her shoulder sockets, they'd been stretched past their limits. She tried to move, but the effort sent a jolt through her spine. Restraints. Tight. Unforgiving.
And then—crying. Mynx tried to blink, trying to see past the black velvet that surrounded her.
The crying continued as a soft, broken sound, like someone familiar. It came from somewhere close. Too close.
She opened her eyes fully now, the world swimming into focus in fractured pieces—concrete walls, dim light, the metallic scent of blood and bleach.
She wasn't alone. And she wasn't free. The shadows along the edge of her vision finally started to ebb back. She blinked.
Cyndi was beside her, hung from the same type of restraints she was.
"Cyndi—," Mynx said, her voice grinding against her vocal cords like sandpaper. She was thirsty. Her mouth was thick, with dried saliva. How long had she been out?
Two faces turned to the sound of her voice. Cyndi's and Stoker's. What was he doing tattooing her? Cyndi's eyes were glassy, unfocused. Tears streaked her cheeks; they streamed down to the leather strap in her mouth. She didn't move. Just stared at Mynx like she was the last familiar thing in a world gone sideways.
"Morning, sunshine," he said, almost tenderly. "Didn't think you'd wake up for this part."
"What are you doing?" Mynx rasped, each word a splinter.
"Creating a work of art, something to help the world remember me by when I'm gone." He stood and walked to a table along the back wall of the room. And picked up something. Walking back her way.
Mynx struggled against her restraints.
"I'm not ready for you yet, Mynx. You need to go back to sleep. There's nothing you can do for me or her. However, if you want to say goodbye to her, now would be the perfect time to do so. The next time you wake up, you'll be in her position, and she will be long gone from this world."
Mynx's breath hitched. Her body was screaming, but her eyes locked onto Cyndi—her slack posture, the way her fingers twitched like she was trying to hold on to something invisible. The ink on her back was still wet, glistening like a wound.
"No," Mynx whispered. It came out broken. "You don't get to decide that."
Stoker didn't look up. He pulled the cap off the needle in his hand and slid it into her arm. "I already have. And there is absolutely nothing you or anyone else can do about it. Butterfly."
