CHAPTER 116: THE MARK OF THE SERPENT

Blake noticed. His gaze softened just slightly, like he was almost amused. "Relax. If I wanted to hurt you, you wouldn’t have made it past the porch."

That was not exactly comforting.

"Then... why am I here?" I asked, forcing my voice to stay steady.

He motioned toward the hallway and started walking deeper into the house. I didn’t want to follow, but my feet moved anyway. The air smelled stale, like someone who barely remembered to eat.

When we got in, they were more screens. I realized they weren’t just random camera feeds. They were familiar. One showed the front gates of Blackwell Academy.

Another, a convenience store near my block. And then, my stomach dropped....another was of the hospital entrance. The place where Liam and my mom was.

My hand curled tight around the strap of my bag. "You’ve been... watching us?"

Blake finally sat down, leaning back in his chair with a sigh, like he’d been waiting for this moment. "Not just you. Them." He tapped a finger against one of the screens. "The people who marked you."

Is he talking about the people with the tattoo?

"What do you know about them?"

Blake looked at me for a long moment. Then he leaned forward. "Enough to tell you this....whatever you think you’ve stumbled into? You’re in deeper than you realize. And if you keep letting Dominic drag you around like a lovesick puppy, they’ll notice more. They always notice."

I flinched. "Leave Dominic out of this."

That was the first time his expression changed. "You don’t get it, do you? He’s already in it. The question is whether he knows it."

"What are you saying?"

"I’m saying, Ash, that sometimes the person holding your hand... is the same one leading you straight into the trap."

His eyes flicked toward the monitors again, then back to me. "Ash, I’m not your enemy. If I was, you wouldn’t be standing here. Trust me on that much."

The problem was... I didn’t know if I could.

Still, I lowered myself into the chair. My knees bounced uncontrollably.

"You’ve met them already, haven’t you?" he asked.

I blinked. "Met who?"

"The ones with the marks." His gaze dropped briefly to his arm, as if he could see through his sleeve. "The ink isn’t just decoration. It’s a language. A warning. A promise. Depends on who’s wearing it."

I gripped the edge of the chair. "And you... you used to be one of them."

His jaw tightened.

Instead, he leaned back slowly, like he was deciding how much truth I could handle. "Used to be," he repeated. "And if you’re smart, Ash, you’ll stay the hell away before it’s too late."

"If you already knew this much about me," I said, my voice shaking but louder than I expected, "then why do you keep pretending in school? You literally told me today you didn’t want to interfere." I swallowed hard. "And you already have."

Blake didn’t move.

"I still don’t trust you, sir," I blurted. My fists clenched. "Are you even a real teacher? Or is that just another mask you wear?"

He didn’t say anything. He just went quiet.

"What did Dominic and his friends do to the tattoo people? Why are they following me?" My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated how desperate I sounded. "What’s the name of the group? Who exactly are they?"

I pushed away from the table, standing so fast my chair scraped against the floor. My chest was heaving. "Please! I need the answers. All of them. Right now."

Blake let out a long sigh, dragging a hand down his face like he was frustrated. He leaned against the wall.

"Fine," he said at last. "You want the truth? I’ll tell you everything."

"Thank you." I whispered.

"They call themselves The Coil."

My stomach tightened. "The Coil? Why that name?"

Blake’s jaw flexed. "Because once they’re around you..." He tapped on the screen. "You don’t get out."

My eyes twitched. "Out of what?"

He leaned forward just enough that the shadows cut half his face. "Out of them. Doesn’t matter how fast you run or how clever you are....you don’t escape."

"That’s unsettling," I frowned.

Blake nodded. "They’ve been here longer than you think."

"How long?"

He didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked to the faint coil tattoo at his wrist. "Long enough to bury their roots in every corner of Estrella. They began using serpents...real venomous snakes in their rituals, letting the bite initiates to "mark" them."

My eyes widened immediately. "That’s fucked up."

"Those who survived carried the scars as proof of loyalty. Over time, tattoos of serpents replaced the actual snakes, but the meaning stayed: once marked, you belonged to the Coil. "

"What are they? A gang? A cult? A mafia group?"

"All. Neither." He let out a humorless laugh. "Once, they made smugglers rich. Then they made survivors bleed. They operate in shadows but pull strings everywhere politics, police, even schools."

I glanced at his wrist again, at the faint ink of his tattoo. The coiled serpent.

"And the one who runs them?" I asked.

Blake let out a humorless laugh. "You mean him." His eyes flicked to the corner of the ceiling, as if the shadows themselves might be listening. "Silas Veyne."

The name itself gave me goosebumps.

"No one’s seen his face in years. Some say he’s scarred beyond recognition, others... that he isn’t entirely human anymore. That venom runs through his blood."

"That’s impossible." I started to laugh, but it died halfway out of my throat. He didn’t look like he was joking.

"Then what do they want from me, or Dominic? Why did someone try to kill Liam?" I looked to curious.

Blake didn’t answer right away. Instead, he pushed away from the monitors and gestured. "Come see this."

I hesitated before standing. My legs felt weak, but I followed him across the room. He stopped in front of a tall whiteboard leaned against the wall. He bent down and flipped it over.

My stomach dropped.

Pinned in the middle was a yellowing newspaper clipping. Around it, taped photographs...faces I recognized instantly. Dominic and his friends.

Each connected with jagged red string that looked more like veins than rope.

The headline screamed out at me in bold:

WOMAN LEFT FOR DEAD ON ESTRELLA HIGHWAY — POLICE STILL INVESTIGATING

My heart stuttered.

"Woah..." My voice shook as I stepped closer, my eyes kept darting over the board. "What... what exactly did they do?"

Blake’s eyes stayed hard. "Allegedly

. That’s the word you use when you can’t prove anything... yet." He reached over and handed me a folded copy of the article.

The ink was faded, but the words burned into me as I read. A woman, barely thirty, had just flown back into the country after years abroad. On her way home from the airport, she was attacked. Beaten. Assaulted. Left to die on the roadside until an old man stopped and called for help.

I remembered it. God, I remembered it. The whole city had buzzed about it for weeks. June kept cursing out whoever could be sick enough to do something like that. Marcus also kept swearing he’d find them and break their legs if he ever knew. Everyone had felt... helpless and angry.

I blinked up at him. "Who did it. The Coil?"

His jaw twitched. "No. Worse. Your so-called Glass Circle boys." He jabbed a finger toward the photos.

My heart stopped.

"Rich brats from Blackwell Academy who think the world is theirs to break. Sons of investors, heirs of politicians. They did all that to her because she was alone. Because no one would fight back."

My hands shook so hard the newspaper slipped through my fingers and fluttered to the floor.

My throat closed up. "No... Dominic wouldn’t... he..."

The words caught halfway.

But even as I said it, the memory hit..... they was his hand fisted in my hair today, the growl in his throat, the way he’d ordered me to my knees like he could’ve broken me if I refused.

My chest tightened. That was different, right? That was private. That was... wasn’t it?

I shook my head. "He’s not like that," I repeated, quieter this time, like maybe if I kept saying it, I’d believe it.

My throat tightened.

My stomach flipped so violently I thought I’d throw up.

"Maybe not Dominic." Blake crouched to pick up the newspaper, and glanced at me. "But the rest? They are in his circle. They’re all childhood friends. And you’d be a fool to think he doesn’t know more than he says."

Would Dominic really keep something this sick from me? Pretend innocence while sitting on secrets that could ruin us both? He said he loved me. He said he’d protect me. But... what if this was what he was protecting me from?

And Blake’s words weren’t the first.

The guy who stabbed Liam had whispered about a secret that night. The anonymous caller had pressed me to dig, to expose the truth. And now Blake.....terrifying Blake was pointing at the same thing.

Three different people. Three warnings. They couldn’t all be lying... right?

Blake’s gaze darkened. "And that’s not even the crazy part."

My chest tightened again. "What do you mean?"

He leaned closer. "The woman who was attacked that night... the one left to die on the roadside?"

I nodded immediately. "Yeah?"

He sighed. "She was the niece of Silas Veyne."