Chapter 124 Less Lonely

“Fuck.”

That was Thirdhand’s last word.

Bunny’s grappling line pulled taut, the winch shrieking as it reeled him in. The hook tore deeper through meat and bone, dragging him across the broken floor. He didn’t even get to scream again before Bunny surged forward, the bike’s treads grinding over his ribs.

The sound was exquisite. It was a wet, snapping crunch followed by the soft, hollow collapse of something vital. Bones breaking, lungs crushed, the muffled pop of organs collapsing under pressure. It was music to my ears. I wasn’t sure why I enjoyed it so much until I heard the giggle that wasn’t mine.

“Woohoo~! Murder!” Onyx sang through my head, her tone bright. “This is so fun!”

Ah, right. That explained it. I’d been feeling her emotions bleed into mine again from the shared rush of violence and that sweet cocktail of adrenaline and cruelty. Thirdhand was still breathing, barely. His psychic signature flickered weakly, like a dying signal. He was trying to play dead.

“Pathetic.”

I walked over, each step deliberate. He twitched when my shadow fell across him. I could’ve left him there. I could’ve been merciful.

But mercy was a currency I’d long since spent.

I pressed my boot down on his chest, hard, and phased my leg through him. The transition was smooth, like pushing through cold mud. Then I sank in my intangibility to him. His body slipped down, sinking halfway into the concrete, bones folding like clay as the solid ground accepted him. I withdrew, letting the floor seal around what was left of him and bury him alive.

“Is that necessary?” Bunny asked, his voice dry but faintly disturbed.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “He’d have played dead, and I don’t like repeats.”

I brushed dust from my sleeve and turned toward the elevator. Its doors were still open, waiting like a mouth that wanted to swallow me whole. I stepped inside and pressed the button for the tenth floor. The door slid shut with a calm hiss.

The lift began to rise, the mechanical hum a low, rhythmic pulse beneath my boots.

Halfway up, it stopped.

“Floor six.”

The lights flickered once, twice, and then the intercom crackled alive.

I frowned. “If you think you scare me, Dullahan, give it up. I’m only interested in Mrs. Mind.”

No answer. Just static.

Then Bunny’s voice broke through the channel, sharp with panic. “Shit! Nick, someone’s hacking my systems… ugh… Remember the third button? I think I know what it is. It’s a self-destruct button. I need to go. I might be able to outrun her or plug myself into a supercomputer, but I have to go—”

The rest of his sentence vanished into a burst of feedback.

His wheels screeched, and I felt the shift in the air pressure as his dimensional drive activated. Bunny flickered, then blinked out of existence, reappearing somewhere outside the building. His empathic echo hit me like a wave. It was pure, unfiltered fear.

Finally, he was gone.

I exhaled slowly, staring at the closed elevator doors. The hum of the machinery above was dead now. All I could hear was the faint buzz of the building’s failing power grid.

“I guess I have to do this on my own.”

A soft, disembodied chuckle rolled through the speaker system, a voice smooth and feminine, rich with disappointment.

“Eclipse…” Dullahan’s tone coiled around my name like silk over steel. “You’ve disappointed me greatly.”

I sighed, leaning against the wall, hands in my pockets. “Hey,” I began, my voice echoing faintly in the confined space. “Don’t get the wrong idea… I like you, really. I like your style, your aesthetic in bikes, and your lack of impulse control. I know one when I see one.”

There was a faint hiss of feedback… she wasn’t answering, but she was there.

I smirked and went on. “Remember the time you threw Lovelies in the pool after she shapeshifted into your appearance? Yeah, that really got to me… in a good way.”

“Look,” Onyx’s voice purred over my ears, intrusive as always, “our little introvert is growing.”

Silver followed, her tone soft, teasing, “Oh, Nick, you sure have a type.”

The speaker above me remained silent, the kind of silence that filled the air like a held breath.

I tilted my head. “I know when a girl doesn’t like me,” I said, almost laughing at myself. “So, I guess we gotta fight?”

That got Onyx’s attention. “Yeah! Kill her!” she cheered, her delight vibrating through the link like a sadistic drumbeat.

Silver sighed, disappointment audible even through the static. “I actually kind of like her.”

“Do you… like me?” Dullahan’s voice came through, soft, quiet, and completely disarming.

Onyx choked. “What the fuck is this!?”

Her confusion made me grin. I hadn’t felt like this in ages… that strange tightness in the chest, that weightless uncertainty of saying something honest for once. I thought about the question, the implication, and the dangerous sincerity buried beneath the fight we were about to have.

“Yeah. I like you.”

Onyx immediately exploded. “As a friend, right? Right!?”

Silver sounded proud, maybe even a little sentimental. “Our Nick is growing. He can now express his feelings so freely, even to people he barely knows. I’m jealous.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped. The elevator felt smaller somehow, warmer, even with the heavy static whispering in my ears.

Then Dullahan spoke again, softer this time, and something in her tone shifted. “I don’t have love for the Ten, Eclipse,” she said. “Never did. I was only with them to hide from my own demons… and the people hunting me. I have no business with them anymore.”

The elevator doors opened with a hiss of escaping air. A headless woman stood waiting, her posture sharp in a black leather jacket that creaked softly when she moved.

“Dullahan.”

Her presence carried that same cold weight it always had, a quiet authority that filled the space before she even spoke.

“Let me help you finish what you started,” she said, voice steady and grounded. “I have old debts to pay with Mrs. Mind.”

For a second, I just looked at her. The tone was right. The rhythm was right. But there was something about her stance, like someone playing a role they’d memorized phonetically. My Empathy rating picked up nothing. No echoes, no undercurrents. Just… blank air.

Still, I smiled. “Sure,” I said, stepping closer.

Then I grabbed her by the chest and plucked her heart out.

She froze mid-motion, as if confused by the very act of her heart being plucked out. I watched the realization settle in her mind, her body trembling, along with her powers.

“B-but… how?”

Her voice wavered now, losing its strength. She staggered backward, and something shifted under her skin, muscles rolling the wrong way, and bone sliding like wet clay. The seams of her body began to betray her; the black jacket rippled as her frame compacted, shrinking, twisting. Flesh groaned. Hair changed shade in uneven patches, dark giving way to blonde in blotches that looked like bruises blooming too fast.

When it stopped, the woman before me wasn’t Dullahan anymore.

She was middle-aged, weary, and real!

It was Lovelies, her true face peeled out of the disguise like something exhaled.

“I… I perfectly copied her mannerisms…” she rasped. “She’s just a woman! How did you—”

“You didn’t,” I said.

I turned the heart in my hand, examining it like a stone I’d found on the roadside. It pulsed once. Twice. Then stopped.

“I’ve dealt with better manipulators than you,” I went on. “Yours was a good act, but you don’t know subtlety. You wanted to be Dullahan, but you forgot what she was. There’s no bike here.  No scent of oil or steel. You oversold the stillness, the poise. And Dullahan… I don’t think she’s the kind of person who really appreciates me. See, it’s that simple.”

Silver’s voice was warm and amused. “Oh, Nick, you could’ve at least played along a little. That was fast.”

“Yeah,” Onyx snorted. “You should’ve toyed with her first. Maybe she’d have tried a different shape. One with more… well, y’know. Meat.”

Lovelies gasped once, maybe trying to say something clever. Nothing came out but a wet sigh. The light faded from her eyes, slow and pale, until there was nothing left but glassy emptiness. I watched her fall, the soft thud of her knees against tile the only punctuation to her death. The heart slipped from my hand and rolled away, leaving a thin, dark smear across the floor.

The elevator’s chime rang again. It was soft and almost polite. I stepped over Lovelies’ body, pressing the tenth floor. The numbers began to climb, one by one.

Silver’s voice was light and teasing. “You know, Nick… somewhere under all that cynicism and blood, there’s a hero waiting to bloom.”

I almost laughed. “A hero? Me?”

“Sure,” she replied. “He’s just buried really, really deep. Under, you know, all that murder.”

Onyx barked a laugh. “Nah, that wasn’t hero work. That was just Eclipse doing what he does best… killing things that think they’re clever.”

Maybe Silver was right. Maybe Onyx was.

Either way, I let them talk and let their banter echo in my head like old songs from a life I barely remembered. It made the ride feel less empty, and made ‘me’ feel a little less lonely.