Chapter 62 Love Hurts

Crow vanished in a scatter of black feathers, and though the room emptied, his voice lingered as if the air itself carried it. “Estrella Alta, I will be waiting there.” The words gnawed at me like a command I didn’t want to follow but couldn’t resist.

I changed quickly, forcing myself into ritual. The suit was familiar against my skin, the weight of the bonnet mask grounding me, the porcelain mask hiding whatever weakness my face betrayed. I fixed the hat in place, checked my cards, slid grenades into my pockets, and this time added a gun to the mix. My grappling hook was gone, and broken, so I have to work with what I have.

Several blocks away I found a cab, slipping into the back seat like just another passenger. The driver barely looked at me until I pressed the muzzle against the back of his head and told him where to go. He laughed, mistaking it for a sick prank, and reached under the console to draw a hidden sidearm. His bullet passed through me harmlessly, the round whining against the metal frame. That was when his laughter died. His hands shook as he gripped the wheel, sweat running down his temple.

“Drive,” I said flatly. “It’s going to be a long night.”

He didn’t argue after that. The cab rolled through the city, dusk painting everything in long shadows. I watched the skyline shift, Estrella Alta looming closer, its glass façade glinting like a stage prepared just for me.

“Call the Vanguard for me, would you? Tell them Eclipse is going to murder someone tonight.”

When the car finally stopped, I slipped out without a word, leaving the driver pale and trembling behind me. I phased through the outer wall of the building and entered the lobby unnoticed, moving directly to the elevators. My finger hovered briefly over the numbers before I punched them in. The ride was silent, no one brave or foolish enough to share the confined space with me.

The doors opened with a soft chime. I stepped into the floor where Crow had last met me and Silver. The scene felt staged, deliberate, every detail sharpened to unsettle me. Crow sat at a table as if he owned the place, eating with slow, deliberate bites, utterly at ease. Across from him, Onyx was bound in thick ropes, her dark hair hanging limp over his face, body straining against bonds that bit into him.

Crow looked up, calm and unhurried, his voice smooth as polished glass. “Don’t do anything drastic,” he said, wiping the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “You’ll ruin my meal.”

My eyes darted to the ropes, to the way Onyx slumped forward. Her chest rose shallowly, faint but steady. “Onyx,” I asked, voice catching despite myself, “are you okay? Where’s Silver?”

Her head stirred, hair brushing away to reveal a weak grin. “Took you long enough, Nick.” Her voice rasped, but the sarcasm clung to it stubbornly. “As for Silver… she’s asleep.”

“Not anymore,” Crow interrupted smoothly. He snapped his fingers, and like a scene flipped in a theater reel, Onyx was gone. In her place sat Silver, her silver hair spilling over her shoulders, eyes wide with sudden wakefulness. She gasped, frightened, scanning the room until her gaze locked on me.

“You’re a telepath,” I muttered. The words carried more accusation than certainty.

“He’s not,” Silver answered quickly, fear curling around her voice. “Nick… he’s an empath.”

Crow leaned back in his chair, smugness dripping from every syllable. “Empath is only the start. Umbrakinetic-8. Empath-5. Hypnosis-2. Of course, the SRC misfiled me. They think I’m a Shifter because I can make so-believable copies of other people. But they’re not copies, Nicholas.” He gestured lazily, feathers swirling out of the air.

When the storm cleared, my mother stood beside him, her expression weary and pleading. “Please, Crow, don’t do this. My son deserves the truth, but not like this.”

Her voice was like a hook in my chest, dragging every buried memory with it. I reached forward instinctively, then she burst apart into feathers, scattering into nothingness.

Crow’s eyes lingered on me, studying, savoring. “Let’s get the show on the road, shall we?” He stood, napkin folded neatly onto the table as if this were just another dinner party. He stepped to Silver, dragging her chair across the floor with an awful scrape until she sat turned toward me.

I felt my fingers twitch against the deck of cards hidden beneath my sleeve. Every instinct screamed to fling one, to cut him down before another word could leave his mouth. But nothing came. My hand froze mid-thought, as if held by invisible threads. My jaw clenched.

That fucking Hypnosis-2. A lie. Had to be. He made it sound so small, so harmless, but I knew better. I remembered Seamark’s Captain, how the moment stretched unnaturally, how my gun rose without my own will. I remembered the gunshot. The mess.

And now Silver sat across from me, eyes wide, while Crow smiled as though the whole scene was a script written by his hand.

Crow leaned casually against the desk, one ankle crossed over the other, as though this was a theater he’d staged and Silver and I were the unwitting actors. His hand made a small gesture, like a conductor cueing the next note. “Tell him, dear,” he coaxed, voice silken. “Tell him what you told me.”

Silver’s face twisted with shame, tears streaking down her cheeks as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Nick. I didn’t mean to do it.”

My stomach tightened. “What do you mean?”

Her words tumbled out, raw and fractured. “It’s all my fault, please… please don’t leave me alone. I… I didn’t mean to do it.”

Crow’s smile stretched wider, almost pitying. “Empaths are very emotional, very obsessive creatures. They latch onto a single idea, a single thread of meaning, and grip it until their entire world warps around it. Sometimes, they even turn into the shapes of their most ideal person. And to her?” He glanced at Silver like she was a specimen in a jar. “Guess who that is.”

Silver’s voice broke again. “I didn’t mean to do it. I love you.”

The words cut sharper than any blade. For a moment, I wanted to believe, to let them carry me, but Crow was circling me like a vulture.

“That is true,” he said, as though confirming some great cosmic truth. “But Eclipse, the real question is… do you feel the same about her?”

The answer should have come easily, but it didn’t. Doubt gnawed at the back of my mind. Crow wasn’t just twisting Silver; he was twisting me. My hands curled into fists. Silver and Onyx weren’t my enemies. They were my allies. My only allies. I wouldn’t let him make me believe otherwise.

“So that’s your angle,” I said sharply. “You’re trying to drive a wedge.”

Crow chuckled, the sound dismissive. “If you think my angle is to sow discord between you, then you are sorely mistaken. All I want to do is teach you. Enlighten you.” He leaned closer, the feathers around him whispering with his movements. “The world is not about loyalty or love or some illusion of belonging. It is about use. People use and get used. That is the cycle, and the only difference lies in the degree of awareness.”

He turned to Silver again. “Tell me, is Eclipse’s feeling of belonging and him cherishing you an artificial phenomenon?”

Silver’s eyes burned with guilt. “Yes.”

“Does Eclipse killing Royal have something to do with your own feelings?”

She swallowed hard, trembling. “Yes.”

Crow’s questions came like a steady hammer, and every time she answered, it was the same word, the same blow, the same yes. I wanted to scream at her to stop, to fight it, to resist, but the sound never made it past my lips.

Crow’s eyes gleamed with triumph as he stepped behind me. His voice was low, intimate, and brushing against my ear. “Empaths exist to express an emotion and have it reciprocated in full. Her anger becomes your anger, and her love becomes your love. This is what’s going to happen, Eclipse. This will be your final test. Take your free will back, and tell me what you want to do with it. Satisfy me, and I will support any decision you make, whether you want to stay with me or not.”

His hand pressed firmly against my back, a mockery of reassurance. “I’ve got your back.”

I froze. My body was rigid, but inside I was trembling. Because the truth hit me harder than his words… I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.

I asked, my voice cutting through the tension, “And how do I know any of this is true, and that you’re not just manipulating—”

He cut me off with that smooth, dismissive cadence of his. “Of course I’m manipulating you. That’s what I do. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. She’s been saying nothing but the truth, because she has no choice. Denying her feelings would hurt her just as much as a blade running through her flesh.”

My jaw tightened. “Let me talk to my mom.”

For the first time, Crow faltered. His eyes flickered, the corners of his mouth twitching as though I’d broken through something he hadn’t prepared for. But he relented. The air thickened with shadows, and there she was. My mother. Nicole.

She appeared in front of me, fragile and yet radiant in her familiar way. My hands trembled as I reached out, desperate to touch her, but my fingers passed right through, brushing only cold mist and fog. My heart dropped into my stomach.

Her voice was soft, soothing in a way I hadn’t heard in years. “Everything is going to be fine, Nick. You only need to take this single leap.”

I didn’t know what leap she meant. My breathing grew ragged, my fingers brushing my coat for something, anything, that would anchor me. My hand found a piece of card. I pulled it out, and of all things, it was an ace of hearts.

I stared at it, the edges biting into my trembling fingers, and thought of the past month. Despite the blood, the fights, the near-deaths, they had been the best days of my life. Tears blurred my vision, hot rivers running down my face.

Silver’s voice broke through, shaky and torn with guilt. “I-it’s going to be fine, Nick. J-just r-remember… y-you’re a bad guy… but I-I’m the worse. Y-you shouldn’t remember me fondly, p-please.”

Her tears matched mine, falling as her whole body shook. My chest ached, clenching painfully as if someone had wrapped chains around my ribs. I remembered her touch. Her playful kisses. The sweet words whispered when no one else could hear them. And in that instant, I broke free of the haze Crow had wrapped around me.

“No,” I muttered. My hand slipped beneath my coat, and I drew my gun with a clarity that felt like rebellion itself. Without hesitation, I aimed straight at Crow and pulled the trigger.

The gun roared, a hail of thunder echoing in the room. Bullet holes tore across his chest, each impact snapping his body back. But there was no blood. No sign of weakness. He simply straightened, eyes heavy with disappointment.

“I suppose,” he said, his tone colder now, “allowing you to have dialogue with the real Bunny was a mistake. But still… I admire your resolve.”

In a burst of dark feathers, Crow vanished, reappearing in a blink beside Silver. My cards slipped between my fingers, sharp and ready, and I hurled them in a desperate barrage. But before they could strike, my mother’s form melted into a black silhouette, its shadowy arms wrapping around me. The embrace was suffocating, pinning me in place.

Her voice whispered, fading like smoke, “Please, Nick, don’t do this to yourself.”

I stared at Silver, desperately reaching for her.

“Take care of Nick for me, Onyx.”

I struggled, screaming for her, but Crow only extended his hand and pressed his palm against the crown of Silver’s head. She convulsed, her whole body trembling violently as though his touch alone had opened some hidden wound. Her shadow screamed, tearing away from her body in ragged streams of black.

Crow’s nose and eyes bled as he bore down with the pressure, his grin twitching from the strain. He pulled something intangible from her, invisible to me except for the raw anguish pouring out of her throat. And then, with a cruel certainty, he clenched his fist and crushed it between his fingers.

The air went dead, heavy with the kind of emptiness that kills sound itself. Silver’s once-bright hair dimmed, darkening strand by strand until it was black. Her body slumped against the ropes.

The silhouette behind me vanished, dissipating like smoke into nothing. My knees hit the ground hard, and I scrambled forward, pulling her into my arms, my tears dripping onto her pale, unmoving face.

“Silver, Silver, are you there? Hey, wake up!” My voice cracked, desperate. “Hey! Don’t do this to me!”

Her lips trembled, and her eyes opened slowly, but they weren’t Silver’s eyes anymore. They were darker, heavier, filled with grief. Onyx looked at me, her cheeks wet with her own tears.

Her voice was barely above a whisper, breaking as she spoke. “Nick… she’s not here anymore.”

Her face twisted in sorrow, and she choked on the words. “My sister’s gone.”