Page 198 of Villainous Intent

We landed hard on the rooftop helipad, my knees buckling as Dread finally released me. I stumbled forward, barely catching myself before I fell.

“Nowhere to run now,” Dread said, stalking toward me as I backed away. “No more Heroes.” He laughed. “Well, no more Villains to save you.”

Dread moved fast. One moment he was several feet away, then he was giving me a vicious shove, sending me sprawling onto my back.

He pulled the knife out of his jacket once more and brought it up. I screamed at the searing pain as it plunged deep into my shoulder, sliding between muscle and bone, pinning me to the roof. Before I could even try to breathe through the agony, his boot pressed down on my throat. Dread’s eyes glowed brighter with excitement as he looked down at me, savoring my helplessness.

I clawed desperately at his boot with my one good hand, my fingers scrabbling uselessly against it. The pressure increased gradually. He wanted me to feel every second of my death approaching. My lungs burned for air as my windpipe began to collapse under the pressure.

As the edges of my vision darkened, I knew what was coming, any moment now, he would apply that final, crushing force. My windpipe would collapse, or my neck would snap. Either way, this rooftop would be where I died.

As the darkness crept in and consciousness began to slip away, I thought I saw movement behind Dread, a darker shape among the shadows. A hallucination, I decided. My oxygen-deprived brain conjuring one last desperate hope before the end.

The pressure on my throat increased.

I couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t move…

Dread’s weight lifted as his body jerked backward and I gasped, sucking in precious air as my vision cleared enough to see the impossible.

Cipher stood there, his arm plunged straight through Dread’s back.

Blood-soaked and swaying on his feet, Cipher looked like death incarnate, a walking corpse animated by rage. His silver eyes burned with an unholy light as he twisted his arm within Dread’s chest cavity.

Dread made a wet, gurgling sound and with a vicious yank, Cipher tore his hand free, bringing something dark with it.

Dread’s heart.

Dread’s shadows disappeared as his body crumpled to the rooftop beside me, eyes wide with disbelief as Cipher crushed the heart in his fist. Dread’s mouth opened and closed silently, before his eyes glazed over.

The monster who’d hunted me was gone.

I looked away as Cipher took his head. I’d seen him take Ash’s and I didn’t need to see him do it again. Only when Cipher screamed in rage did I look back just in time to see him launch the head across the Crucible. Then he kicked Dread’s body away, sending it tumbling across the rooftop before he dropped hard to his knees beside me. His movements were jerky and uncoordinated while blood still streamed from the holes in his chest and abdomen, but his eyes were clear and focused as they scanned my body.

“Annie,” he whispered, hands hovering over me. His gaze stopped at the knife still embedded in my shoulder. “Don’t move. Please don’t move.” His fingers trembled as they gently probed around the wound, careful not to disturb the blade.

“The knife’s too close to your subclavian artery.” His voice cracked. “If it shifts even a millimeter...”

I stared up at him, unable to process what I was seeing. Blood covered his suit. The wounds that should have killed him were still there, still bleeding.

“You were dead,” I whispered, my voice broken and hoarse from Dread’s boot crushing my throat. “I watched you die.”

His mouth twitched into something resembling a smile, though pain twisted it into a grimace. “I’m harder to kill than that.”

He reached for me, his blood-covered hand trembling as he gently touched my face. His fingers left warm streaks against my skin, and I couldn’t tell whose blood it was anymore—his or mine or Dread’s. Probably all three.

“Did you give him my name?” The words scraped past my injured throat, barely audible.

Cipher’s eyes widened, his hand freezing against my cheek. “I didn’t know it was you. I swear to god, I didn’t know you were the Warden. I would never⁠—“

He didn’t deny it. He’d actually done it. Given my name to a monster.

“You did.”

The confirmation was written all over his face. “I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I⁠—”

The man I’d trusted, the man I’d let touch me, kiss me, he’d handed me to a monster. Even unknowingly, he’d signed my death warrant.