Page 201 of Villainous Intent

“You’re wrong. You’ve always been wrong about that. I told you everyone looks at you, but I meant me.”

“I’ve been watching you for years, Annie. Obsessing over the quiet, untouchable Keeper standing at Havoc’s side. Calculating exactly what it would take to drag you into the dark and make you mine.” He pressed his forehead against mine, his eyes looking feverish. “I see you. I have always seen you.”

My heart twisted painfully in my chest. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so badly it hurt.

“That doesn’t change what you did,” I whispered.

“No,” he agreed. “It doesn’t.”

The distant wail of sirens cut through the night air. The emergency response team was getting closer. Cipher’s head turned slightly toward the sound, his body tensing.

“I have to go.” He gently lowered my hand, placing it carefully at my side. “I can’t be here. I can’t explain to them how—” He shook his head. “I need to take the Hammer and go.”

“You’re leaving me?” My voice broke, fresh tears spilling down my face. “Like this?”

Cipher hesitated, his eyes moving from my face to the knife still embedded in my shoulder.

“They’ll help you. They’re coming for you.”

The sirens grew louder, emergency lights flashing in the distance. We had seconds, not minutes.

Cipher leaned forward. His face hovered above mine, searching my features as if memorizing them. Then he closed the distance between us, pressing his lips to mine.

The kiss was soft, featherlight.

It was a goodbye kiss.

He pulled away and then he was gone, the dark shape of his body silhouetted against the night sky. In seconds, he was nothing but a shadow against the stars, disappearing into the darkness as the distant whine of emergency response aircraft grew louder.

I lay bleeding on the rooftop, alone with the corpse of one Villain and the absence of another.

EPILOGUE

ANNIE

The hospital window framed a perfect rectangle of sky, a single cloud drifting lazily across my field of vision. I watched it change shape, stretching and thinning as the wind carried it along. Something about its slow transformation felt important, meaningful somehow, though I couldn’t articulate why.

My shoulder throbbed beneath the bandages, a dull ache that the painkillers couldn’t quite erase. The doctors had removed Dread’s knife, repaired the tissue damage, and assured me there would be no permanent physical impairment. Just another scar to add to my collection. The bruises around my throat had faded from angry purple to a sickly yellow-green and my broken arm was now in a cast.

Time seemed to move strangely in this sterile room. Minutes stretched into hours as I stared at the sky, then suddenly whole chunks of the day would vanish, leaving me disoriented and confused. The doctors said it was normal after what I’d been through. Dread’s attack had affected my mind as much as my body. Some kind of psychic residue from his powers that even my broken abilities couldn’t stop.

I didn’t tell them that it felt more like my brain was trying to protect itself, shutting down rather than processing everything that had happened on that rooftop. Everything Cipher had said. Everything he’d done.

The cloud outside shifted again, stretching thin until it disappeared completely. I found myself wondering where it had gone, oddly concerned about its fate.

“Annie?”

Havoc’s voice pulled me back to the room. I blinked, turning away from the window to find him standing beside my bed. How long had he been there? I hadn’t heard him come in.

“Sorry,” I murmured, my voice still raspy from the damage to my throat. “I was somewhere else.”

Havoc sat in the chair beside my bed. “The doctors said the episodes will pass soon.”

I nodded, trying to focus on his face, but my thoughts kept drifting away like that cloud. There one moment, gone the next.

“Annie,” Havoc said, leaning forward slightly, “I need to leave for a little while, but I’ll be back soon.”

I blinked at him, a strange fog settling over my thoughts. Had he been speaking this whole time? I couldn’t remember what he’d said before this moment, though there was an empty coffee cup on the side table that hadn’t been there when I first woke up. How long had he been sitting there?