Chapter 7 · Voices In The Tunnel

“Get your hand off me, Evelyn.”

Carson didn’t just pull away. He wrenched his arm back so hard I nearly slammed into the damp concrete wall. His eyes weren't the eyes of the man I’d dragged through the clinic an hour ago. They were dark. Jagged. Vibrating with a frequency that made the air taste like copper.

“That was her voice!” I snapped. My voice echoed too loud in the narrow throat of the subway tunnel. “That was Maya. How the hell do you know where she is?”

Carson didn’t look at me. He stared at the rusted speaker grill of the old transit system, chest heaving. “It wasn't her. Not really. It’s a lure. A psychic echo. You follow that sound, you're just walking into a meat grinder.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s real!”

I stepped into his space, grabbing the lapel of his coat. He was radiating heat—not human heat, but that simmering, cursed fever of the Rook bloodline. “You knew the name of the Vault. You reacted. Tell me where she is, or I swear to God, I’ll rip this bond open and let the backlash take us both.”

He finally looked down at me.