CHAPTER FOUR- Terms and Threats.

Knox:

It’s dark now, but the street has this strange glow to it, like nothing’s wrong. 

We hadn’t even gotten halfway down the block before I saw them standing there.

Two Ravenites. Not in uniform, nothing flashy. They wore regular clothes, as if they belonged in any other average street, but I’d recognize those stiff movements anywhere. 

One leaned back on a black car parked by the curb. The other had his arms folded across his chest exactly like a prick auditioning for a death sentence.

Then I saw Eli.

He was slumped on the ground, his back pressed to a metal mailbox. Gareth Pa stood beside him, barely holding it together. The look in his eyes said he wasn’t far from falling apart.

Eli wasn’t unconscious, but he was far from okay.

I let go of Ezren’s arm so fast, he stumbled forward. My body moved before I could process anything else.

My steps took me to Eli without a thought. His jaw was clenched. His hands were pressed to his sides, fingers working like they were reacting to pain too big to hide.

And then I saw the veins.

Dark red lines under his skin. They came from his collar, reached his neck and crawled down his arms. 

The color looked like blood trapped under glass. It’s terrifying and goddamn painful.

The Valon was acting up again.

“Eli,” I said, dropping to a knee. 

His mouth moved, but no words followed. His eyes looked vacant, his breathing too quick. His skin was cold but burning under those veins.

I turned my head slowly, standing back up. “Thought I made it clear the last time? Do not use him as a fuckin’ message!”

The Ravenite leaning on the car moved his head slightly. “Always consider it a warning,” he said. “We know you found what’s ours. You don’t get to set the rules anymore. Time isn't by your side, you know that.”

Gareth Pa walked up to me and placed an arm on my shoulder. Probably trying to calm me down, cause I sure as hell could use some killing to do that, but like I said, I don’t do those.

Everything has to be planned first, and tonight wasn’t part of the plan. Eli, or the Valon in his skin, wasn’t part of the goddamn plan.

But he got to be part of the biggest plan after Alaric realized two months ago that he actually witnessed what he shouldn’t have from six years ago with Lior, a brutal mafia execution of a top government official during a Kiss or Kill game they took way too literal.

I didn’t know until recently that Eli had been with Lior that night. To hell with Alaric’s damn secrets. I’m only after one. 

The one behind Lior’s death.

The asshole, Alaric Raveni, had injected Eli with a neurotoxin called Valon.

Time-stamped to kill.

And now Eli’s life hangs in the balance of that sick bastard’s hand and the only way to save him is to find Lior’s drive from six years ago. 

The one that holds all his secrets. The secrets my Cherry died trying to expose. And I couldn’t do a damn thing to protect him.

I took it upon myself to find that drive and hand it over. Because only then will my Cherry’s death mean something to me. If it ever should.

And the only person who could find the drive? Of course, it had to be the jerk himself – Ezren.

I took a glance at him, still standing where I left him. His face hidden behind the black nose mask he picked up in the car on our way here after asking ‘nicely,’ they say. Standing there like the fuckin’ puppet he is. Staring at Eli like he’s seen a ghost.

He’s probably still even here because he doesn’t realize these bastards are from his father’s Blackreach turf. The same Ravenites he’s spent his goddamn life running away from.

I walked over to him. His eyes darted left and right, barely holding mine, like his brain was short-circuiting and couldn’t process who I was anymore. 

Good. I wanted him disoriented, broken in the head. 

He deserved worse because every single thing happening now traced back to him, as I'd like to forever believe. 

Eli’s dying slowly because of him. And i swear, if he dared say he wouldn’t help save him, I’d bury him alive without a second thought.

“You’re lucky I didn’t let them dump you on the curb,” I said, “But maybe that part comes next.”

He swallowed hard. Panic was written across his face. “What’s going on? What... What's wrong with Eli? What does that have to do with me?”

I didn’t respond right away. My eyes moved back to Eli, at his skin pale, veins pulsing like something toxic was spreading underneath. Then turned back to Ezren.

“You’re gonna help me find the drive they want,” I said. “Or I hand you over to the them. And by them, I mean.. the Ravenites.”

His blink was delayed, the pieces probably clicking in his useless brain. “That’s not.. look, there’s things you don’t understand—”

“So that’s a no? You won’t help save your best friend?”

He stared at me long and hard before saying anything. “Jesus Christ! How much did he pay you?” 

“How about you shut your crap and answer the damn question?”

“You answer the damn question!” His voice cracked. “You know whatever’s happening to Eli has nothing to do with the drive. I’m not falling for your bullshit games. I’ve spent years running from Alaric and now you want to drag me back?”

His voice rose but it didn’t matter. The noise coming out of him was panic. The nose mask still covered half his face, so I couldn’t read his expression clearly, but it wasn’t needed. He was clearly angry, scared, and cornered.

I leaned in. Close enough to hear his breathing speed up. My hand moved through his sweaty hair. His glassy eyes met mine when I yanked the mask off and slapped it on his head.

“Correction,” I said. “This isn’t a fuckin’ game. But if you want to treat it like one, fine. Let that mask fall off, you die in my best way possible. How about that?”

His lips parted, like he had something to say. But he held it back.

After everything he's seeing right now, the idiot still think I could be one of Alaric’s tricks to bring him back?

I kept staring at the shaking mask on his head. “Sure you're not blind to the pain your friend’s in right now.” Then I looked right into his dark eyes. “I mean, yeah, I know you're dumb, but those eyes aren't blind... are they?”

His gaze shifted to Eli, then came back to me. “Please... please don’t take me back to him. I’ll do anything to help Eli if it’s got nothing to do with Alaric.”

Good. That was close enough for now.

I turned my head slightly toward the Ravenites. “Tell whoever sent you he got the message.”

The one on the hood gave a faint smile. “That was the plan.”

The second one stepped forward, walking over to Gareth Pa and handing him a small syringe. 

The antidote. 

Then without a word, both of them got into the car and peeled off.

I turned back. Gareth Pa had already opened the syringe. I watched with Ezren as he injected it into Eli’s arm, slow and steady. The crimson veins that had taken over started to fade, retreating under his skin little by little. His breathing slowed, but he still looked like hell.

“How was he found, Gareth Pa?” I asked. “He said he was heading to the academy.”

He sighed. “No idea. You should ask him yourself when he wakes up. We both know what a shitshow that'll turn into if I try.”

He threw his hands up with that same half-dramatic gesture that always makes it seem like he’s already done trying but It managed to pulled a small smile out of me. Eli was still a grumpy kid to his dad. Our dad.

Yeah. While the world kept choking on its own homophobia, our dads somehow managed to fall in love after both their wives died. I was fifteen when it happened. Eli was ten. And just like that, I got stuck with a brother I didn’t ask for. A moody, cold, irritating kid with too much trauma for his own good.

It’s been chaos ever since.

We’re not close and we’re barely civil. Not the kind of brothers who talk or share shit. 

And maybe one day, when all these stops burning, we’ll actually figure out how to be brothers.. for real.

On the flip side of all the chaos, the best thing that ever happened to me, was Gareth Pa. Eli’s father.

Because unlike my own dad, Alexander Graye, the man who sees every flaw I carry like it’s a checklist he needs to recite every damn day, Gareth Pa helped me unsee them, as if they weren’t even there to begin with.

He’s that one person I never knew I needed until ten years ago, when my father married him. And somehow, from then, he just... fit. My cries, my fears, the weight in my chest, he knows them like a second soul tied to mine.

But when that bastard Alaric Raveni killed his own son and let Eli rot in pain... What did Alexander do? With all that wealth and power at his fingertips, what did he do to save the boy his husband calls a son?

Nothing.

Not a goddamn thing.

And don’t tell me it’s because Eli’s not his blood. That excuse is dust. We’re talking about Gareth’s blood, his person. The man he claims to love more than even me, his golden son.

Point is, he’s brutal. Sick in the head sometimes – that part I inherited, but deep down, I want to believe this is just another one of his twisted long-game plans I’m not clued into... yet.

Gareth Pa was kneeling beside Eli now, stroking his face with his knuckles like he always does when he’s worried. 

His ginger hair’s going white in spots. He still look strong and still got that solid build but yeah, he’s getting old. Eli took after him in more ways than he knows. 

And yes, I dyed my hair full ginger, just to feel tethered to something that felt like him.

What? Don’t blame me. I didn’t exactly win the jackpot in the dad department.

“Alex Pa… is he home yet?”

He looked up at me, with a long second before answering like he was measuring something. Then a slow shake of the head.

“No… no, not yet. Why? You're staying the night?”

“Have to.” I glanced down at Eli, then back at him. “I need answers. About what he’s up to with the devil he calls a friend.”

His eyes shifted to Ezren standing beside me. Gave a little nod, one brow raised.

“He’s staying too?”