All Chapters of COLD STEEL, BLEEDING HEARTS : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The glass shattered. Sharp pieces exploded everywhere.Maya hit the floor fast, covering her head with both hands. She didn’t freeze up—she moved almost too quickly to see, like her body just knew what to do. Cold mountain air flooded the cabin, sharp with the smell of pine and metal."Maya! Get down!" Julian shouted. He threw himself across the rug, dragging her behind the heavy wooden table.Thwack. Thwack.Two black arrows slammed into the wood, so close that Maya heard their wicked hum right by her ear. They weren’t normal arrows. They vibrated and made a low, bone-deep sound that made her teeth hurt."They found us," David whispered from the fireplace. He gripped a heavy iron rod, knuckles white. "How? We’re fifty miles from the nearest city. No one should find us out here."Maya glanced at her arm. Blue light pulsed under her skin, no longer just flickering—it was burning, angry and bright. Every time the arrows hummed, the light flashed."They didn’t track a phone, Dad," Maya s

Tree shadows slid across the ground, restless and ghostly. Maya didn’t have to look; she felt the air shift around her, her skin prickling. Her eyes, that eerie blue, didn’t glow, but she saw every detail—the bug crawling on a distant leaf, the heartbeat behind her, slow and heavy, belonging to the woman standing just out of sight.“I saw the mountain collapse, Catherine,” Maya said. Her voice was calm, but inside she was all chaos and dread. “You should be buried under those rocks.”Catherine stepped into a patch of moonlight. Her favorite red coat was shredded and caked with dirt, her face crisscrossed with angry red burns. She clutched a small gold bottle, her hand trembling.“The Rossi family’s tough to kill, Maya,” Catherine whispered, taking another step. Her boots crunching in the dry leaves. “We’re weeds, you know? Rip us out, we just grow back.”A hot pulse rose in Maya’s chest. She glanced at her hands, pale but heavy with something new and dangerous. “I’m not like you. I sa

Julian slammed the brakes. The SUV’s tires shrieked—loud enough to wake the dead. A black car shot out across the narrow street, cutting them off. No way to the safe house now.“Everyone, get down!” Julian shouted.Maya’s heart hammered so hard she thought it might break through her chest. Her fingers shook as she fumbled for the door handle. She wasn’t the Queen anymore. No blue fire to melt that car, no magic ice to freeze the road. Just a girl trapped in a metal box.“Is it the Rossi Company?” Bianca’s voice was thin, almost squeaking from the back seat. She gripped Toby’s arm so tight her knuckles turned white.David squinted through the windshield. “No,” he said. He pointed. The black car had no company logo, no Rossi seal—just a tiny silver sticker, shaped like an eye. “It’s the Watchers. They’re the ones who keep the Rossi secrets buried. They don’t want to catch Maya. They want to erase all of us.”Both doors of the black car swung open. Two men stepped out, all sharp lines an

Maya’s silver skates hit the ice with a sharp clink. She just stood there. Couldn’t move. The cold in this rink wasn’t like the mountain air—no pine, no stone. It smelled like childhood. Hot cocoa. Floor wax. That weird metal chill frozen water always has.“Mom?” Maya whispered. The word was heavy, almost painful to say.The woman on the bench stood up. She moved with that graceful ease Maya remembered from old home videos. White sweater, blue leggings, hair pulled back in a bun—she looked exactly like Maya had, back when things hadn’t fallen apart.“Don’t just stand there, Maya,” the woman said, her voice soft, almost like a lullaby. “The music’s starting. The Board of Directors is waiting. They want to see if the Queen can still dance without her magic crown.”Suddenly, the lights overhead flashed on—deep purple, not white. From the dark stadium corners, thousands of red eyes flickered to life. Tiny mechanical spiders—the so-called cleaning crew—scurried into the seats. They didn’t

The helicopter blades spun down, groaning like something that just wanted to stop. Finally, the noise from the mountains and the city’s screaming faded behind them. Up here, the air was razor-sharp and thin, biting through their clothes. It smelled old—like dust that’s been gathering for centuries and wet stone that never sees the sun.Maya stood right at the edge of the landing platform. In her hand, the gold crystal felt different now—alive, almost. It thudded in her palm, sending heat up her arm. All around the helicopter, thousands of purple-winged creatures waited. They didn’t scatter. They didn’t attack. They just stood there, staring at Maya with their huge, glowing eyes. The silence was heavy, like an army waiting for someone to give the order.“They’re waiting for you, Maya,” Catherine said as she climbed out of the cabin. She had a white cast on her arm and her face looked washed out. Her hands trembled as she stared at the creatures. “They don’t have a leader anymore. If yo