All Chapters of OF HEIRS AND RUIN: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The restaurant spat me out onto the sunny street of Driscol drive. My ears still rang–I could barely hear my thoughts. My pulse hammered unevenly and loud. I didn’t know where my feet were taking me. I just stumbled forward like a drunk.Numbness took over my senses, my limbs moved on their own. Voices, engines, footsteps–they blurred into distant noise.My body carried me down a lonely alley, my brain barely registered it. Danger was the last thing on my mind. My toe caught a crack in the pavement and I lurched forward, catching myself against the nearest wall. The setting late but hot afternoon sun didn’t make it any better.I leaned, body facing the stucco wall, my fingers grazed it, checking if it’s was real. I placed my face on the cool surface.“Maybe the manager was mistaken.” I said out loud. “This has to be some elaborate prank.” I added, gasping for thinning air. My fingers trembled.I didn’t care for people seeing me like this, black cars following me, the society posing a

ADRIAN’S POVWhen his phone buzzed for the third time in under a minute, he almost ignored it. He picked it up to check the unrelenting caller.Marti…His jaw tightened. She didn’t call him, ever. He answered.“What is it?”There was no greeting, just uneven and shaky breathing. Adrian sat up, his attention at alert.“Marti?”“Adrian–“ her voice cracked, something in his chest shifted. “It’s Keira.”Everything in him went still.“What about her?” His tone didn’t change, it remained calm and flat…too calm.She—” Marti sucked in a breath like she was trying not to cry. “I found her on Driscol. She—she looks—” Her voice broke completely this time. “Her neck, Adrian…”.Something heavy settled on Adrian, the air around him turned thick and dense, causing everything to still. He didn’t speak, breathe or move.“Say that again,” he said finally, quiet enough that it almost didn’t sound like his usual command.Marti hesitated. “I said—her neck...It’s bruised, badly. Like—like someone—”She did

The drive back was quiet. Adrian didn’t turn on the radio, or check his phone, even when it occasionally blinked on and off. He tried not to think, at least, not consciously. But the image stayed…Finger-shaped bruises, wrapped around her throat.His grip on the steering wheel tightened, then loosened. It tightened again, he forced his mind out of the dark well it kept diving into, then exhaled slowly, forcing his hands to relax.Beside him, Keira hadn’t said a word since they left. She sat angled toward the window, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding something in, or perhaps holding herself together.Adrian didn’t look at her, he couldn’t bring himself to, directly. But he noticed everything. The slight tremor in her fingers, the way her breathing still wasn’t steady, the way she slightly flinched when a car honked or passed too close. He filed it all away.When they got to her building, he killed the engine. They both sat in the silence for a while. Keira reached for the

The first time, it had felt like a coincidence. I’d notice a car parked too long, or a shadow that lingered, sometimes a glance that stayed a second too late.This time It didn’t feel like anything I could explain away.I stood by my window, fingers gripping the edge of the curtain. I had been watching for a while now. Across the street, a car sat idling, black. It was always black.My throat tightened unconsciously. My fingers brushed lightly over the bruises there. The skin still ached and burned. Still reminded me.I dropped the curtain. No, I shook my head. I wasn’t doing this again. Not the paranoia or the spiraling.Adrian’s voice echoed in my head.“You don’t get to do that. Not when they’re watching you.”I squeezed my jaw.“Then let them watch,” I muttered under my breath.But even as I said it, I stepped away from the window.My room suddenly felt too small and too exposed. Every sound made my head turn. Footsteps in the hallway, a door closing somewhere down the corridor, m

The first sign was the footsteps. They weren’t just passing by. They were coming from behind me, too steady and consistent.I adjusted the strap of my bag and kept walking. I wanted so badly to turn around, but I didn’t want to risk making it obviousMy heartbeat picked up anyway.I crossed the street, hoping to throw off the steady rhythm of the footsteps, but they followed at the same pace and distance.My throat tightened.The afternoon crowd should have made me feel safer. There were people everywhere. Voices and movement proved it was just normal day. That didn’t make it any better.It was even scarier, because whoever it was following me, wasn’t trying to hide.I turned a corner sharply. My pulse hammered in my ears. The footsteps didn’t hesitate, they turned with me. It sounded even closer nowMy fingers curled tightly around my phone. Call someone, I thought. Adrian?No.That thought came too quickly. I pushed it away. Think, think!I took another turn. I broke into a less cro