Outer Banks: Dead Break Novels & Stories

When they finished, one of them handed me a small device. “All feeds can be monitored from this.” I looked at the screen. Several different views appeared at once. The living room. The hallway. The entrance. Adrian's study. My pulse quickened. This was what I needed. Tomorrow, while everyone was distracted by the celebration, I wouldn't have to rely solely on what I could see with my own eyes. I could watch and listen. I looked at the screen one last time before slipping the device into my pocket. “Thank you.”

I pulled up the video from that online post and showed it to her. Sophia's face turned pale, and she was left speechless. Eventually, she lowered her head and turned to leave, but then she stopped at the door. "Would you believe me if I told you that I never understood how much you meant to me until I lost you?" "It doesn't matter anymore, Sophia. Whatever I felt for you is already gone." Just after I closed the door, the noise came from outside my bedroom. Samantha Carter poked her head out, hair tousled and eyes sleepy. "I can smell the food," she murmured.

She watched Daphne strip me of everything I had, one piece at a time, and never once said a word against it. She knew she was wrong now? Well, it was too late. … The days passed, one after another. Stellan's body deteriorated. No medicine, no proper food. Coupled with the tendons in his hands and feet severed, he broke down quickly. He started coughing blood, running fevers that would not break, and talking to people who were not there. I did not send for a doctor. In my last life, when Ansel was burning with fever, Daphne would not allow a doctor to be called either. In this life, consider it a debt repaid.

With ten years of scheming gone up in smoke, their faces ruined beyond repair, and the fortune they'd nearly seized vanishing like a mirage, how could they not break? Traumatized, Winnie began muttering about faceless figures stalking her. She screamed every night, and two days later, she fell gravely ill and died. But the one who suffered the most was Felix, who was still lucid. Regret tore at him every day, and the other patients tormented him to no end. Under the Roosevelts' quiet orders, he was placed in a room with a violent psychopath and spent his days getting beaten bloody, flinching at the slightest noise.

Every inch of my body ached, a reminder of everything I had endured. I dipped my hands into the water, flinching when the water touched my bruises and wounds, but I was too desperate for the small comfort it offered. My chest tightened as I let out a shaky breath, trying not to think of Colton, his smirk, his cold gaze, the way he had broken me piece by piece.

Turning on my heel, I went back inside and pulled the curtains close. My phone buzzed with a notification from Taylor. “You should see her. She’s at breaking point.” I texted back, “What about you? Why aren’t you with her?” Taylor didn’t respond. That afternoon, the bank handling Ivy’s student aid called me. “Ms. Bell’s loan is overdue. We can’t reach her. You’re listed as her emergency contact. Do you know where she is?” I replied, “I don’t. I no longer have any association with her.”

Videl.. The crossing felt like driving into the mouth of a storm that refused to break. The amphibious Breakers—low-profile, heavy-armored vessels designed for stealth—cut through the black water of the channel with a predatory hum. Inside the lead vehicle, the air was pressurized and silent, save for the rhythmic clicking of Oliver’s keyboard. For thirteen years, this stretch of ocean had been a graveyard. The energy field used to scramble navigation systems and shut down engines, leaving anyone who tried to cross to drown in the dark.

darting toward the shadows. From the porches of the shacks, the "Broken Assets" watched them. These were the ghosts of the 2008 collapse—men and women who had been "liquidated" by the banks and the early prototypes of the Audit. They were dressed in layers of wool and scavenged tactical gear, their faces etched with the hard lines of people who had lived in the "Analog Dead Zone" for nearly two decades.

His screams echoed for a heartbeat before they were choked off. His eyes wide. His throat torn like the feral stab of a cursed blade. My breath was ragged. My vision blurred red as Zorry howled. Howling in a manner she had never howled. “What is happening?” I asked Zorry, a flick of confusion creeping in. And then… silence. I staggered back, shaking, covered in blood that wasn’t mine. Jackson Blackwood lay broken and still, his body twisted, his chest caved in. The cousin of Alpha Volvo Blackwood is dead. And not just an ordinary death, but the death in the hands of an omega. In the hands of dirt.

Roland said. Zeke got to the remote before I did and the images that flashed across the screen were shocking and they caught us by surprise. They showed a desolate scene on a quiet residential street, yellow tape everywhere, and reporters struggling to maintain composure. The breaking story: Gordon Blackwood—patriarch of the Blackwood Dynasty, had been found dead in a gruesome murder case. Authorities have asked anyone with information to come forward.