Page 7 of Fang

Thick, black-rimmed glasses frame eyes the color of emerald fire, intelligent and calculating in ways that make my skin even hotter. His features are sharp, almost severe,but there’s something undeniably attractive about the contrast between his obvious physical power and the nerdy aesthetics. Clark Kent vibes for sure. It’s like someone dressed an underwear model up as a computer programmer for Halloween.

He steps into the room, and I catch a glimpse of cargo shorts and black boots before my gaze is drawn back to those unsettling green eyes. Everything about him screams contradiction—the body of a fighter wearing the uniform of a tech geek, the careful control of his movements suggesting both martial arts training and countless hours hunched over keyboards.

In his hands, he carries a simple metal tray. The sight of it makes my stomach clench with desperate hunger, even as my mind recoils from the implications. Plain bread, crusty and torn into rough chunks. A plastic cup filled with what I hope is water, though the liquid looks suspiciously murky in the harsh light spilling through the doorway.

He sets the tray down just inside the door, the metal clanking against concrete with a sound that seems unnaturally loud in the cramped space. When he straightens, his eyes find mine through those thick lenses, and I feel pinned like an insect on a collector’s board.

“I want to know everything about the cartel,” he says, his voice carrying the flat, emotionless cadence of someone reading lines of code. “Their operations, their security systems, their personnel.” Each word is delivered with mechanical precision, as if he’s running through a checklist. “You’re not leaving until you tell me everything.”

I push myself up from the floor, my legs shaking, but holding my weight. The movement brings me closer to him, close enough to see the reflection of the harsh light in his glasses, close enough to smell motor oil and electronic components clinging to his clothes like a technological cologne.

“Go to hell,” I spit, my voice raw from thirst but steady with fury.“I already gave you the drive that, mind you, you didn’t even know about ahead of time. Wasn’t that enough?”

For a moment, something flickers behind those green eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or respect. It’s gone so quickly I might have imagined it, but the silence stretches between us like a wire pulled taut. He studies me with the same intensity I imagine he brings to debugging code or cracking encrypted files.

Then he nods, just once, as if I’ve confirmed something he already suspected.

“No,” he says, and there’s no anger in his voice, no frustration. Just the same mechanical acceptance, like I’m a variable in an equation he’s still working to solve.“You must know more than what’s on that drive.”

“What do you mean?”

“I only found a dozen files.”

“That’s impossible!”

“I scanned the drive. There’s nothing else on it.”

“What?” My stomach drops.“Let me see it. Bring me a laptop.”

“No. You lied. If you want to stay alive, tell us everything you know.”

“I already gave you—I mean—youtookthe data. Everything I had on them.”

“This will go a lot easier when you decide to cooperate.” He turns away, stepping back through the doorway with the same measured pace he used to enter. The tray remains behind, the bread and water sitting just close enough to torment me with their proximity, just far enough to require crawling to reach them.

The door swings shut with a finality that echoes through my bones. Lock after lock engages. Each click drives home the reality of my situation with surgical precision. The lightvanishes, plunging me back into the absolute darkness that has become my world.

But something has changed. The darkness feels different now—not just an absence of light, but a presence unto itself. It presses against me with weight and substance, carrying whispers of doubt that my bravado can’t quite silence.

What if he doesn’t come back?

Or worse, what if he does and he refuses to believe me?

A flurry of questions surface from the depths of my mind like bubbles of poison gas, contaminating every breath I take. What if my defiance was the wrong choice? What if he decides I’m more trouble than I’m worth and simply… forgets about me?

And then it hits me.

If I disappear, or the cartel thinks I died in the explosion, then what would happen to Rory?

Suddenly, I can’t breathe.

Gasping and trembling, I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the concrete, my knees drawn up to my chest. The smell of bread drifts through the darkness, making my empty stomach cramp with need. But reaching for it feels like a betrayal.

When I burned the warehouse to the ground, I fucked up. I may have inadvertently given the cartel a good reason to kill Rory. And if he dies, everything I’ve been through over the last ten years means nothing.

“Fang!” I scream, scrambling to my feet and running toward the door.“Come back!”

Chapter 4: Fang

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