Marcus/Rocco
The drive to Black Hollow was painfully quiet. Not awkward. Just heavy.
Streetlights blurred past the windows while graduation messages flooded
my phone nonstop.
CONGRATS SENIOR!!! WE'RE GONNA MISS YOU!! WHERE ARE YOU???
I ignored every single one.
Callie sat beside me silently, one arm resting near the window while the
city lights reflected faintly across her face.
For once, even Valen seemed quieter. Not silent. Just watching.
The tension from earlier sat ugly inside my chest. Noah heisting. Riley
looking frustrated. Ella refusing outright.
I knew they weren't wrong. That somehow made it worse.
"You're gripping the steering wheel hard enough to break it," Callie
said eventually.
"I'm fine."
"You almost drove through a red light three minutes ago."
"Allegedly."
She sighed softly.
Outside, the city changed the farther we drove. The bright downtown
lights disappeared first. Then the crowded streets. Then even the noise.
Black Hollow sat near the abandoned industrial district on the edge of
the city, mostly forgotten after several factories shut down years ago.
Nobody really came here anymore. Even during the daytime this place felt
wrong. At night? It felt dead.
The roads grew emptier the closer we got. Dark buildings towered
slightly behind rusted fences while broken streetlights flickered overhead in
uneven intervals.
Something about the air itself felt colder too. Not natural cold either.
Stillness.
Like the entire district was holding its breath. Callie noticed it too.
"You feel that?"
I nodded slowly. The scar across my chest burned faintly beneath my
shirt.
Behind me, Valen stared out the window thoughtfully.
I glanced toward him briefly in the rear mirror.
"You've gone quiet."
"That should concern you more than it currently does."
Well. That's wasn't ominous at all.
The car rolled past another abandoned warehouse before the headlights
finally illuminated a lone figure standing near the entrance to an old rail
yard.
Seraphina.
Long dark coat. Golden-brown hair catching faintly beneath the
flickering lights. Expression unreadable as always.
I park quickly before stepping out.
The moment I left the car, the cold intensified. And not just because of
the temperature. Pressure.
Callie shut the passenger door beside me and immediately frowned.
"I hate this place."
"Reasonable reaction," Valen mused quietly.
I ignored him.
Seraphina's eyes moved toward me the second we approached.
"You came quickly."
"You said Cassian resurfaced."
Something unreadable flickered briefly across her face.
"Yes."
That single word alone tightened every muscle in my body again. Callie
crossed her arms.
"Where is he"
"Gone for now."
I frowned. "What does that mean?"
Seraphina glanced toward the dark rail yard behind her.
"He was searching area before disappearing."
"For what?"
For the first time since arriving, Seraphina hesitated. And that made me
hate this conversation a lot more.
"That," she said quietly, "is the problem."
The wind shifted suited through the empty rail yard. Metal groaned
somewhere in the darkness. The sound echoed strangely.
Too long. Like the noise stretched unnaturally before fading. Callie
noticed too.
"Okay no. absolutely not."
Even Valen's expression sharpened slightly now. Seraphina started
walking deeper into the rail yard without another word.
We followed.
Broken train tracks disappeared into darkness beneath massive abandoned
structures while loose papers drifted across cracked concrete.
Every sound here felt distorted somehow.
Footstep echoed too late. The wind whispered strangely between
buildings. At one point I could've sworn I heard distant voices somewhere
nearby.
By when I stopped walking to listen. Silence. Making my chest tightening
slightly.
"What exactly are we looking for?" I asked.
Seraphina didn't answer. Instead, she stopped near the centre of the
yard beside an enormous rusted freight container split almost completely in
half. Not cut. Torn.
Like something had ripped through solid metal with claws. Callie stared at it.
"That was Cassian?"
"Yes."
Fantastic.
For another horrible second, memory crashed violently through me. Taking
me back to that awful day.
I forced the memory down immediately.
"You said he was searching for something," I said quietly.
Seraphina finally turned toward me fully.
"There have been disturbances appearing throughout the city."
"Disturbances?" Callie repeated.
"Places where reality becomes unstable."
The air suddenly felt colder.
I raised a brow. "What does that mean exactly?"
Before Seraphina could answer, something flickered in the distance.
A sharp pulse of blue light illuminated the far side of the rail yard
for half a second. Then vanished.
Callie immediately tensed.
"We all so that, right?"
"Yes."
Seraphina's expression darkened instantly. Without another word, she
moved quickly toward the source.
The father we walked, the worse the pressure became. The air vibrated
strangely now.
Like invisible static pressing against my skin. Even breathing felt
heavier.
Then we turned the corner around another abandoned structure. And
stopped walking completely.
The world ahead of us was broken. That was the only way my brain could
process it. The air itself had split open.
Not fully. Not like a portal. More like… a wound.
A jagged crack hung suspended several feet above the ground, glowing
faintly with distorted blue light while darkness twisted unnaturally around its
edges.
The space surrounding it bent subtly inward like reality itself was
struggling to stay together.
And beyond the crack, something moved.
Towering silhouettes beneath a dark crimson sky.
My stomach dropped instantly.
Callie whispered something under her breath beside me. Even Seraphina
looked tensed.
"What the hell is that?" I asked.
Nobody answered immediately. The crack pulsed again. And sudden whispers
flooded the rail yard. Hundreds of voices overlapping at once.
Not understandable. Just noise.
The pressure in the air intensified violently. Callie stumbled slightly.
Then the crack widened.
Only slightly, but enough.
Enough for freezing air to explode outward across the yard. Enough for
the distorted silhouettes beyond it to become clearer for one second.
Enough for something on the other side to look directly at me.
Valen went completely still beside me. And for the first time since I'd
met him...
He no longer looked amused.
"I dislike this place," he muttered.