Misted (Team Zero #5) by Rina Kent

No. The betrayal will kill Hawk. It’ll destroy him.

“If you don’t…” Hades trails off, wipes a tear off my cheek, and squashes it between his thumb and forefinger. He crouches so he’s on eye level. “I’ll kill him. Ah. And it won’t be just a bullet to the head. No. That’s too easy of a punishment. I’ll torture him for days, weeks, months. Maybe years? And I’ll make you watch every second of him rotting and begging for death.”

A sob tears from my throat.

Hades smirks and straightens. “The decision is yours, Mist.”





34





Mist





I’ve been dead until the moment you returned to my life.



Present,

Him.

I chose him.

I chose the man sitting like a blank board while I told him the most gruesome memory of my life.

The close second worst was when Hades didn’t keep his word and shot Hawk in the motel we were supposed to meet in.

The third worse memory was when Hades made me abandon Hawk while he was shot. He made me watch him being beaten up or else he would’ve tortured and killed him in front of my eyes.

I was already dead at that time. Since then, I existed to keep Hawk alive. I’ve been selling my soul to the devil in parts.

I clasp my hands in my lap, trying to prevent the shaking. A tremor shoots down my entire body. The longer Hawk remains as a silent, unreadable rock, the more anxiety bubbles to the surface.

It’s the first time I’ve told anyone about this, and it’s fucking terrifying. It’s not only about Hades. It’s about the stalker who’s been keeping me on a leash for fifteen years.

I can lose Hawk all over again. Maybe I already have now that he knows that children are impossible for me.

When I told Hawk all that, I didn’t know what to expect. So I’m left mouth agape when he stands up, pulls on shorts ever so calmly, grabs his cigarette pack and his gun and then he’s storming out of the room without sparing me a glance.

I sit on the bed wrapped in a sheet and my face hot with shame.

Then heat smothers my cheeks and shoots in my veins. I held that secret for a whole damn fifteen years and he just ignores me when I finally tell him the truth?

I throw on his T-shirt, ignore how my skin tingles with his ocean scent all over me, and sprint down the stairs like a furious storm.

He’s not in the living room where I expected to find him. I run outside barefoot and catch sight of him by the beach. The first signs of morning light start to slip through the horizon as Hawk forges ahead, steps silent and sure as if knowing exactly where he’s going.

The Jeep peeks from behind the rocks. Shit!

“Hawk!” I call, but he doesn’t show a sign of hearing me.

I jog and slide down the hill, uncaring that I now have sand all over me.

“Hawk!” I call again when he’s a few steps away from the car. I jump up to a standing position and forge forward. The thick sand slips between my toes and slows my pace.

I curse when he hops in the jeep. A cigarette in his mouth. A gun rests in one hand and the other one is on the steering wheel. He revs forward but I throw myself in front of the car and open my arms wide.

“Stop! Where the hell are you going?”

“To kill Hades,” he says without missing a beat or looking at me. “Get out of my way.”

I do. But only so I’d jump over the Jeep’s hood and land in the passenger seat.

“You mean you’re going on a suicide mission?”

He shrugs as if it means nothing. “I’ll kill him or die fucking trying.”

“Have you lost your damn mind?” I snatch the key of the jeep and throw as far as I can.

Still not looking at me, he descends from the car and kicks his feet around the sand, searching for the keys.

I grab his arm and try to swing him back, but his rigid muscles are as hard as steel. “Hawk, look at me.”

Tears burn my eyelids the more he doesn’t acknowledge me.

He erased me.

I ruined everything by telling him the truth. Why couldn’t I keep my damn mouth shut?

“Hawk?”

He shoves me away, continuing his frantic search in the sand.

“Please look at me.” I croak, rubbing my arm. I’m stuffed in my own skin and it’s like that loss is repeating all over again.

If I lose him once and for all, what will I have left?

Hawk stops fumbling in the sand but doesn’t turn around. His back muscles are about to snap with tension. “I can’t.”

“What?”

“I can’t look at you unless I kill Hades and Dr Sloane and every fucker who hurt you.”

“Hawk…” I run in front of him. His jaw clenches as he glances in the opposite direction, avoiding my gaze.

I palm both his cheeks and make him look at me. Rage and hurt swirl in the dark oceans of his eyes.

And guilt. Heart-wrenching guilt.

“Let me go.” His voice is strained. Everything is strained. “I’ll make them pay.”

I shake my head. “Hades won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“I don’t fucking care. I’ve been dead for fifteen years.”

“Then what had I sacrificed everything for?” I let go of his cheek and hit his chest. “What had I risked all your anger and hatred for? Are you telling me I lost you and our child for nothing?”