Chapter 16 – Reckoning
885 Words
Damian didn’t go home.
Home meant thinking.
Thinking meant remembering.
And remembering was the one thing that could break him before the killer did.
Instead, he drove aimlessly through the city until the sun slipped behind the horizon and Blackwood drowned in its usual night. Neon signs flickered. Taxi lights blurred. The world kept moving, uncaring and loud—while inside Damian, everything narrowed into a single silent rage.
Isadora was alive.
But terrified.
And he had three days.
Three days to drag the truth out of the shadows he’d buried years ago.
Three days to become the kind of man who didn’t wait for answers—
but ripped them out of people.
Damian parked outside The Lantern, an underground bar where the city’s worst secrets gathered in smoke and whispers. The kind of place where information wasn’t bought—it was bled from you.
He pushed inside.
Music thumped low, heavy, pulsing like a dying heartbeat. Faces turned when he entered—recognition, annoyance, fear. Damian had a reputation here. Not as a detective. As something far more dangerous.
His eyes scanned the room until they locked onto a figure in a corner booth—
Luther Hayes.
Fixer. Informant. Snake.
And the last person Damian knew who had ties to the original Blackwood case.
Damian approached.
Luther looked up, his greasy smile fading. “Blackwood. You look like you’ve been dragged through hell.”
“Open your mouth,” Damian said, “and make my night.”
Luther’s smile vanished completely. “What do you want?”
Damian grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall. The entire bar went silent.
“I want names,” Damian growled. “Anyone who has a reason to hurt me. Anyone who knows about the boy from five years ago. Anyone connected to the symbol.”
Luther’s eyes widened. “That symbol—Damian, that case was sealed. Buried.”
“Someone dug it up.”
Luther swallowed hard. “Listen, man… if this is about that night, I can’t—”
Damian shoved him harder. “You talk. Now.”
Luther’s breath stuttered. Sweat dripped down his temple. “Okay—okay. But you need to understand something. That symbol… it’s not just a signature. It’s a message.”
Damian’s pulse ticked painfully. “Meaning?”
“It’s the mark of a group. A private one. They never left trails. They never broke rules. And they sure as hell never forgot the people who crossed them.”
Damian froze.
Crossed them?
“What group?”
Luther shook his head quickly. “I don’t know their real name. No one does. But on the street…” He swallowed. “…they’re called The Oracles.”
The name hit Damian like a punch.
Not because he knew it—
but because of how wrong it felt.
Cold. Ancient. Methodical.
“And what do The Oracles want with me?”
Luther looked away, voice dropping. “Damian… something happened the night you closed that old case. A mistake. A witness who wasn’t supposed to be there. Someone who saw… something.”
Damian’s jaw clenched. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Luther said quickly. “But whoever it was—they didn’t die. They didn’t disappear. They waited.”
Damian felt the ground shift beneath him. The memory he’d avoided for years pressed against his skull like a blade—flashes of rain, blood, a screaming boy, his own wet footsteps running—
He shut the thought down.
Not now.
Luther licked his lips. “Damian, I’m trying to help you. But whoever is doing this… they’re not a killer. They’re an executioner.”
Damian released him abruptly. Luther stumbled, gasping, gripping the table like his legs had turned to water.
Damian’s voice dropped to ice. “If you know anything else, and you don’t call me, I will come back here and make you wish the killer found you first.”
Luther nodded fast. Too fast.
Damian walked out of the bar and into the freezing night. His breath fogged in the air. He felt the pressure tightening, squeezing him from all sides, pushing him toward something inevitable.
The Oracles.
A witness.
A mistake from five years ago.
And Isadora caught in the crossfire.
His phone buzzed.
Damian froze.
A picture message.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
It was Isadora—
eyes filled with tears,
head turned to the side as someone’s gloved hand held her jaw.
Her lips were bloody.
Her cheek bruised.
Below it, a caption:
“She’s losing faith in you.”
Damian’s hand shook.
Not from fear.
From fury so cold it felt volcanic beneath his skin.
Another message appeared.
“You have two and a half days.”
He stared at the screen as the city blurred around him.
They wanted him desperate.
Broken.
Confessing to something he didn’t fully remember.
Or something he couldn’t face remembering.
Damian wiped the blood off the phone screen with his thumb.
Then he looked up, eyes darkening, jaw tightening.
“No more running.”
He knew what he had to do.
Where he had to go.
Who he had to confront.
His past wasn’t buried.
It was alive.
It was hunting him.
And now—
Damian Blackwood was going to hunt back.
- Writer
