Darnell’s influence was already evident in the operation surrounding Owl Cave.
Construction was underway across the site, carefully designed to conceal the cave and control access without drawing unnecessary attention.
Darnell’s trusted human men had secured the perimeter while others supervised the construction crews.
Guards were stationed at the entrance, turning away anyone who did not have direct approval from the president.
By the time the van carrying Dylan, Yve, and Adreian arrived, cranes, forklifts, and heavy trucks occupied much of the surrounding area.
Workers were assembling sections of temporary fencing and reinforced walls around the site, gradually sealing the entire area from public access.
The three stepped out of the van, and a site supervisor approached Adreian almost immediately.
“Dr.
Raven.”
Adreian turned toward him as the supervisor began briefing him on the latest developments.
He listened, occasionally glancing toward the construction while the man explained the progress.
Dylan stayed a few steps away, taking in the surroundings.
The operation was larger than he’d expected.
Whatever Darnell had ordered, the man had wasted no time putting it into motion.
As Adreian looked across the site, he recognized several of the workers as non-human.
He offered them a polite nod as they passed, receiving subtle acknowledgments in return.
Yve watched the exchange before turning toward Dylan.
“You should go back,” she said.
“You can’t enter anyway.”
Dylan looked from her to Adreian, then back toward the entrance.
“Ain’t leavin’ ya here,” he said.
“I’ll wait out here.”
Yve pressed her lips together, considering it for a moment.
“Okay.
Might take us a while, though.”
Dylan gave a small nod.
“Somethin’ happens…”
“I’ll press this,” Yve finished, lifting the keychain transmitter attached to her phone so he could see it.
Dylan glanced at the device, then back at her.
Satisfied that she had a way to call him, he nodded once.
“Alright,” he said before heading back toward the van.
Yve and Adreian entered the secured site and made their way past the newly established perimeter until they finally reached the ground opening where Yve had fallen.
Adreian immediately rounded a corner, heading toward the spiral staircase he had mentioned earlier.
“That’s good,” Yve said.
“If anyone asks, I’m telling them that’s how you got me out.”
Adreian glanced back at her over his shoulder, a dry look crossing his features before he simply nodded.
Yve stepped up to the edge and peered down into the dizzying abyss, finally grasping the true scale of her fall.
Her eyes glowed faintly as a shiver ran down her spine.
“If that’s concrete, I’d be dead already.”
“Seems like Lady Luck is on your side.”
Yve only shrugged.
“Ready?” Adreian asked.
She nodded, and the two began descending the spiral staircase.
Yve tracked the stone walls with her gaze as they spiraled downward, studying the ancient glyphs etched into the masonry and tracing their geometry before inspecting the heavy industrial handrails bolted into the rock.
Adreian scanned the surrounding architecture with equal intensity.
“I don’t think early humans built this.”
Yve gave a dry chuckle.
“Far from that…”
“Still,” Adreian continued, his hand grazing the damp stone, “this is the first time I’ve seen such an intricate and well-hidden structure.
I read the reports yesterday.
This place appears to be hidden even from human technology.
Their scans say it’s just layers and layers of rock and soil.”
“There must be some sort of containment field encasing this whole place,” Yve said.
Adreian looked over at her.
“How did you know it was a door, though?”
“I didn’t.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I just saw the patterns,” Yve explained.
“Read them well enough, and they’ll tell you what they are.”
Adreian studied her face for a long beat before a faint smile crossed his features.
“Beautiful and intelligent.
If I’d known you years ago, I would’ve offered you a marriage proposal.”
Yve chuckled.
“How kind of you.
But even if we’d known each other for years, I would’ve still declined the offer.”
“Why?
Playing hard to get?”
“No.
It’s just that marriage isn’t in my plans yet.” Yve glanced toward the markings again.
“I’ve got so much to learn and explore.
I don’t want to be tied down yet.”
“Fair enough.”
They continued downward until the staircase finally came to an end.
Their feet touched the bottom, and the vast structure opened before them.
There were already several workers stationed at the bottom of the structure.
A Mayan soared overhead in a silent, controlled glide, inspecting the high vaulted arches and mapping the structural integrity from above, while a male Siren plunged into the dark waters of the subterranean lake, vanishing beneath the surface to survey the sunken depths.
Yve watched the coordinated activity unfold, taking in the sheer scale of the operation.
“I never realized how influential my uncle is…”
Adreian glanced toward a cluster of researchers before looking back at her.
“I’ve worked with him for about a decade now.”
Yve blinked, processing the timeline.
“That long?”
“About.”
She looked around the cavern once more.
The vast network of personnel Darnell had managed to deploy—spanning both human specialists and supernatural operatives—suddenly fell into sharp focus.
With no time to waste, they stepped into the rhythm of the site.
Yve and Adreian moved together among the teams, analyzing ancient masonry and cross-referencing inscriptions while coordinating their notes with the field researchers already stationed below.
Laser measurements were logged, high-resolution photographs cataloged every fracture in the stone, and structural samples were carefully bottled and labeled.
The team split their focus across the sprawling architecture, the intricate glyphs embedded in the rock, and the anomalous energy signatures radiating from the foundations.
As the hours passed, every discovery was recorded.
~~~
Dylan sat on the edge of the transport van, passing the empty hours by rolling the window down, watching the rotation of workers moving across the secured site, and stepping out occasionally to stretch his legs.
There was not much else for him to do.
Yve and Adreian were deep inside the excavation, and he had already been firmly denied access to the authorized perimeter.
So, he waited.
Alone with his thoughts, his mind began to drift.
He thought back to the first time he had met Yve.
Hitting her with his car.
Finding her unconscious on the dark asphalt.
Rushing her to the hospital.
And everything that had unraveled after.
Her strange cadence.
The modern things she completely missed. New chapters come out on g.com first.
The way she shifted effortlessly from dead-serious to saying something that made zero sense.
Her absolute disregard for boundaries and her habit of wandering right into his personal space as if it belonged to her.
Eccentric.
Weird.
He still could not decide which label fit her better.
His thoughts dragged him toward Lara, and then inevitably to Mark.
Dylan’s jaw tightened instantly.
He hadn’t seen Mark since the attack, and he knew a man like Darnell did not simply let someone who had assaulted one of his people walk away without consequence.
Whatever Darnell had done to make Mark vanish, Dylan didn’t need the details.
He shoved the thought down, letting his mind pivot to the more immediate mystery of the previous night.
His neck.
Yve’s hand.
The light, deliberate touch, her voice, and then absolute blackness.
He still could not make sense of it.
She had offered some vague apology beforehand, but that did nothing to answer the questions chewing at the back of his mind ever since.
Why had she done it?
And how?
Dylan knew his own capabilities.
A grown man with his background didn’t get knocked unconscious by someone barely touching his neck.
There had been no blow, no chokehold, nothing that should have put him out.
Yet she had managed it.
The two questions looped relentlessly through his head.
Why?
How?
And then, inevitably, his thoughts looped right back to Yve.
The way she grabbed his shirt without a second thought.
The way she had anchored him to that hospital chair.
The way she had handed him a jagged piece of rock shaped like a crescent moon.
The longer he sat in the quiet van with nothing to break his focus, the deeper he sank into his own head.
Dylan frowned.
He hated overthinking.
He had spent most of his life running on pure instinct: observe, assess, act, move on.
But Yve had somehow bypassed all his internal tripwires.
He pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over the screen before he tapped open Facebook.
Yve’s profile picture stared back at him.
He wasn’t even sure why he had opened the app.
His fingers tapped a restless rhythm against his thigh as he stared at the phone for another second before locking the device and shoving it back into his pocket.
He leaned his head against the metal frame of the van, fixing his gaze on the dusty perimeter.
Maybe a cigar would clear his head.
He hadn’t touched one in roughly half a year, but the craving hit sharp and sudden.
Dylan reached for the small fanny pack strapped around his waist and unzipped it, searching through the contents for the cigar he’d tucked away months ago.
Then his fingers brushed against a small velvet box.
He stopped.
For a moment, he simply stared at it.
He’d forgotten that was in there.
Dylan pulled the box free and turned it over in his palm before slowly opening the lid.
A ring.
The exact ring he’d planned to give Mia that night.
The night he had walked into the apartment they shared and found her in bed with one of her coworkers.
Their apartment.
Their bed.
The place where they were supposed to build a life.
The same place where he used to lay his head every night, believing they were building a future that meant something.
He took the ring out of the box, letting it rest against his palm.
The memory still packed a punch.
For a long time, every time his mind dragged him back to that night, the exact same thought had followed behind it like a shadow: It’s my fault.
Maybe he hadn’t been enough.
Maybe he had missed the warning signs.
Maybe he should have worked harder, stayed longer, done more.
Dylan swallowed hard.
But as he stared down at the metal now, something felt fundamentally different.
The pain was still there, and the bitter ache of betrayal hadn’t magically vanished, but the raw poison of it was gone.
He didn’t miss her.
He didn’t want her back.
And for the first time in his life, he realized he simply could not care less about what she had done.
The ring rested quietly between his fingers.
Over a year ago, it represented a future he thought he had lost forever.
Now it was just a piece of metal.
Just then, a notification broke through the countless thoughts occupying his mind.
Dylan snapped out of them, quickly sliding the ring back into its box before shoving it into his fanny pack and zipping it shut.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the screen.
Messenger.
He opened the app to find a new message waiting from Yve.
Attached was a short video file.
He tapped play.
Yve’s face filled the frame, dominated by an augmented reality filter that stretched her forehead and eyes into a ridiculous, bulbous cartoon alien.
She stared directly into the lens with utter seriousness.
“I’m still alive and safe,” her voice announced through the speaker.
“In case you’re out there having a heart attack out of pure worry.
This will still take some time, so just head back first.
Or get me food.
I don’t know.
Whichever satisfies your stubbornness.”
On screen, Yve deliberately exaggerated her distorted features, pulling a deadpan face at the camera.
A genuine chuckle slipped past Dylan’s lips.
The filter warped her expressions into something so absurd that he just sat there watching, thoroughly amused by how little concern she possessed for looking dignified.
Then he caught his reflection in the rearview mirror.
He was grinning.
Dylan’s smile disappeared almost immediately.
He straightened in his seat and cleared his throat.
He looked back at the phone and tried to remember exactly how she’d looked in person, but the image from the video was still enough to bring a faint grin back to his face.
He shook his head and put the phone away.
Head back to the station and leave her hanging?
That was never an option.
Instead, Dylan turned the ignition, shifted the van into drive, and rolled out of the perimeter to hunt down somewhere nearby that could feed Yve and her appetite.
~~~
Yve and Adreian finally emerged from the site.
Dylan was out of the driver’s seat before they even reached the vehicle.
He rounded the transport van, his eyes scanning Yve from head to toe in a silent, thorough check for any new bruises, scrapes, or lingering signs of trouble. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
Thankfully, she looked entirely intact.
The sun was sinking fast toward the western tree line, casting long, bruised shadows across the site.
“Food’s gotten cold,” Dylan said, his voice dropping into its usual practical register.
“It’s okay.
I’ll still eat.”
“Or we could order fresh stuff,” Adreian offered, pausing as he caught up to them.
Yve glanced at him.
“No thanks.
I’m hungry right now, and there is food right here.”
Dylan hid a faint, dry smirk.
He reached into the passenger seat and pulled out the containers he had picked up roughly four hours earlier.
Opening the side sliding door, he made room as Yve climbed up, settling comfortably on the edge with her legs dangling down toward the gravel.
Dylan set the cartons beside her, and she immediately popped open a lid and dug in.
His gaze drifted upward.
“Your hair’s wet.”
“Oh…” Yve glanced at him.
“Yeah.
Don’t mind it.”
He didn’t press her.
Instead, he pulled a clean cotton handkerchief from his back pocket and stepped closer, gently using it to blot the damp strands clinging to the back of her neck.
Yve simply let him work, entirely unfazed by the gesture.
After a moment, she looked past him toward Adreian.
“Come.
Eat.”
Adreian shook his head with a light laugh.
“I’m already ordering food for the whole crew.” He gave them a brief wave and turned away to flag down the site supervisor, leaving the two of them isolated in the quiet corner of the parking perimeter.
Yve kept eating with an impressive appetite, her boots swinging lightly in the air.
Between bites, she looked over at Dylan.
“Did you eat?”
He shook his head, pulling out his own container.
“Why didn’t you eat earlier?”
“Wasn’t hungry.”
His stomach chose that exact second to betray him with a low, audible rumble.
Despite the grinding roar of heavy machinery winding down across the site, Yve caught the sound instantly.
A knowing little smile touched her lips.
She reached into her container, picked out a seasoned piece of meat with her fingers, and extended her hand toward him.
“This taste good.
Try it.”
Dylan stared down at the food, then flicked his gaze up to her face.
Without breaking eye contact, he leaned forward and took it from her fingers.
Yve watched him expectantly, tracking his reaction.
Dylan chewed slowly.
“Not bad.”
She smiled, satisfied, and turned back to her own meal.
“You goin’ back inside?” he asked, wiping his hands on the cloth.
Yve shook her head, swallowing.
“No.
I’m done with my part for today.
We could head back.”
Dylan nodded.
“Alright.”
Just as Dylan leaned his shoulder against the open door frame, a stray fragment of stone, shaken loose by the heavy vibration of an industrial winch winding down near the perimeter, snapped free.
It whistled through the air straight toward him.
Yve’s hand snapped upward with terrifying speed.
She caught the jagged rock bare-handed, her palm halting the projectile a mere breath away from Dylan’s face.
Dylan’s eyes went wide.
For a fraction of a second, a sharp, bioluminescent flash flared in Yve’s eyes, and a low, feral growl rumbled in the back of her throat as she whipped her head toward the distant construction crew, her jaw locked in sudden fury.
Dylan didn’t notice.
His gaze was frozen on the jagged stone trapped inside her fist.
“How did…”
Yve abruptly stood up, the anger vanishing from her features as her focus locked back onto him.
“Are you okay?
Were you hurt?”
The food container tumbled from her lap, spilling across the gravel as she lunged forward, her hands immediately grabbing his shoulders and jaw, frantically checking him over for any sign of blood or impact.
Dylan shook his head, pulling back slightly.
“I’m fine.”
But his eyes stayed glued to the rock resting in her grip.
He was completely disoriented.
He hadn’t seen the hazard coming at all, and his reflexes had been too slow to register the threat.
Yet Yve had processed it, reacted, and intercepted a flying projectile with her bare hand before it could break bone.
Dylan swallowed hard as Yve continued inspecting his skin, her fingers skimming his cheeks and neck to search for bruises.
Finding nothing, she finally let out a long, shuddering breath.
Pure relief flooded her features.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Yve studied his face for another heartbeat before her shoulders finally dropped.
Dylan looked down at the stone again, a heavy, cold weight settling low in his stomach.
A strange, prickly spike of dread, shadowed by an uncertainty he didn’t know how to name.
Then he forced his gaze away from the stone and looked back down at her.
“You?
You okay?”
Yve gave a sharp, definitive nod.
“We should get out of here.
It’s getting dangerous.”
Before he could pull together a coherent response, Yve grabbed his arm, her grip firm and uncompromising, and hauled him toward the front of the transport van.
Still mentally back-pedaling, Dylan let himself be moved almost on autopilot.
His mind was still trying to make sense of what had just happened when he realized Yve was guiding him toward the driver’s seat.
She opened the door for him.
Dylan climbed in, and Yve closed it behind him.
She then shut the side door before walking around the van and climbing into the passenger seat.
Dylan sat there for a moment, hands resting on the steering wheel.
He glanced sideways at her.
Yve was already staring straight ahead through the windshield, looking far more concerned with putting distance between themselves and the site than explaining the impossible reflex she had just displayed.
Dylan studied her profile in the dim dashboard light.
The flying rock.
Her terrifyingly fast reaction time.
The way she had intercepted a projectile before his own nerves could even register the threat.
The questions were piling up faster than he could knock them down.
He started the engine.
Neither of them said anything as Dylan pulled away from the site.
He just kept driving, occasionally glancing toward Yve from the corner of his eye.