her hollow heart

chapter 23: breaking point

Dylan's POV:

When they told me, I thought it was a joke. A sick, cruel joke, the kind these people loved to play to get a rise out of me. But the look on Max's face when she whispered the words... It wasn't a joke. It was real.

"She's gone, Papa..." Max's voice cracked, barely above a whisper, but the sound shattered my world.

I felt something inside me break. Like glass shattering in my chest, the sharp edges tearing me apart. My breath hitched, and my vision blurred as the reality sunk its claws into me. Lucy... gone? She couldn't be. She wasn't allowed to leave me.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just stood there, hollow, the rage building like a storm in my veins. Someone was to blame. Someone had pushed her to this. And I knew exactly who.

Kai.

The bastard had always hated me. He'd sneered at every word I said, mocked every glance I gave her, and argued with me like it was sport. I warned him before to back off, to stay in his lane, but he didn't listen. Now she was dead, and I knew—I knew—he was part of the reason.

I found him outside, sitting against a wall, cleaning his blade. The casualness of it, like nothing had happened, made my blood boil. I stalked toward him, my fists clenched, the storm in me finally breaking loose. Kai looked up, a smug grin on his face. "What's your problem now, Dylan? Gonna cry because your precious Lucy—" I didn't let him finish. My fist collided with his jaw, the force sending him sprawling to the ground.

"You killed her!" I roared, grabbing him by the shirt and slamming him against the wall. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he spat, blood dripping from his lip. "You pushed her too far! Your petty arguments, your fucking ego—you broke her!" My voice was raw, each word slicing through the air like a knife. Kai smirked, even now. "She was weak, Dylan. If she couldn't handle—" The rage took over. I didn't hear the rest. My hands found his throat, squeezing until his smirk vanished, replaced by panic. His hands clawed at mine, but I didn't stop. I couldn't.

But this wasn't enough.

I released him, letting him gasp for air, his chest heaving with the effort to stay conscious. He thought it was over. Poor bastard. It wasn't.

My hand shot down to the knife strapped to his belt, pulling it free in one swift motion. His eyes widened in terror, his lips parting to beg or scream—I didn't care. The blade plunged into his thigh, sinking deep into flesh and muscle. He howled, the sound grating against my ears like nails on glass.

"This is for Lucy," I spat, gripping the handle tight and twisting it, relishing the sickening crunch of torn sinew. Blood poured out in dark rivulets, soaking into the dirt beneath us, but I wasn't done. His pleas—broken, pathetic, and weak—died in his throat as I yanked the knife free and drove it into his shoulder.

He screamed again, louder this time, his voice raw and ragged. I didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Each strike of the blade was an extension of my hatred. His body convulsed under me, but I kept going, ripping, stabbing, tearing. Blood sprayed across my hands, warm and sticky, as I carved him into something unrecognisable.

By the time I was done, Kai was no longer Kai. His face was a mangled mess of flesh and bone, his body broken, blood pooling around us like some grotesque work of art. My chest heaved, each breath a struggle as the rage slowly, reluctantly, began to drain from my veins.

"That's a hell of a mess," came a voice behind me, calm and unbothered, like we were standing in the middle of a park instead of a crime scene.

I turned sharply, the knife still clenched in my hand, to see him. Moon. Kai's brother. His shadow stretched long in the pale moonlight, and his expression was unreadable, but I saw the glint in his dark eyes.

"You're not mad?" I asked, my voice raw from screaming, from growling, from being alive.

Moon tilted his head, considering me like I was some wild animal he wasn't quite sure how to approach. Then he shrugged, his lips quirking in a small, cold smirk. "Mad? No. He had it coming. Kai was a piece of shit. Always was. Lucy would've hated him for this, too."

At the mention of her name, my grip on the knife tightened involuntarily. Moon noticed. Of course he noticed. His gaze dropped to my bloodied hands, and he smiled like he knew something I didn't, like he always did.

He stepped closer, unbothered by the carnage, and knelt beside his brother's corpse. Without hesitation, he plucked the knife from Kai's ruined chest, his fingers steady, precise, like he'd done this before. "You're messy, Dylan," he said, standing and holding the blade out to me.

I stared at him, my jaw clenching. I hated him. Everything about him—his smugness, his sharp wit, the way he always seemed a step ahead, and most of all, the way he said Lucy's name like she was his to talk about.

"What do you want, Moon?" I snapped, not taking the knife.

He smirked, flipping the blade and offering it handle-first. "I want you to wake up, Dylan. She's not yours, and she never will be."

The words hit harder than any blade ever could. My knuckles turned white around the hilt as I finally took the knife, my mind racing with a hundred things I wanted to say, to scream, to do.

But he was already turning away, stepping over his brother's body like it was nothing more than trash. He glanced back once, his smile as sharp as the blade in my hand. "You did good, though. I'll give you that."

And then he was gone, disappearing into the shadows, leaving me alone with the mess I'd made.

Lucy was gone, but at least Kai wouldn't hurt anyone else.

I stood there for a long time, staring at Kai's mangled corpse. The rage was gone now, leaving nothing but an empty pit in my chest. The silence felt suffocating, pressing against my ears.

Then, I heard it.

A soft, deliberate click. Heels.

I looked up, startled. A pair of pink heels stepped into the moonlight, their polished surface catching the faint glow. They moved with purpose, stepping around Kai's body as though it were nothing more than a piece of garbage.

I blinked, my breath catching. "What the—"

The heels paused. The figure crouched down, slender hands brushing Kai's bloodied face. With surprising precision, they began to drag his body away, leaving a faint trail of red in their wake.

"Who...?" My voice cracked as I tried to speak.

The figure stopped. Slowly, they turned, stepping fully into the light. My heart stopped.

"Lucy?"

She stood there, calm, her face framed by messy black hair that had always driven me mad in the best way. Her tired brown eyes met mine, but they weren't the same. There was something colder in them, something distant. She tilted her head, as if amused by my reaction.

"Hello, Dylan," she said softly, her voice like a ghost's whisper.

I fell to my knees, my hands trembling. "You're... you're dead," I stammered.

She didn't answer. She simply smiled—a small, haunting smile that sent a shiver down my spine—and turned away, dragging Kai's body into the shadows.

The last thing I saw was the glint of her heels as they disappeared into the darkness.

And then, silence.