Chapter 14

14

brAD

“Y ou talk to Luke?” Seth asks as he lets me into his and Cody’s room.

I push past him and find Cody in only trunk boxers and socks at the espresso machine in the kitchenette. He glances between Seth and me, concern on his face, like he’s ready for a fight.

“He came by my dorm last night.”

Seth closes the door. “And you didn’t text us?”

To what? Tell you how Luke drove me insane?

How he blew my mind yet again?

How he sucked the cum out of me? And then, after I begged, let me drink his up?

Or does Seth want to hear about how Luke teased me with his ass and I shoved him against the door and started dry-humping him? How I could taste how much he wanted me as I licked his flesh? How I could hear the desire when he moaned, and how he ran his hand through my hair, like his entire body, his every move, was beckoning me to take what was rightfully mine?

Of course that’s not what Seth’s asking about, but it’s hard to think about much else, even when I know there are more important things to get to.

“I figured neither of you is planning to run away from St. Lawrence, so I didn’t see the harm in waiting a few hours.” I can’t disguise my irritation.

“Okay, okay,” Cody says. “We’re all stressed. Brad, I’m making chocolate shakes with espresso for Seth and me. How about I make you one too and then we’ll get into this?”

Unsurprisingly, Cody has a better grasp of what I need right now.

“I’m in,” I say, settling on the love seat in the main part of the dorm room.

Seth joins me, sitting on the arm.

Neither of us speaks as Cody runs the blender for a minute, but every time Seth glances my direction, I can feel his curiosity burning into my skin.

“He obviously couldn’t read most of the book,” I say, “so he came by to ask me what it said.”

“And you told him,” Seth says. It’s not a question; it’s an accusation.

“Of course I told him. He has a right to know.”

Seth spits out, “Maybe we should have discussed that or at least decided what you could tell him, you know, as a group.”

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s in the group already, whether he chose to be or not.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Seth,” Cody says from the kitchenette. “What did we talk about?”

Seth grunts. “Brad, I’m sorry. I know it seems like I’m not listening to you right now, but it feels like you aren’t listening to us either.”

Sounds like Cody attempted to get ahead of a fight, but I doubt Seth is going along with whatever script Cody gave him, since Cody would have worded this in a way that didn’t leave me annoyed as fuck.

“My issue, Seth, is that you aren’t listening to Luke. Just because he wasn’t a member with us from the beginning doesn’t mean he doesn’t have feelings or that this isn’t affecting him.”

“Oh God. This is that stupid lust thing you’ve been dealing with.”

“And now you’re not listening to me . You can’t dismiss me every time I advocate for him. That’s not fair to either of us.”

Cody steps around the island with two travel mugs in hand and hands one to each of us. “You two make all men look like a bunch of antagonistic asshats. Seth, why don’t you tell him the concerns you shared with me earlier, without criticizing or accusing?”

Sometimes I find Cody using his psych courses annoying, but in this case, it might actually help.

“This is exactly what Luke’s dad and Josh Dobbers were concerned would happen,” Seth says. “The wrong person getting their hands on this stuff.”

“Luke isn’t the wrong person,” I insist.

“How could you possibly know that? How can you be sure when he’s the reason this thing has already killed at least one person? We don’t know Luke. We don’t know what he could do now that he knows he has this power.”

“But you said it yourself: as long as he has all this power and doesn’t realize it, he’s dangerous. If we explain this to him, help him control his powers, maybe he won’t be.”

Seth’s gaze wanders, like for the first time, he’s seriously considering something I’ve said. I’m sure it’s at least in part because of Cody’s intervention.

“So which is more dangerous?” I press. “Him doing this stuff without knowing what it is, or him doing it on purpose?”

“It’s not just that,” Cody says. “Luke can obviously see things without getting wiped out like I do. That could be an advantage against the Slasher.”

This is the first I’ve heard Cody give it a nickname. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“It’s how the original Sinners referred to it. At least, I think this is similar to something else they encountered.”

“And you’re just telling us this now?” I ask.

“He doesn’t know for sure,” Seth says.

“After Luke mentioned the creature was feeding on blood and fear, I remembered some of the monsters the original Sinners profiled and checked my notes.”

Since discovering the Sinners’ bible, Cody has been working his way through it. He’s got a binder full of translations, which we’ve relied on as we learned how to use our powers and connect with the Guides. It’s also how we know about the history of the Sinners.

Even though Cody shares everything he’s translated, there’s too much for me to remember all of it, and clearly, even Cody needs to occasionally refer back to it to refresh his memory.

Cody heads over to his desk, retrieves some papers, and passes them to me. “They called this type a Slasher. They can appear in different forms, but they are similar in nature. Feed off blood and fear—those are the elements they need to grow and become stronger. When Waters and Dobbers encountered the first one, they used their powers to trap it and a shotgun to blow its head off, so we know it can be affected by the laws of our world and the spells we have.”

“There’s more,” Seth says. “We think something about Luke’s power is what it’s after. That’s what the Guides were trying to tell us.”

“Because it feeds off energy?”

“Exactly,” Cody replies. “Maybe they were warning that if it gets Luke, that will make it far stronger, which in turn…”

“Means it can kill even more people,” I conclude.

“There’s another fact about the Slasher,” Cody adds. “The way it murders its victims helps it extract more power. The first kill was quick because it needed to feed, but as it gets stronger, it can slow down, take its time to torture its victim to extract as much energy as it can from them.”

“Like setting someone on fire or impaling them.”

“All seems to fit together,” Cody says.

“More reason to get rid of Luke,” Seth adds, and I glare at him before he snaps, “I told you how I feel about this.”

“Yeah, and what happened to ‘we decide those things as a group’?” Cody retorts, making Seth huff.

“Seth only wants to do things when they work for the plan he already has in his head. Maybe we need to remind you that life’s different when you can’t just push what you want on people.”

Cody’s eyes narrow. “Did you really feel that was constructive?”

“No,” I confess.

He disregards it, saying, “Is there anything else anyone wants to bring up? Anything that maybe you feel like the other hasn’t been hearing?”

“I’ve said what I need to,” I reply.

Seth takes a moment before he adds, “I’m a little annoyed at Brad right now because I feel like, since Luke got here, he’s been keeping secrets about this…whatever we’re gonna call it. The Lust. ”

The Lust. That’s apt.

Seth goes on, “You don’t talk about it or tell us what you’re going through. And when we ask, you get real defensive.”

“You keep giving me hell about it, but then expect me to share something this personal?”

“That’s a fair criticism,” Seth concedes. “I’ve been pressing you about that because you are so secretive. But we need to understand what you’re experiencing. It could help us make sense of what the hell is going on.”

I grunt. “I don’t like this.”

“Okay,” Cody says in a gentle way, like he knows Seth hit a nerve. “Brad, do you have anything you want to say about that?”

“Can you not talk to me like I’m one of your future clients?”

“I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this.”

It doesn’t make this shit any less weird. “It’s not the kind of thing I want to talk about. It’s embarrassing, and deeply personal. And then it’s not just me. I can’t speak for Luke—”

“We’re back to you putting him first,” Seth says.

“Seth, we’re listening now,” Cody presses, which makes Seth take a breath.

I go on. “What if I was probing you about things you could only share by also sharing things Cody might not want me to know?”

“Don’t play like you know this guy like I know Codes.”

“Seth, can you understand what he was trying to say?” Cody asks.

Seth considers the question. “I do, but my point stands: I don’t get why he’s being loyal to someone who hasn’t earned that.”

“I don’t feel like I’m being loyal as much as seeing Luke as another person who deserves consideration.”

Seth’s gaze meets mine, and his expression relaxes. “Okay. I hear that.”

About fucking time.

I take my first sip of Cody’s shake, cherishing the mix of ice cream and espresso—two of my favorite things. Between Seth actually fucking listening to me and the taste, my defenses are starting to come down.

“Okay,” Cody says. “Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, there’s more.”

“ More? Fuck.”

Cody heads to his desk and takes out a spiral-bound notebook. He opens it as he approaches me, and I can see it’s notes about Luke’s vision.

“He mentioned a statue he thought might be a squirrel with a hat,” he says.

“I remember.”

“We think he got it wrong. The animal, at least. The mascot for the winter festival.”

“Bucktooth Beaver?” I’m surprised I didn’t make the connection from Luke’s description.

“We’ll have to check with Luke,” Seth says, “but you wouldn’t necessarily know the animal unless you’re familiar with Lawrenceville. The fair doesn’t open until November twenty-first, so we think another murder will take place after the twenty-first.”

“You think but don’t actually know. Based on what he described, he seemed to be jumping around in time.”

“It’s something to go off of, at least,” Seth mumbles before Cody interjects, I assume to keep Seth and me from spinning around in our frustration.

“The original Sinners said the Slashers need to take breaks after they feed—at least in their early development. It’s a physical creature, an animal, so it grows and evolves like any other. If we’re right, we have some time to sort this out. I say we all meet with Luke again. This time, we have a more open dialogue about everything, including the Lust you two are experiencing, if you’re both comfortable sharing that. And then we start acquainting Luke with some of the tricks we’ve used. Help him figure out his powers the way we learned how to figure out ours. Luke’s powers seem to allow him to get inside this Slasher’s head. If he can find a way to control that, maybe we can find out where it’s hiding.”

“What if we don’t have time for that?” I ask.

“I’m not strong enough to go back under yet,” Cody says. “I do wonder if there’s a way I could piggyback off what Luke’s doing and maybe use that, but that’s gonna take time to figure out.”

“I don’t like that,” Seth says. “It sounds dangerous.”

“It’s all dangerous,” Cody says. “But with that thing out there, we’re gonna have to take risks. We also have to hope I’m right and that we have some time to try and make sense of this.”

“And if we’re wrong?” I ask.

Cody’s gaze sinks. “Then at least one more person will die.”

So like with so much of this shit, what choice do any of us have?

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