26. North
Chapter 26
North
F uck, I hate when Ranen is out with Olly.
I’m not unreasonable… and even if it was unreasonable, Ranen is dating a psychopath who likes to kill people because he’s bored.
The fact that I’m jealous of the time he spends with his friend but don’t do anything about it should get me a gold fucking medal.
I haven’t even thought about killing Olly.
Much.
Maybe a few times.
It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve been mostly normal about his friendship, and that has to count for something.
Which is why I’m sitting around our apartment with Wylder, who is still in the city for some reason. I’m used to him blowing in and out like some kind of wild storm, maybe breaking a few trees and destroying a few neighborhoods in the process, but leaving just as quickly as he’d shown up.
Now, he’s on the couch across from me drinking a beer like it’s a normal thing, his eyes idly on whatever he’s watching on his phone.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was sticking around to make sure Ranen and I don’t get into any trouble.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was sticking around to see how Ranen and I work so well to begin with… because we really do. I’ve never felt so content before. It hasn’t magically cured me of my desire to kill, by any means, but I haven’t had to rush off to do it either. That urge isn’t a pressing, burning need, living and breathing and demanding in my chest.
Of course, being with Ranen has fed it twice. Maybe it just knows he’ll bring more opportunities. I’m more than willing to change my agenda to taking out anyone who remotely looks at him funny.
It sounds like an excellent motive, even if Dad, Wylder, and probably Ranen wouldn’t actually approve.
“Do you always look like you’re ready to kill someone when your kitty goes on a play date?” Wylder asks, interrupting my thoughts. My eyes snap up to him, and I frown.
“I’m not ready to kill anyone except for you if you keep calling him kitty.” The threat doesn’t mean a damn thing since he starts laughing the second the scowl crosses my face.
“Listen, you’re the one who picked a man who looks like he’d purr if you pet him.”
He did , but that wasn’t the point.
“It’s okay to be jealous, Wylder.” I plaster a friendly smile across my features and sit back in the chair, forcing some of the tension I’m carrying out of my shoulders. “I know you’re bad at making friends. I’m sure the dating scene can’t be easy for you.”
“I already told you, North. People like us aren’t made to date, or care about other people. I don’t know what universal law you broke or what god you bargained with to get Ranen, but it’s not normal.”
At least he isn’t telling me I shouldn’t be with him this time. Now he’s just saying it’s denying the laws of the universe.
That’s an improvement.
But anyone who meets Ranen would have to know just by looking at him he belongs to me, that he was made just for me. There’s no world where I wouldn’t have found him. I have to believe that.
When I’m silent for a few more minutes, Wylder runs his fingers through the long strands of his hair to get it out of his face, and he glances down as he asks me his next question. “You really love him, though, don’t you?”
Maybe I’m imagining it, but there’s almost an edge of longing in his voice. I’ve never really asked my brother about his love life, because he’s made it clear from the beginning that he doesn’t believe in that kind of shit… but maybe I should have looked a little deeper. I really haven’t talked to him enough since he moved away.
“I do.” I answer it without hesitation, without worrying about what the words mean. “I know it’s hard to understand, but Ranen… he makes things make sense. He makes things feel different .” I trace the pattern on the chair I’m in and frown. “It’s not like things were bad before. I was happy. I’ve always been happy. But Ranen… it’s like I’ve actually opened my eyes for the first time, Wylder. It’s like I can finally see the world, and the entire thing is the same shade as his eyes. It’s… different.” I look up at him, at the frown twisting his mouth and the streak of pain that flickers across his face. “It’s good.”
The silence permeating the air only lasts for a second before his lips quirk. “Sounds like it’s a liability to me. Caring about someone that much makes you make mistakes. Like… I don’t know… killing a man without a proper setup and leaving a dead body in an apartment?” He’s back to joking again, but there’s something in his tone that tells me I got to him. “Also, you could have warned me I wasn’t cleaning up Mr. Barlowe’s blood . ”
He’s teasing me, and I almost feel guilty that he obviously had to clean up the aftermath of me fucking Ranen, but it was practically part of the crime scene at that point. And I’m too focused on the little glimpses of emotion I saw on his face to let it go.
“Haven’t you ever cared about anyone?”
“No.” He answers too quickly, then shrugs. “It’s a waste of time. Also, there’s no person in this world built to take on my brand of psychopath. You lucked out picking up your kitty cat, North. I don’t think anyone else could look at what we do and be okay with it.”
“You know, maybe you’re wrong, Wylder. I’m sure there’s someone out there built to match your kind of crazy.”
“Trust me, I’ve tr—” Wylder cuts off as he glances down at his phone. I know something’s wrong the instant the expression he usually wears drains from his features and his smile fades into something dark and dangerous—the brother only I’ve seen, the face he wears when he’s ready to kill someone.
“What is it?”
“North, I need you to be calm.” Something in my chest constricts, because there’s no reason for him to say that unless something is wrong.
There are exactly three people I care about in this world, and one of them is in the room with me. Which means it’s either Dad or…
“Who?”
“I had my connection run Ranen’s subscriber list, to make sure we got all the accounts related to the man we dismembered yesterday. The problem is, he only had one.”
“Why is that a—”
“It wasn’t the account leaving the messages, North.”
I pull my phone out while he’s still talking, flipping on the tracker program I made Ranen sign up for. He’d laughed at the time, but said he would as long as he could track me too.
He was moving out of the city—away from Olly’s apartment.
Away from me.
“Give me a name, Wylder.” I don’t have to ask, though. I already know.
“Oliver Moore.”
“ Fuck .”
Everything goes cold. My first urge is to call Ranen and warn him, but I know better—if the fucker hears him, if he already has his phone, if I alert him to the fact that I know, there’s every chance he’ll ditch the cellphone and I won’t be able to find him.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done to put my phone back in my pocket, but I manage.
I stand, and Wylder follows behind me as I grab a bag and go to Ranen’s streaming room. When I kick open his closet and start pulling out a few choice weapons, he keeps talking.
“He has multiple subscriber accounts on Ranen’s profile. Messages started out flattering, then they devolved. My guy tracked his cellphone the night Ranen was attacked.”
“It was here.”
“Yeah,” Wylder reaches over my shoulder and grabs a knife. “It was here.”
I turn and look at my brother, and I know my expression is probably something he’s never seen before. It’s not that I can’t kill Olly. I know I can kill Olly.
I’ll be happy to kill Olly. It’s the fact that he’s driving away with Ranen, and Ranen has already been with him for hours.
It’s the fact that I dropped Ranen off there myself, and I don’t know what’s happened to him while I’ve been sitting around waiting for him like a goddamn asshole.
Fuck , I was too focused on thinking we’d gotten the right guy… too happy being happy to listen to my instincts when it came to that little fucker, Olly .
“We’ll find him, okay?” Wylder’s voice is soothing—the same tone he used when we were younger and I got hurt.
“I… fuck .” I can’t do this. I stand, and start out the door, not looking behind me when I speak. “We have to find him.”
“We will.”
I look at him over my shoulder, and I can see he’s serious—that as much shit as he’s been giving me about Ranen, he already considers him part of the family too.
“When we find them, Olly pays . I’m the one to kill him.”
Wylder nods, pulling his car keys out and unlocking his doors. “Just tell me where to go.”
Where to go is apparently some fucked-up little cabin in the middle of nowhere. Wylder gets on the phone while we’re driving, and I hear the second his tone changes.
“Look, I don’t fucking care , okay? Just see who it belongs to.”
I’ve never heard him talk to a contact like that before. He sounds like he’d rather be doing anything other than speaking to them.
“Yeah, Mateo,” he growls. “It’s important.” The smirk that crosses his face is devilish. “No, not for me. I don’t even fucking know him, you goddamn asshole. What’s wrong, Princess? Are you jealous?”
There’s another pause, and someone speaks sharply enough I can hear the rise in their tone.
Then Wylder smirks and hangs up.
“It’s Olly’s cabin.”
As focused as I am on Ranen, I can’t help the question as it comes to me. “Who the fuck was that?”
Wylder doesn’t glance away from the road, he just shrugs one shoulder. “Former co-worker. Don’t worry about it. We’re getting close.”
As much as I want to keep questioning him because it would give me something to focus on other than the burning twist of anger and anxiety in my stomach, I drop it.
Wylder glances behind him and steps on the gas. I’m not sure if he’s just confident we won’t run into a cop, or if he’s sure he’ll be able to handle it if we do. Whatever the answer, he doesn’t slow down until we’re at the end of a long driveway.
Once the car shuts off, he looks at me. “I’ll check and make sure there’s nothing around back. This is where the tracker says he is, right?”
I glance at my phone again. It says Ranen is less than a hundred yards away from me, his signal beeping in the shitty little run-down cabin I see in the distance. Wylder’s given us enough space that they shouldn’t know we’re coming, and judging from the setup and the fact that Olly wasn’t even smart enough to ditch Ranen’s fucking phone, I have a feeling he didn’t bother with anything sophisticated like cameras, or even a security system.
It doesn’t really matter. If Wylder goes around back, there’s no way the motherfucker is going to get away from us—Olly didn’t know he was buying a coffin when he got this place, but I’m going to make sure he’s buried here.
I just wish I could ignore the anxiety thrumming through my chest, the need to start moving now. I have to be smart about this. It isn’t just another kill. This isn’t someone I’m hunting for sport, someone who can fight back—because that’s exciting sometimes.
There’s no room for error, because I don’t have any way of knowing what’s happening to Ranen. I don’t know if he’s tied up… hurt. I don’t know if Olly has a weapon.
I do know that if anything happens to Ranen, there won’t be enough air in the world for Olly to breathe in for the way I’m going to make him scream.
I give a sharp nod and get out of the car, shutting the door silently as Wylder breaks off from me and circles around the building. I look around one more time to make sure there’s nothing I’ve missed—no cameras, no traps set.
Is Olly really that big a fuckup? He only managed to get Ranen because Ranen trusted him, and I was going to hate him no matter what because he was taking up Ranen’s time.
Fuck, this is my fault.
Anything that happens to Ranen is my fault.
I just have to hope that he’s all right when I get inside, so I can spend the rest of our lives making it up to him.