Chapter 27
It was twisted to believe one could heal themselves through the suffering of others, but Eden had long since given up on the moral high ground.
None of the people on Dephik’s payroll had given a damn about his pain, his suffering.
No, they’d looked out for number one and swept all evidence of the crime under the proverbial rug.
How did they sleep at night?
Probably like damn babies.
And that was how Eden was going to sleep from here on out as well. He was determined to.
The first couple of deaths had been…a lot. Galen had been shocking. Happening too quickly to truly process. Zonnie had been too gruesome—Eden hadn’t been aware people could come apart like that before that night.
But Sedos had been easier.
A flash in the pan.
There and then gone.
Ares had made good use of their time together at the cabin to ensure no negative emotions lingered. The result? Eden hardly thought about Sedos all week. Even when he caught students talking about how tragic the whole thing was amongst themselves, he gave no external reaction.
But at night, he slept like a log, curled in the arms of his Black Hart.
His God of Creation.
The nightmares that had plagued him for years were gone. No more waking to distant screams of his family ringing in his head. No more cold sweats. No more random panic. Ares kept the monsters at bay.
Eden was doing that for him in return, he could tell. There were fewer episodes, less spacing out in the middle of a conversation. Ares was present. As close to whole as he imagined a person who’d experienced the things the Black Hart had could be.
Revenge had brought them together. The killings had brought them peace. He refused to feel guilty about it, but it also wasn’t something he’d be openly sharing with anyone else.
The other day, Eden had suggested they take care of Daven Dephik after all in part for his own peace of mind, but also for Ares. If Zar was to be believed, Ares was just as nervous about things crumbling between them as Eden was.
Ares wanted this to work.
He cared.
Truly.
Which meant they needed to wrap up the revenge scheme and start letting the rest of the pieces of their lives fall into place.
Had to start figuring out where they fit in the world together, and if they would last without the promise of an exchange between them.
This had started with Ares’ obsession with Random and Eden’s need for an assassin.
If both of those things were removed from the equation, what then?
Eden was worried Ares would change his mind, and Ares was concerned Eden would stop needing him. Getting rid of Dephik, living in the reality formed after, would ideally ease both of their concerns.
Because Eden wanted this to work too.
He cared.
Truly.
“What the hell is this?!” Inzer’s loud exclamation pulled Eden from his thoughts, and he glanced up from the computer he’d been typing notes on and met his old friend’s angry gaze.
“I beg your pardon?” Eden feigned ignorance, frowning as Inzer stormed down the steps of the lecture hall to the front, where Eden stood, waving a holo-pad aggressively.
“This!” He tossed the device onto the angled podium, forcing Eden to scramble to catch it before it slid off and smashed into the ground. “I know what you did three summers ago? What the hell!”
The words flashed on screen in big black letters.
“It’s a good movie,” Eden said with a shrug. “It used to scare my sister shitless.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Seems to be having the same effect on you now, Inz.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?!” He came around the podium, grabbing Eden by the shirt collar. The holo-pad crashed to the ground, but he didn’t seem to notice. “No one can get a hold of Zonnie. I looked into it, and he’s been missing ever since he visited your side of the planet.”
“I didn’t realize we’d divided the planet in half.”
Inzer shook him. “You killed him like you killed Sedos, didn’t you? Admit it!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Eden shoved the man off and adjusted his clothing.
“I know you’re the one who sent this,” he thrust a finger at the broken device, “and I know you’re behind their deaths. It’s too coincidental otherwise. You show up, and suddenly the two other people involved in that night are—”
“Hold on.” Eden tapped on his multi-slate and then waved him to continue. “If this is a confession, I want to get it on recording.”
Inzer stared at him as though seeing him for the first time. “Bastard. What is this? Payback?”
“I already know it was you, but I’d like to hear it anyway.
” Eden felt a thrum of fury but banked it down.
He couldn’t lose his cool and risk the plan.
This was about so much more than just revenge now.
Inzer had become another stepping stone on Eden’s path toward Ares.
Another tiny piece of reality that needed tweaking so they could form their perfect world. “You’re the one who shot Ella, right?”
Zonnie and Sedos were both responsible for his parents, but Ella had been killed by a single gunshot to the head. In some ways, that was better than the alternative, since she’d avoided the excruciating pain their parents had been forced to endure.
“She was upstairs,” Eden said. “She wasn’t a threat.”
Inzer’s face fell, and for a fleeting moment, there was real regret before he got a hold of his expression. “If she’d stayed there, she wouldn’t have been, but she heard the noise and came down. I made sure she didn’t go into the front room of the store. She didn’t see them like that. But…”
He wanted points for protecting her from the horrible sight of their mangled parents?
What a joke.
“She recognized you,” Eden filled in. It wasn’t too hard to guess. He hadn’t known Zonnie or Sedos, but Inzer had been a friend from his class. A person he’d brought home occasionally. “My sister had a crush on you, and you chased her up the stairs and killed her.”
“It was Zonnie,” he insisted, but Eden knew better.
“Liar.” If Inzer had chosen to throw Sedos under the bus, he might have hesitated to believe him. They hadn’t bothered interrogating him the way they had Zonnie, after all. “I already heard everything.”
“They were lying to you!”
“Zonnie had no reason to lie.”
“Of course he did! He’d do it so you would go easier on him! You’ve been messing with Sedos for weeks, don’t think I didn’t notice. Ellery has always been a vicious little fuck.”
“Would you believe me if I said Sedos had it better than Zonnie?” Eden grunted. “Near the end, he was begging for death.”
“So you killed him?”
“He’s certainly dead, isn’t he?”
Inzer gave a manic laugh and motioned to Eden’s multi-slate. “Did you forget you’re recording? So much for your evidence. Now we’re both implicated. Let’s come to an arrangement. You promise to drop this, and I won’t go to Daven Dephik and tell him about you.”
Eden lifted the device closer to his mouth and said clearly, “I told you I didn’t kill Zonnie like I killed Sedos, and that’s because I didn’t.”
“But you just—”
“They died differently, and Zonnie’s death was arguably worse.” Eden had still been so angry then, stricken by grief. But afterward…It’d been like a load off his chest, knowing what had really happened and how. The details had disgusted him, enraged him, but at least he’d finally known.
And he’d known he would get revenge on the others involved. Three years of searching, and Ares had rolled in and unearthed everything in a handful of days.
Eden hadn’t realized, but ever since that night, he’d been changing.
He sighed, some of the energy zapping out of him all at once. “This isn’t fun anymore. The way Sedos went, off-screen like the worthless scum he was, was better. I’m over this game.”
Originally, he’d wanted them all to suffer the same way his family had, but now…
He could sort of understand what Zar had meant when he’d casually mentioned removing people from his reality swiftly.
Hadn’t that also been Ares’ suggestion at the start of all this?
They’d only dragged it out because Eden had wanted to.
“I’d rather be posing nude for my boyfriend than here wasting breath on you.” They still had entire walls to correct back in Ares' room. He’d made the Black Hart take down all the drawings of Ransom, and they were slowly replacing them.
Inzer reached into his pocket, freezing when Eden rolled his eyes and tsked at him.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Eden was certain the man was about to pull out a weapon, and that would take up even more time he didn’t want to bother with. “The God of Creation is in my corner.”
“Ares isn’t here, which means—”
Someone cleared their throat loudly from the way back, and Inzer froze.
Ares waved from the shadows when the professor finally gathered the courage to turn and look. He’d arrived as planned shortly after Inzer, but had hung back to allow Eden to play things out how he saw fit.
“I meant literally,” Eden quipped. “He’s in the corner of my classroom right now.” He waved to the left, not bothering to entertain further conversation. “You can use the side entrance.”
Inzer swore and took off, racing from the room as fast as he could. He slammed into the door, causing it to clatter loudly against the outer wall, and disappeared down the hallway.
“Chance of running into company?” Eden asked as Ares unfurled from his seat and started down the center of the steps, hands casually stuffed into his front pockets.
“Everyone has left for the evening,” Ares reassured, “and I locked the door when I got here.”
“Perfect.” Eden had purposefully worked after hours, waiting for Inzer to take the bait and confront him.
Considering this was the third night in a row they’d done this dance—they’d sent that email with the dumb phrase days ago—and the asshole had only now gathered the courage to appear, Eden was entirely over the whole scenario.
“Don’t drag this out too long. We still have to pay Dephik a visit. ”