Chapter 19 Hazard
Hazard
A sudden surge of energy swelled through Zira as she went down the ladder.
She almost danced, like she couldn’t wait to start giving orders and making demands.
But my mind wandered, thinking of how good her ass looked in those pants.
I grabbed my dick as I watched her walk across the lawn.
Fuck. I liked seeing her in pants; it showed off her cute ass in a way that the dresses never did.
Only time would tell if she actually wore panties now.
I had a feeling she wouldn’t, though. Zira might have given up the dress habit, but panties weren’t her style.
She swung around, her lips dropping open as she saw me touching my dick through my pants.
“Are you coming?” she taunted.
“Not yet,” I winked.
I followed her down the ladder, but before I could even push her up against the building, the estate manager caught our eyes.
“Ah,” he said. “Here they are.” He redirected the group of women to us, and Zira gave her practiced smile.
“You must be concerned,” Zira said loudly, her voice dripping with ease as she slipped into her rightful position.
“The hell is happening?” one woman said.
“Are they dead? Are they burning alive?”
“Who did this?”
“Did you do this?”
Zira lifted a hand, and soon, their questions fell to silence. Even without her father or the rest of the Marked Blooms Syndicate behind her, Zira still commanded the crowd, like I always knew she would. If she had escaped the Syndicate years ago, there’s no telling where she would be now.
But this had always been her goal, and finally, she had achieved it.
“I apologize if I’ve alarmed you.” She scanned the crowd as if she could look each of them in the eyes and address them directly.
Knowing their pain. Everything they had been through.
The future she had saved them from. “But it’s time for a change in the Marked Blooms Syndicate. And that starts with us.”
“Us?” a woman asked.
Zira nodded. “You are obviously important to the members and initiates who chose to sacrifice you,” she continued.
“I would like for you to join the Marked Blooms Syndicate in their place. If you need assistance, I have contacts who can assist you with rearranging wills in order to give you full power and control over your husband’s, brother’s, or father’s properties, and those services will be provided by us whether or not you join the Syndicate. ”
A hum of murmurs ran through the crowd. Some women crowded together, whispering to themselves, but a few lips trembled, unable to process what had happened.
“You killed hundreds of people in there,” one of the women said. “Why should we trust you?”
For a few seconds, Zira marveled at the banquet hall, the broken windows still flickering with fiery light. I couldn’t wait to find her father’s corpse and see what he had ultimately decided—being impaled or decapitated—or if the explosions had made the decision for him instead.
“Honestly? You shouldn’t trust me,” Zira said, a slyness trickling into her tone.
“But I was a little,” she looked at me and I nodded, encouraging her to go on.
She then turned back to the crowd and sighed.
“I was a little frustrated with the way we were treated. Honestly, I don’t mind the ritual of sacrificing others, but there needs to be a change.
Why torture and kill someone you’re connected to, when we can use those connections to our advantage?
But that’s something we can vote on when we find a new board.
I hope you understand that this was the only way to give us a clean slate. ”
The quiet conversations continued, and Zira leaned into me. “You think they bought it?” she whispered.
“I did,” I said, squeezing her shoulder.
“I’ll be in touch with information about the Syndicate,” Zira said, addressing the crowd. “And when the time comes, bring your best partner, and let’s rule this world together.”
Someone in the back of the crowd cheered.
Another sacrifice hesitantly clapped, and soon, they all joined in.
The applause was loud, breaking through the night, the fire crackling to the side of us.
Sweat beaded on my brow—the fire was hot as hell—but I beamed down at Zira, so damn proud to be by her side.
Once they were done clapping, the women turned to each other, forming a line in front of one of the estate managers. Zira grabbed my shoulder.
“Can you stay here?” she asked. “There’s something I need to do. I’ll be back in the morning.”
“I’ll be here,” I said.
With my direction and help, one of the staff members raided the main building’s kitchen and brought back a feast for the women.
The building glowed with the fire. A set of private fire fighters came, taking care of the flames.
It was a long night, and for once, I was patient.
It should have bored the hell out of me, but there was so much energy in the air that I didn’t mind it.
And since Zira wanted me to stay with the women, then I would. I had learned to trust my queen.
Hours passed. Hints of daylight crept over the horizon, trickling through the magnolia trees.
The stench of popcorn and charred meat filled the air, white smoke rising toward the clouds.
Right around the time the building unlocked, a staff member brought a fourth round of coffee to the few of us that were still left, and I drank it down, the liquid burning my throat.
I had begrudgingly called Carter Care—that assassin company that Zira liked—to provide the women with security guards to escort them home.
It was out of Carter Care’s typical services, but Carter complied, no questions asked.
Most of the women were gone now, but a few of them were left, and I stayed beside them.
Zira came out of one of the other buildings, emerging from an exit I didn’t recognize. She pushed a large cart with a rectangular wooden box on the top, and as our eyes met, I knew instantly what it was.
My sister’s coffin.
The wooden box was much smaller than I expected. I opened the lid and found her shriveled neck, sunken eyes sockets, her wrists arched in an unnatural shape. She was mostly bones now, aged with decaying brownish yellow skin. Her dull red hair in tangles at the back of her head.
A heavy weight rolled in the pit of my stomach, but I held onto that emotion, forcing myself to experience every ounce of it. It was my fault that Gabby had come here in the first place; I could accept that now.
I closed the metal box. I had found her body, and I hated that this was the best I could do. But maybe working beside Zira was the best way to make it right for my sister. To make sure that things changed from now on.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
Zira straightened her stance. “What do you want to do with her?”
“Know anyone who will cremate her?” I asked. Zira nodded. “We can scatter her ashes. Go on a trip somewhere. She probably wouldn’t want to be stuck here any longer.” I paused, biting my tongue. “No offense.”
Zira pressed her lips together. “I don’t blame her.”
I tilted my head toward the building. “And your father?”
The building had a faint halo of smoke around it, but it was no longer burning.
The windows would need to be replaced, but the shell of it still stood, blackened and gloomy.
Taking Gabby on the cart with us, we went to the final resting place of Daddy Bloom.
The blackened carcass of a man, like a hollowed-out log, lay on the ground.
His head lay a short distance away, like a rippled black bowling ball.
“Time to clean out the trash,” Zira muttered. I stared at her, trying to see if there was any pain in her eyes, but she waved away my concern. “He was technically my family, but that never meant anything in the Marked Blooms Syndicate.”
“But it does now,” I said.
At those words, she held my hand, looking up at me. I might not have been the best brother to Gabby, but if family meant a union between people who did everything they could for each other, then I wanted to be that person for Zira. I wanted to make things right for her.
“We’re family,” I said.
She stepped up on her toes, her boots crunching on the ground, and she kissed me.
“We are,” she said.
* * *
A few days passed. Zira was busy as hell, trying to get all of that glorious chaos under control again.
But by the time everything was settled, we took Gabby’s ashes back to Oakmont.
It was a shitty little town, but it was home.
And whether or not either of us would admit it, I think it was home for Zira too.
Turns out, her mother was from there too.
We walked through the woods, the sycamore trees covered in Spanish moss, the branches hanging down like lazy fingers.
For once, we walked in silence. It was closure for both of us, and in a way, it left me without a clue about where to go next.
Zira was the de facto director of the board now, but what that meant for the Marked Blooms Syndicate was unknown.
“Maybe we should do this for everyone down there,” Zira said, breaking the silence. “It seems better than decaying in a catacomb underneath a place that symbolizes so much trauma.”
I wasn’t one to make any kind of judgment like that, but staying still in any place for too long, dead or alive, made my skin crawl. My crushed up bones and ashes scattered throughout the wind seemed more fitting.
I dumped out the rest of the small container. Usually there were several pounds of bones and ash from a fresh corpse, but since Gabby had decomposed a lot already, we were done spreading her ashes much sooner than I expected.
A bird chirped in the distance, and as we continued walking through the woods, a car hummed on the highway. A few people shouted to each other, their voices carrying through the trees, no doubt crowding over a six-pack of beers. It was life as usual in Oakmont.
But what was life ‘as usual’ with Zira?
“What’s the plan now?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“With the sacrifices. The Syndicate. Everything.”
“I like the sacrifices,” she said. “I’d hate to give those up entirely.”
I clicked my jaw. There was a caveat hanging onto those words.
“But?” I asked.
“But there has to be another way,” she said. “With the two other initiation tasks—killing a rival for the Syndicate and providing services to another random member at no charge—that should be enough to prove your loyalty.”
I lifted my shoulders. “Why not have the Masquerades for fun, then?”
“It’s only fun if there’s an actual risk,” she whined.
“And there can be,” I said, excitement and ideas flooding into my brain.
“Everyone has to watch. That’s what makes it high risk: witnesses.
Then, instead of killing those rivals as one of the separate initiation tasks, you sacrifice the rivals,” I said.
“Or sacrifice people who betray someone from the Syndicate.”
“Like people who deserve it?”
“Yeah,” I paused. “Like that.”
‘People who deserved it’ made it seem justified, but that wasn’t the point.
I didn’t care about justice, and I doubt Zira cared about it either.
But the idea that the Syndicate members could focus their energies into something more useful seemed like a good adjustment.
A better use of time and energy. That was something Zira would like.
“A productive sacrifice,” Zira whispered. “God. Why hasn’t it been that way all along?”
“Who’s the evil genius now?” I smirked.
She smacked my arm playfully, then grabbed Gabby’s urn and stowed it in her purse. Then she threw her arms around my neck.
“What other good ideas do you have?” Zira asked.
My jaw popped before I said the words: “Serving you.”
I kneeled down. The twigs dug into my knees through my jeans, but I didn’t care.
I pulled on the edge of her pants, then unbuttoned and pulled the fabric down until her pussy hairs poked out.
Even in pants, she still didn’t wear panties.
I licked her skin, her hairy mound tickling my tongue, then I growled.
“Is that another good idea?” she whispered.
“My queen, you’re the best idea I’ve ever had,” I said.