Chapter Forty-Four
EZEKIEL
I’m yelling when I come to. My ravaged throat quakes with a hoarse gasp when I stop abruptly to look around.
My vision is blurry, and there’s ringing in my ears, but that’s nothing new with a switch.
What I don’t expect is to find myself surrounded by flames.
The first thing I notice is that the cabin is gone.
It’s nothing more than charred wood and ash as the last of the fire consumes what remains.
The second thing I notice is that I’m alone.
My gaze moves around, and my stomach sinks at the dead bodies everywhere. All of them robed, all of them except—
“Thorin?” I stand from where I’m kneeling and rush over to him.
He isn’t moving, and it doesn’t look like he’s breathing either.
“Thorin.” I touch his shoulder gently and then move to try to check his pulse, but I pull my hand away immediately to study my now wet palm.
It’s caked in blood. “Shit, Thor.” My bloody hand trembles.
“You better not be fucking dead,” I choke out.
Tears fall from my eyes, joining the ones already drying on my cheeks.
What the hell happened? Did I do this? Did Bane?
“Shit!” someone shouts, drawing my attention to the woods or what’s left of it. “I found her! I found her! Someone get over here!”
A moment later, I hear a scream and a gunshot, and my blood chills when I recognize that scream.
Aurelia.
Finding one of our radios among the carnage, I call the sheriff and tell him to send a medevac before shoving the radio in my back pocket.
“I’ll be back, Thor. Help is coming. Hang on for me, brother. Please.” Grabbing the first gun I see, I pause only long enough to check the clip before running off around the side of the cabin and down the only drivable path.
I’m barely fifty feet when I spot a body lying on the ground, another robed man wearing a mask with his neck twisted at an odd angle. I feel my own burn as I disregard him and keep pushing down the hill.
“Fuck! Hold her down!”
Looking over the side, I spot them below on the precipice where I’ve been waking up every other night for the last three months. With her.
Now Aurelia is the one who needs me, and she’s alone with three others, all of them robed, but only one wearing a mask.
Two of them have her pinned down as she struggles to get free.
Where the fuck is Khalil?
I finally reach the first sharp turn and sprint down the path leading to the precipice. To the cliff that I share with Aurelia. I’ll be damned if I let them hurt her on our spot or anywhere else.
The leader finally removes his mask to say something to her, and my steps slow as everything comes to a screeching halt inside my mind.
That face.
I know that face.
It’s haunted my memories.
“ISAAC!” I roar when I spot my father’s other son.
He turns, spotting me on the path, and smiles like he was expecting me all along. “Ah, Ezekiel. So it’s finally you.”
“Let. Her. Go.”
“Now, why would I do that when I have you right where I want you?” He crooks a finger, and because Aurelia is there too, I go.
I step onto the cliff jutting out from the mountain face and walk right past my brother as if he doesn’t exist. I feel his surprise and then I feel his fury, but none of that matters as I kneel to check on Aurelia.
She’s lying parallel with the edge of the cliff now, her head facing away from the rest of us, and when I turn it with gentle fingers, I see blood pooling from her temple. There are bruises all over her body, and she looks like she’s been through hell.
She’s also unconscious.
It’s a far cry from the last time I saw her less than twenty-four hours ago. She’d been soft and sweet, and high on endorphins.
Rising, I turn to face Isaac. “I’m going to kill you.”
Isaac finally drops the false charming persona and lets his anger show. “Do not forget who your master is.”
“She is,” I say, pointing to the unconscious girl at my feet, and then I let my crooked smile free. “When I let her be. She’s also the reason I’m no longer afraid of you, and you hurt her. That means you die.”
“Take a good look, Ezekiel. What do you see?” Isaac pushes the hood off his head, and I’m startled to see that he’s bald now.
His hair is completely gone, which doesn’t make any sense given how much he used to be obsessed with it—always claimed it was his best feature.
His vanity would never so much as allow him to dye it, and he’d rage for hours if his barber cut an inch more than he liked.
There’s no way he’d ever shave it willingly.
No way. And then I notice everything else I missed before—the sallow skin and lost weight.
Holy. Fuck.
He’s sick.
No. Not just sick.
Isaac is dying.
I wonder what his followers thought of that. No doubt he found a way to twist the truth and blame me. And that’s when I realize how much I do not care. From the looks of it, Isaac has been getting his due for a while now.
“When did you find out?” I ask curiously. Not that I give a shit.
“A month after you were kidnapped.”
Ten years. He’s been sick all of this time. “You mean rescued,” I correct. “From you.”
“Your life finally had meaning when you were with me, Ezekiel.”
“What do you want from me, Isaac?”
“I want you to take that gun, and I want you to shoot yourself. I am meant to live forever. You”—he points a finger at me—“were never even meant to be born.”
“Yes, I know. Our father cheated on your mother with mine, and she killed herself in front of you when she found out about me. That’s all very sad, but I stopped giving a fuck the first time you strapped me to that table.
You stopped being a victim when you broke apart families and manipulated thousands into suicide because you just couldn’t accept that sometimes life isn’t fair.
You’re a murderer, Isaac. A serial killer with an LLC. And I’m done with you.”
Behind me, I hear Aurelia begin to stir just as I see a lone figure stagger from the woods while clutching his side.
“You will never be done with me,” he snarls. “Not until you’re delivered unto Thanatos and I am delivered from Death. It is your duty as one of my blood.”
“You know,” I say when I hear the rapid whir of helicopter blades as the medevac approaches.
“I was going to beat the shit out of you and maybe torture you for some karmic retribution, but it looks like fate already has that covered. And as for family, I’ve got that covered too.
Every second I spend on you is a second less I have with them, so enough chitchat. Goodbye, Isaac.”
I lift my gun, and his disciples raise theirs.
“Do you really think this will end well for you, Ezekiel?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Two shots ring out, each one from opposite directions, and the disciple to his left drops followed by the one on his right. Khalil emerges from the shadows, clutching a gun in his hand, and behind me, Aurelia groans as she rises into a sitting position while holding her own gun.
Isaac looks around, finally realizing he’s alone.
There. That look. The fear of death finally enters his eyes. There are no more disciples, no more sheep to hide it from. There’s also no cage to throw me in or a table to strap me to.
It’s just him and me.
Khalil kicks Isaac in his back and sends him to his knees while I turn to help Aurelia up.
“You okay?” I ask her while leaning down to brush the tip of her nose with mine.
“I’ll live,” she answers. “You?”
I smile down at her. “I’ll live.”
Those two words carry a heavier meaning for me though, and I see the moment she realizes it too. “Good.”
“Ayo, Zeke. I really liked your speech about not needing to torture him and all, but there’s no reason why we can’t kick the shit out of him for a little bit.”
Aurelia raises her hand. “I’m down for some stomping the motherfucker out.”
“No,” I answer firmly. “There’s no time for that. Thor needs us.”
The reminder sobers the two of them as they nod and get into position. We aren’t taking any chances of this bitch surviving.
“Ezekiel, please,” Isaac begs when all three of us lift our guns to his head. “I’m your brother.”
“You were never my brother,” I say.
And then we fire. I’m numb as I watch the light leave Isaac’s eyes and then his body slump to the ground.
It’s quiet except for the wildfire and the helicopter arriving.
The three of us glance at each other, and I can see the silent question in their eyes as we consider Isaac’s insane belief that he’d rise again.
“Just to be sure?” Aurelia asks.
Khalil blows out a breath and grunts. “Fuck it.”
All at once we lift our guns once more and empty our clips into Isaac’s lifeless body. I then grab him by his bloody robe and drag him toward the cliff’s edge, painting a trail of blood as we go. Once there, I drop his body and lift my boot before kicking his ass over the side.
Just to be sure.