24. Played For A Fool
24
Played For A Fool
Theron
Signal Lost.
I cocked my head at the notification on my phone, searching through the application to see if maybe I’d lost service in the 24-hour diner where Tabitha and I were staked out. The heart rate monitor wasn’t returning a reading, but the GPS was still emitting from her apartment. She took it off?
“What now?” Tabitha drawled from the other side of the table, a chipped coffee cup to her lips. She had dark circles under her eyes from the trip, looking uncharacteristically disheveled on our last minute hunt.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered, giving her a quick glance before dialing Ever’s number. I’d promised to give her time, but the ring was for her safety. She promised she wouldn’t take it off and though things weren’t — perfect right now, I doubted she would do something like this. At the very least she knew I would call if she took it off.
Her phone went straight to voicemail, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
“Check your email again,” I growled at her while searching for my father’s number. He’d told me Tabitha was given all the details, but we’d only received a name. No location, and no direct contact from Faust.
“I’ve checked it every minute, Hawthorne, there’s no dossier. Did Orlo ever say why Faust refused to sanction the hunt? He’s never had a problem scratching our back before.”
“Something’s. Not. Right,” I snarled again and stood from the table. “Fuck!” I through the diner as Tabitha called to me from behind.
“Theron? Hey! ”
I’m too far away. I’m five fucking hours away and Ever’s phone is going straight to voicemail and her ring has been taken off. She wouldn’t do something to hurt herself would she? I thought those tendencies were quieted now that she knew she was getting a heart — maybe it’s because of me. She saw who I really was, and where the heart would be coming from and she couldn’t do it. Rather than telling me no she —
“Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” I was pacing now, breathing hard as Tabitha ran after me.
“Theron! What’s going on?” She grabbed onto my arm and I snapped.
“She’s gone and done something stupid and it’s all my fault!”
Her mouth fell open. “The Knight woman? But this hunt is for her. Why are you panicking like this? What did she do?”
“She told me she didn’t want it anymore, back in the OR, and now she’s taken off the ring and her phone is going to voicemail …” I found myself rambling, eyes dancing across the neon signs of New York with a sickening dread. “I never should have let her see me. Not like that.”
The fear in Ever’s eyes, of me and of herself, when she left that operating room will haunt me, because she was the only person I didn’t want to fear me. Out of everyone in the world, I had hoped she’d know I would never hurt her. I couldn’t give up my hunts — they had kept me sane for over a decade but without here, who was I staying sane for ?
“She’s a big girl — she chose to go into that operating room. Look, let’s finish the hunt and then you can talk to her.”
Tabitha kept trying to tug at my arm, pull my hands from my head as I stumbled down the dark street and tried to not look into the eyes of every person that passed by. I felt like my world was caving in. I’d found her nearly dead, twice, but nothing compared to the fear that clawed me now, knowing distance that separated us.
“We don’t even have the location,” I snarled and watched a few people cross the sidewalk away from me. It might have been nearly midnight but the city never slept, and the bustle of humans milling around me made my skin crawl. “Call Faust!”
Tabitha groaned. “Theron you know how he is —”
“Get him on the fucking phone. Now,” I hissed. We were approaching the parking garage. I didn’t need to turn around to know that Tabitha was making the call, and when her hand shot into view with a phone I snatched it from her.
“Atlas,” I ground out. “I’ve been in the city for over two hours without a dossier and my patience has run out.”
The line was quiet, and then the low rumble of the voice of New York’s most prolific serial killer gave me pause. “Hawthorne?”
“Who else?” I barked. “I haven’t the slightest idea why you wouldn’t sanction a hunt, but have we no respect for each other’s time? I need the target dossier for the Knight case.”
“I’m afraid you’re being played for a fool, old friend. Who told you I’d found a match?”
I blinked in confusion. “Orlo.”
The line was quiet, and fear rose up through my throat until the bustling world around me was drowned beneath it. I had continued walking towards the car with Tabitha on my heels, pausing with my hand on the driver’s door.
“I’m sorry, Hawthorne, I haven’t spoken to your father since his retirement.”
In my many years under Orlo Hawthorne’s roof, never had he lied to me. I’d been beaten into form, deprived of parental love and forced to be the heir to his bloody empire, but never lied to.
I cleared my throat. “No need for apologies, Atlas. I have to go.”
Hanging up, I slid into the car. “What did he say?” Tabitha pressed.
My whole body shook, and I pressed my head into the steering wheel. “We’ve been set up,” I told her quietly. “There was never a target in New York. Orlo wanted me out of the city so he could take Ever.”
Tabitha remained silent. I could feel her questioning glare but also, her fury and confusion. She’d maintained a surprising, if not inappropriate at times, connection with my father. They’d grown close during her years in Northeastern, interning long hours while his practice was still open and keeping the older man company well into the nights. She wanted someone mature who wasn’t possessive, and he wanted a pretty face and open ears.
It was never romantic, nor forced, but something they’d both enjoyed when they didn’t feel as if they could confide in someone else. It’d stopped when Tabitha became an employee, but the trust hadn’t been broken just because sex was no longer on the table. After Ada, he wasn’t interested in anything more. Was that what this was about? Did he think he was protecting me from the same fate? Letting someone get too close and it ending with an unmarked grave?
Tabitha twisted towards me suddenly. “You don’t think he —”
“Don’t,” I growled as I made my way out of the city. “My father wouldn’t dare.”
Without looking over I could sense her brows rising towards her hairline. “Wouldn’t he though?”
If he did, then the aftermath would be catastrophic. Orlo Hawthorne was an incredibly influential figure in not only medicine but the world we’d cultivated. There were entire generations of doctors who’d studied under him at Tufts, and killers who idolized him and his father for the work they’d done. All of that would be shattered below my knife if he took my Ever from me.
“We should call him.” Tabitha said with exasperation. “There’s a chance —”
“If you don’t shut the fuck up until we get to Boston, I swear I’ll sedate you. I can’t. Do this. Please,” I said in barely a whisper.
My fingers curled around the leather steering wheel, gaze flickering to the bite marks on my fingers I wanted to tattoo into my skin. She had to be okay, because I refused to believe that there was a world where she didn’t exist. My ray of sunshine in the darkness. My call back from the void.
“Don’t stop running, little rabbit.”