Chapter 28 SLASH
SLASH
“Niles knows.”
Samael and Aeron glanced up at me from the safety of Samael’s office as I waltzed in from the library.
I had been relaxing on Samael’s leather couch after lunch, minding my own fucking business when Niles decided to video call, piecing together clues and evidence that didn’t even make sense.
He mentioned that my resignation was denied and that we could meet to talk about my future.
When I all but cursed him out, he started picking at my relationship or lack thereof, fear evident in his expression until he whispered the words ‘It’s you’.
There was no proof and Niles was a fucking coward so I knew he wasn’t going to run to the police.
Yet. The problem was that the connection was now out there.
People would laugh it off, calling Niles crazy until some person believed it.
“What do you mean Niles knows? Your fucking boss?” Aeron asked. “Fucking hell. You’re going to kill him, right?”
“Sure. The problem is that taking him out like I do everyone else will raise suspicion because everyone knows Niles has been hounding me to come back. If he suddenly disappears, Chief Matthews is at least smart enough to question me.” All of this was bullshit.
Finn’s appearance completely turned everything on its head and at first, we found some excitement in the idea of the new and chaotic.
Now?
I needed Finn to get his act together because it was going to take a miracle to direct suspicion elsewhere.
It took me a few minutes to realize what I had walked into, pictures and red yarn networked across one of Samael’s walls.
He kept all of his police work at the precinct for the most part so I didn’t understand what I was looking at until a picture of our stepmother’s glared back at me.
“What is that?”
Samael let out a strained laugh. “Seems like our cannibal got a little bored without anything to eat in the house. While you were off letting Niles connect the dots, Aeron here was trying to figure out when we would have first met Finn. Seems like he’s been in a lot of the same places as we have.”
“I can’t take all the credit,” Aeron started. “Most of this shit needed Samael’s access to get to. It was locked up real tight and redacted—”
I walked over to my cannibal and wrapped an arm around his waist before kissing his cheek.
“You’ve been real busy today, haven’t you?
Couldn’t sleep?” I stared into those sea-glass eyes realizing that while Aeron was fully on board with Finn, he was also a little freaked out.
And who wouldn’t be after an event like this morning?
I craved a shared moment with Finn, knowing his crazy ass would enjoy it but I knew that I’d be deep in my thoughts afterward. Sharing that moment with Daemon, blades and all had fucked me up a little. Even if we shared those three special words afterward. “So, what am I looking at?”
My cannibal pulled away from me and spread his arms wide.
“Finn has been with us from the beginning or close to it. He’s been in every goddamn location we have.
All those foster homes, college, jobs. He had something in the same cities and granted, we’ve been in the same state for most of our lives after we left high school but—”
“Wait, the same cities?”
Aeron nodded, pointing near the beginning of the timeline.
“He was in the same district as where I went to high school. And then here, that accident. And then at the college with me but his main psychiatrist was at Slash’s hospital.
When they officially moved into Primrose, his father was chief of police which offers a connection to Samael but he also had a membership to the same gym.
That retreat—Nyla won the tickets but there had been a few resorts to pick from.
They just so happened to pick yours? Bullshit. ”
I stepped back, taking in every connection they had put together. We thought Killian had fallen into our laps but Finn had been watching us from day one. It felt… odd. “Why do I feel like there’s more?”
Samael pushed to his feet, letting out a heavy sigh.
“Because there is. All of those presents Finn presented to us were based on his own sentiments. He brought you your stepmothers because he was around or in the vicinity when that happened. He wanted them dead, just as much you two did. However, it’s worse than that.
I spoke with Killian’s father and he showed me some of his medical records.
Finn is a problem, yes. But it’s worse than that.
The chief mentioned one of Finn’s friends, one that’s on fucking trial for murder. Runo Ipse.”
“That’s a stupid last name,” I pushed out. “Who the fuck is Runo?”
There was a lone picture at the edge of the board, a silhouette with a cliché question mark inside.
Samael pointed to it. “I would tell you if I could find one shred of evidence he existed. Typing in his name gives me nothing but according to Finn, he’s getting out this weekend.
The chief seems fucking terrified of Runo but I can’t find anything about him.
Not even a court case. Whatever he did is locked up real tight. ”
That didn’t add up. “His previous psychiatrist was at my hospital?”
Aeron and Samael both nodded. That made it easier to find someone to talk to and then I could publicly tell Niles to fuck all the way off.
But nicely, so that no one would connect me to The Skinner or anything remotely deviant.
Samael snorted and dragged me onto the couch to sit beside him.
“First, we need a fucking plan. God, I sound like Finn. But we do need one. The chief is stupid, but he isn’t that stupid.
The tapes from Bondage Palace put us all in the same place.
There’s going to be questions and a full investigation.
It’s going to be hard to escape this one. ”
“We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
“In a town like this, there’s always a dead end.”
Which meant that we’d have to move. It would cement just who was The Three Terrors, our identities plastered on every goddamn billboard. We’d have to live in the shadows and that just wasn’t an option. We’d succumb to the madness of our darkness without an outlet.
“Then we just need to find a way out,” Samael offered. I knew that he planned on having someone pose as The King, pushing suspicion away from us but there was no hope in his words.