Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
priest
past
S moke fills my lungs as I inhale the familiar herb, handing it back to War. “There a reason why you’re looking a little more like death than usual?” War is one of my best friends, but he isn’t my closest.
My eyes move to Vaden even though my answer is to War. “Nothing more than usual.”
Vaden clucks his tongue. “You’re evil.”
I shrug, squashing my cigarette with my boot. I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know that she was behind me with her date.
Her date that she never asked a single question about on why he’s here or who he is. I can feel her. The way her eyes move over the back of my neck. Everyone knew early on what Luna lived with, except for Luna herself. It’s why our fathers spent so much time with her, why my sister hated her, and why I found myself obsessed with her.
Madness and all, Luna is who she is. Soft, demure, gentle. Her, on the other hand, well. She isn’t at all any of those things.
“We better get back inside before your mom decides to punish us by doing something human-like, like I don’t know—” War’s eyes glass. “Taking Halen shopping.”
“You’d love that, what are you talking about?” I scan over him lazily as we head back through the entrance. War’s lucky I’m too caught up in my own head to be more passive-aggressive about his obvious crush on my sister.
As soon as we’re back at our table, the burn of Luna’s eyes aren’t far off. Interesting on her parents’ part, to allow her into my space, placed on my lap, and given to me like food to a starved dog.
I most likely am their last shot at helping her. After killing the Brother of Kiznitch that night all those years ago, Midnight Mayhem had pushed her out, so now she was left on our doorstep. Little did any of them know, this was exactly what my father and Nate wanted.
But she shouldn’t be anywhere near the sector that they’re considering giving her access to. A hit girl with dissociative identity disorder? Yeah. That’s not gonna work. I can almost guarantee it. What could…is her as a wife.
I drink the thoughts, forcing them away as quickly as they come. There’s no point trying to entice her to come back to me anymore. She’s not, and who knows. Maybe Luna worked through her triggers with the fucked up other Brother of Kiznitch, and now her friend doesn’t pop her little head up any time Luna’s in trouble.
“Stop overthinking,” Vaden growls from beside me.
“I’m not,” I hiss through the burn of whiskey, my eyes closing in an attempt to shut out the noise inside my head. But if you did marry her, maybe you won’t have to kill her.
Why the fuck did it matter if I killed her?
I open onto Mom’s smile, catching it in time to watch it slip from her face, thanks to the flashing lights.
She finds me in the crowd, before moving to my father. A woman of poised elegance that’s handcrafted for this world, allows a few seconds of vulnerability to pass before clearing her throat and staring back down to the envelope.
Good to know I can still keep her on her toes.
“The next item we have is an interesting one. It seems one needs reminding who he came from, so for this auction, I’ll start the bid at one million.” She smiles down at me. Maybe the stories I’ve heard about her in her young days are true. “He is his father’s son, after all.”
A hand comes to my shoulder. “You fucking with your mother?” Dad squeezes tightly, bending to my level. “I don’t recommend selling girlfriends on the podium, son. Especially ones we may need soon.”
He doesn’t get it. She is hopeless to me as she is. I want the crazy, the fucking Lunatic of Luna. She is hiding too deep inside to come out, and as far as I know, based on the past three years, she’s healed now. No version of her will be able to force that girl back to the surface.
I am done.
“I don’t need her anymore.” His face turns to me from the corner of my eyes. “I’m done with her.”
I tap my glass on the table, lifting my gaze to Vaden. Always on guard, he watches our exchange carefully.
“And what exactly do you mean by that?” Dad asks, lowering his voice. “Her disorder is irrelevant—” He pauses, and when I give him my full attention. I see the mechanics turning in his head.
A strangled laugh leaves him. “You little shit. You’ve been trying to draw her out?”
Dad is rarely pissed off, but when he is, you can bet it is because of something I’ve done. “Priest. That’s a dangerous game you’ve been playing, and not at all what we told you to do. You were to train her the same way we did you so that she didn’t have to go through it the same way you did.”
“You gave me the one girl that I’ve ever cared for.” I follow the green in his eyes. “The one girl who protected me the same way I her. The one girl who stood in front of our moms to tell them that she killed the member of Kiznitch, when really?” His smirk turns to a frown as realization sinks in. “It was me. ” I turn back to the stage. “I owe her. She was pushed out of her own organization all because I wanted to see what a human looked like from the inside.”
“Jesus, son.” Dad exhales, his arm slipping around my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
I need a distraction. As soon as Dad leaves, I find Vaden once more. “Care to play a game?”
“Hmmm…what kind?” he asks, eagerly sitting forward and not caring at all what it looks like to the people around us.
My finger taps against the table. “How about we start something new.”
“Hmmm…” War murmurs from beside me. “Not sure I trust where this is going.”
Good. That means his instincts aren’t as shit as they seem when Halen’s not around.
“Go on.”
“A hunt. Similar to what we’ve done to her already, only, we use our enemies to find her.”
“This to see if it triggers her?” Vaden asks, holding close. “Yes. But it can’t happen yet. First, we need her to fear them.”
Neither of them get a chance to answer because Mom swats the back of my head, fluffing up her dress and taking a seat on the chair beside mine, right where Halen was.
“Why?” Unlike Dad, she doesn’t lower her voice, and unlike Dad, she’s been pissed at me often and never hid the fact.
“Why what?” I slide my glass across the table.
“Priest D’mon Hayes. Don’t try to play coy with me. You forget I made you.” Her fingers come to my chin, and she forces my eyes onto hers. Mom’s aging exactly the way she wants to. With her best friend Botox and side-piece filler. Pretty sure she’d hit me if I mentioned it again, since the last time I asked why there were doctors here pumping fat into her and her friends’ faces, she almost chased me out of the kitchen with a butcher knife. “Son.”
But on the same coin, I never need to hide from her.
Mom knows everything about me, including the dirty parts that I try to hide. She never mentions them, never tries to polish them with gold and glamorize them. She’s allowed me to be the unpolished version of myself in all its ugly gore and simply loves me anyway.
“Because she’s no use to me. To us.”
Mom’s eye twitches.
Dad told her everything, so she knows about Luna and why she is with me. She knows it was me who killed the Axton Brother of Kiznitch. I saw it in her eyes that very day that Luna—Darling—was bleeding out in the snow, telling them it was her who did it. She helped after the fact. What we did that day continues to turn my vision red. She took his organs out with a glint in her eye that I thought only existed inside me. We laughed.
Joked.
She removed his scalp and wore it as a hat while singing the lyrics to a Slipknot song. I drew the line when she cut herself to see if her blood was the same color as his. Crazy bitch.
Mom hesitates, placing her hands on her lap. “Selling her to your enemy is not the answer. You can’t help what happens once she’s there.” She turns over her shoulder, enough to gesture to me but not enough to show her interest.
I follow her until my eyes land on the Gentlemen. Suits, ties, and big fucking lies…that’s all they exude.
“Why the fuck are they even here?” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. Vaden wouldn’t want them here. I sure as fuck don’t want them here.
Brantley wouldn’t either.
Why my father and Danny Dale are hell-bent on keeping peace for the sake of their kids is pointless, because Moses Dale and Vaden have hated each other with a fire that would burn through any treaty.
“Because your father needs them alive for a bit longer.” Her eyes settle on me. “Find another way. Don’t use the Gentlemen. They will not bend. Their hatred for us, Priest.” She leans in farther as if I can’t hear her loud enough. “Is not superficial. Who they are, what they do—” She pauses. “They’re not who you think they are, and every ugly thing you know, every disgusting image you can think of happening to that girl? You can bet that entire one million that they will do to her.”
With a light pat, she retreats back through the swarm of tables and to the curtains that hide the backstage.
“They’re hiding shit about the Gentlemen.” War taps me with his leg. “Listen to her. You know your mom. She doesn’t say anything unless it’s the truth.”
We’ve tried everything else. Now I’m back at square one. I need an enemy, but it needs to be one I can trust enough to not hurt her for any reason. One with a moral code. One I thought the Gentlemen had.
I need air.
Vaden’s footsteps catch up to me as I head through the main doors. They die out when I stop, and in the blanket of the night, everything pieces together like a puzzle.
“I know what we’re going to do.”
Vaden trails down the steps, watching me with careful eyes. “I know that look…”
Restlessness clings to me, the world shifting to a colorless shade of gray. “We’re going to sell her.”
Vaden pauses. “Mommy Mads already said no, and no offense, but she’s terrifying and I don’t much want to get on her bad side.”
Vaden and I both know that he’s her favorite, so it’s impossible for him to be on her bad side, and second, she doesn’t much have one since having us, unless, well, you fucked with one of us.
I step closer into my best friend, the constant whispers around me finally muted. “She will think she’s been sold.”
“To who?”
“Me.” His voice is the exact trigger for Vaden’s rage, and when his smile falls and his head whips around to find the owner of it, my hand flies out to stop him.
“Wait.” I pause, shoving Vaden out of the way. He’s like an emotional bulldog when it comes to the Gentlemen, and I don’t have any of the patience for it tonight. “How much of that did you hear?” I planned to do this anyway, but I don’t appreciate him listening in to shit he shouldn’t.
Fucker.
“All of it.” Moses plucks the cigarette out of his mouth, shoving his hand in his pocket and taking the steps down until he’s directly beside both Vaden and I.
Vaden vibrates beside me, his anger radiating off him in heat waves.
Moses chuckles. “Oh, you can trust me with her all right.”
“The fuck you can!” Vaden’s in front of me now, his face blocking my view from anything else. “Priest, be for so fucking real right now. If you do this, you’re handing him a token. Something of ours! We trust that these backward motherfuckers aren’t going to do all the things they want to do?”
“Ahhh…last I checked, we’re not the EKC. We don’t get off on dubious consent, preying, stalking, murder, or—what was the other one? Oh yeah…necrophilia.”
I flip him off.
“Fuck me…” Vaden pulls at his hair. “How you gonna make a deal with the Devil?”
From his long hair tied at his nape to his Armani suit that seems to be tailored a little too tight. His eyes are burned toffee, and his cologne is way too fucking strong. The Gentlemen are a lot of things, but Mom is right. I can’t trust them.
Vaden’s comment triggers a laugh from Moses.
My head tilts. “Why do you find that funny?”
He shrugs. “The Devil part. That you’re the one doing a deal with the Devil.”
“Am I not?” My tone remains flat. Moses isn’t a threat. I’d stomp him out in less time it’d take to tie the laces of my Jordans.
He seems to think for a moment. “One would say you were the Devil in this equation.”
I don’t answer. I barely move.
Vaden scoffs from somewhere behind me. “He ain’t the Devil, Moses .”
Moses pauses. Vaden has his attention, probably because he’s never said his name out loud.
“He isn’t? Last I checked, the pied piper of Riverside was absolutely the Devil. What’s the saying? Luring young girls to their death?”
I still haven’t moved, fixating on the dimple in his cheek.
“I didn’t call him the Devil.” Vaden’s right at my back now. He blows out a cloud of smoke. “Because he’s Priest Hayes, and trust me when I say…”
My lip twitches. “I’m much worse.”
Moses, even in this light and with his tanned skin, pales. Fucking pales.
“Anyway.” He shrugs. “Give me a year. Maybe two. Every Friday, you can see her to make sure she’s alive. She will be. And well. But you only get her for three hours a week, and it can’t be alone.”
“I don’t want her like that. I hate her.” The words ring true, even if my throat dries in an attempt to force them back down.
Moses glares at me. “Yeah…okay.” Why does he want her so bad? My will to continue hanging the bait out in hopes he’ll bite stops when the sound of footsteps rustles through fallen leaves.
We all turn over my shoulder.
He drags his tongue over the trunk of his cigar, looking up at Moses beneath heavy eyes. “Leave, Moses.”
He lights the end and puffs to ignite it. “While you still have teeth.”
I’ve never seen Moses retreat as quickly as he does, his footsteps disappearing through the night.
“Who are you?” I ask, noticing the scar across his neck at someone’s failed assassination attempt. When the collar of his shirt shifts down, showcasing the vine of black roses, I know. “Archer Thorn. Heard a lot about you.”
Smoke leaves his mouth. “We don’t have to do this since we’re going to be seeing so much more of each other in the future.” Not sure what the fuck he means by that, but okay. “Give the girl to me.”
“Not happening.”
“Priest,” Dad cuts in behind me, and I turn to see both him and my mom.
She nods, and I swing back to Archer. “You trust him?”
Dad’s arm brushes mine. “Yes. One day, you’ll know why, and it’ll be your turn to do the very same, and he you.” He turns to me. “I don’t agree with this, but if it’s what you want to do, we’ll try it.”
I find Archer again. “Will you hurt her?”
“Why do you care?”
“Will you hurt her?”
He holds my stare. “No. She will be safe in Thornhill. I will train her, frighten her, do whatever it is that you would like me to do. But what is the purpose of this?”
I am not sure anymore.
“A game. Where she’s the prey, and every time she’s caught—” My fingers find the silk in my pocket. “You tie this around her neck.”
“That’s all?”
“Do you have triggers?” I ask, purposely looking to his throat.
His lips curve. “No. I ran out of bullets killing them all.”
I laugh, but my lips don’t move. “She does.”
Present
With the Gentlemen brewing, collecting what they need for the war I have no doubt they’re going to try to hit us with, I can’t think of a better time.
“What happened to Danny Dale?” Archer asks, looking to his right-hand man, Belial.
“She killed him.”
Belial laughs, the tattoo on his face warping around his wide smile. He’d be pretty without all those tattoos.
Archer doesn’t find it half as funny. “And Jeremiah?” The mention of Danny’s best friend has me pausing.
“And him.”
Belial’s laughter gets louder. Fucking hyena.
Archer’s eyes glisten as if the words excite him. He steps closer, standing around my height and size, we could pass as brothers. “And Moses?”
I bare my teeth. “You already know what I’m going to say.”
“Darling killed them all?” Archer asks, his face pulling into one of confusion.
“No,” I answer, eyes narrowing on Belial as something or someone catches his attention behind me. “She only took out Moses, and it was a murder of convenience since I’m pretty sure he and his boys were there to kill me after finding out Luna took out his dad and his best friend.”
The silence that separates us is loud. I can hear the breathing down my back from River and the rest of them, as if they were listening too carefully.
Archer doesn’t smile when he whispers his next words. “Which one did you say wasn’t crazy enough for you?”
It hits me instantly. His implication of me having the perfect girl for me being right there all along, yet I threw her away anyway. Now I’ll never have her back. To think we’ve only had one meeting so far with The Echelon, our history only twines our forged bond deeper. “Have you seen the Veiled one yet?”
“What?” The switch-up throws me off. “No. Why?”
“No reason.”
“Sure.” I hold his eyes before turning to everyone. “You’re probably wondering why it took me so long to let you girls play, and it’s simple. I didn’t want you complaining about shit. The Hunt was started for a reason, the night of Mom’s gala.”
“When you tried to sell Luna?”
I turn to Stella. “When I did sell Luna.”
Her brows cross.
“Wait, you sold her?” Halen asks, crossing her arms in front of herself.
“Honestly, I’m surprised it wasn’t Vaden who bought her.” River shrugs.
Halen chokes on her drink. “I’m sorry—what? So…Vaden?”
“Not relevant.” I move from Halen, but her words swing everyone back on her.
“Ahhh…yes, it is. I’m sick of not being in the know. What the fuck?—”
Bypassing the brat throwing out her toys, my eyes land on War, who’s already watching me carefully. This is exactly what the fuck I meant when I said she’d be a problem.
“Priest!” Halen snaps, and I take a careful step forward.
You can hear a pin drop it is that quiet.
“You don’t talk to me like I’m your brother when it comes to shit in this world, Halen. When we’re around a dinner table, laughing, I’m your brother. Christmas?” I raise a brow. “Brother. Birthdays, deaths, births, brother.” I take another, and she’s at least got half a brain to take one back and straight into War’s arms. “Here—everywhere outside of those venues, I am not your brother. Do you understand me?”
She sighs, but it’s one that doesn’t come from frustration, rather from disappointment.
“You know better…” I warn, turning back to my spot.
“As I was saying, we started this. The rules are simple.”
Stella’s eyes brighten, her fingers tapping against each other like a kid in a candy store. If I’ve ever seen Stella excited, it was always when there was blood, murder, or sex involved. She is a headcase, and usually, it is Vaden who keeps it secured on her shoulders, but since the ritual, things have gone haywire. He still hasn’t said a fucking word about the curse, but he doesn’t have to, because it’s only a matter of time.
There’s no saving the damned.
Nature swoops through the branches of trees as I pluck the cigarette from between clenched teeth.
Opening the first message, an unknown number blares across the screen. The loading signal pops up where a photo is supposed to be.
I tap on the video.
“Hello, lover. You didn’t want to play with me, so I’m going to play with you!” Her eyes widen, and all my fucking life, I don’t know what I saw in her. Everything about her makes me miss who she was. A walking reminder of everything I’ve lost.
“Catch me if you can!” She moves the lens onto a farm-style house with a wrap-around porch.
“Uhm.” Halen looks out to the people behind me, who were here for the distraction of the cars. “Nothing’s on tonight! You can all crawl back to your homes or whatever.” In a round of mumbles, we all wait until the hot pipes of JDM imports have disappeared through the night.
Now with the only people who should be here, the scene feels different.
Smart. The second time she’s used her brain tonight.
“I don’t know about you,” Archer says from beside me. “But that keyhole looks awfully familiar.”
My jaw clenches. How’d Archer know about that? I thought it was a fucking Hayes thing.
“Go. I’ll keep them here.”
The more time I spend with him, the more I realize why Dad trusted him all those years ago.
Stella draws up beside me, pointing to the door. Archer grows tense beside me, but she barely notices. “The door, it’s unlocked?”
I turn off the panel of my car. “Fucking bitch.”
“What does that door mean!” Halen calls out, trailing behind me.
I snap, spinning around in her face. “Get the fuck back in the car!”
“No!” Halen’s face scrunches. “I will not! You told us we could come, that means we cou?—”
I don’t bother paying her any more attention, because War finally inserts himself—and his two balls—between us, finally putting her in her place.
I’m already halfway through the clearing when I hear footsteps rush up from behind me. What the fuck? I thought Archer had it.
“Priest!” Stella finally falls to step beside me. Of course it’s Stella. “What the fuck is going on?”
My phone vibrates again. River’s name flashes over the screen, but I shove it back in my pocket, dodging more fallen branches while reaching into the waistband of my jeans.
I flip the lever.
“Jesus, what the fuck? We killing her or something?”
The sound of twigs snapping beneath the soles of my shoes breaks through the rustling branches and chirping hollowness of the night.
“Stella, why the fuck did you come after I said to get in the car?” I ask while keeping focus solely on what’s going on around us.
She doesn’t hesitate. “You were looking at Halen, so I figured I didn’t count.”
I roll my eyes.
“Don’t roll those pretty little devil eyes at me, cousin! You and I both know that I don’t listen.”
“Huh, I wonder why that is…”
She dances in front of me.
“You do know that I can’t see you, right?” I say to her, sidestepping away from her swerving footsteps.
She must smile because her teeth flash through the night. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Humor me…do you fuck her even when she’s not her? Like, which one is better in bed? See, off the bat, I want to say Darling, right? Because she’s so damn psychotic, but!” She pauses, causing me to stop. I glare down at her, and even if she could see me, it still wouldn’t stop her. “But Luna, though. There’s something untouched about her innocence. Like, like the good girls are always the real freaks, leaving me out of the equation because I remember this one time?—”
“—Stella!”
“Sorry…” She giggles. “So did you? Fuck her when she split?”
I stop walking when I hear rustling in the distance. “What?”
Stella stops walking too. “Ah…you like them both! So, is this, like, a weird kink?”
“Stella.”
She snaps her fingers again, and I’m a second away from tearing them off. “Or! Wait! Is this a thing?”
“Stella.”
“Let me guess. You get her to pretend one is the other,” she gasps, and I swear to fucking god I’m going to strangle her. “You’re a cuckhold and you guys role-play?”
“I’m gonna kill you. I’m done.”
Her laughter echoes through the night at the very same time that I hear the click of a barrel. I freeze, my hand flying out to her arm as I bury her into my chest.
Stella isn’t a stupid girl. A crazy, fucked-up maniac, maybe, but not stupid. She’s more ride or die and less scream and run. She’d face off to your enemies and kill them before you even had time to realize you had a beef. That’s the type of girl Stella is, which is why it’s not at all surprising that she instantly submits.
The girls of the EKC know when to be calm, quiet, strong, caring, nurturing, savage, and cruel. That’s what makes them who they are, and that doesn’t come from any weird training. The girls have known how to do this since they were born. Maybe it has to do with some of the games we had played as kids, or maybe it’s in our DNA, but whatever it is, we’re all the same. Not a single difference to the other when it comes to the foundational values we share.
She slips from my grip, tripping backward in a small screech, but not loud enough to raise alarm. Because that’s typical of her. When she needs to use her voice, she fucking doesn’t.
Her shirt slips through my grip at the last minute, and I drop to my knees, watching as she falls…down…down….