Chapter 20
Tacy
Senior Year, 2003
“Shove him! There is no other way, Tacy,” Orion roars from somewhere behind me. “He’s going to fucking kill you! Do it now!”
I’m standing at the edge of the forest, my back pressed against the trunk of an evergreen. It’s dark. Probably midnight. A few yards ahead of me, there is a steep precipice. The ocean waves pound against the jagged rocks hundreds of feet below. Someone, of whom I assume is a man, is standing ten feet away from me. He’s wearing all black and has the head of a goat. Or maybe he’s wearing the head of a goat. Panic grips my insides. I have to attack now. This is the only way. This monstrous man chased us through the forest, now he’s cut us off at the pass. It’s me or him.
I lunge forward, and with all my might, I shove the man sending him stumbling backwards. There is a muffled cry in the goat’s throat as he tumbles to his death. My breath catches as I hear a sickening thump somewhere below.
My heart seizes. My lungs pulsate. What the fuck did I just do? Did I just kill a man?
Orion sidles up beside me, panting. I can smell pine and sweat all over him. “He was going to kill you, Tacy. Kill us. It was the only way. You did it for us. For the coven.”
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I’m a murderer. The dark closes in around me, and my insides twist. I vomit all over the ground. Heaving and sputtering, I can’t stop puking.
Orion rubs my back and says, “his sacrifice was necessary. Belenus will bless you for this, Tacy.”
My eyes fly open. It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve soaked my sheets in a cold sweat. I’m having a recurrent nightmare. One that sadly isn’t fiction, but a replay of events from my dark past. That cabin in Washington, deep in the woods. What should be a serene place to revisit in one’s mind is the exact opposite. It’s flashes of goats braying as they fall from great heights. Circles of doped up teenagers chanting something Gregorian yet guttural in an old, dead language. Orion standing over me, grunting and demanding things of me. Ungodly things.
I wipe the sweat from my brow. Then I sit up and take a deep breath, check my surroundings and reassure myself that I’m far from that abandoned house in the forest. I’m on the other side of the country, in my own home, safe and sound. And Orion Starkey is dead. But that lingering fear of him returning and ruining everything for me still wriggles and writhes inside of me. But I escaped him…escaped my past before, and I’ll do it again.
Aris
“What do you mean, the guns were fucking gone?!”
“Exactly that, Aris,” Thor replies. “The harbor master docked the boat. We boarded, and the hull was fucking empty. Nothing but boxes of produce. Oranges and shit. Guns were nowhere to be found.”
“How the fuck did this happen?” My face feels like a furnace. My fists are aching to punch something. Instead of slamming them into the concrete block wall or one of my friends’ heads, I glue them to my sides. “Did they forget to send them?”
Clyde shakes his head. “No. I confirmed with my guy. He watched the boat leave their dock with the guns on board. It must’ve been intercepted on the way in.”
“Fuck!” Thor shouts. His voice reverberates against the high ceiling and walls.
“Who did this? Who knew the guns were on board?” I ask, glaring at my men. “Besides us?”
Reggie, Clyde, Thor and Shawn stare at me and then at one another. Matching my ferocity and bewilderment. Shawn pounds a fist into his palm and paces from one side of the room to the other.
“It was one of the new men,” Shawn exclaims. “It had to have been. No one else knew. And the rules about keeping our missions quiet are crystal fucking clear.”
“You’re saying there’s a fucking mole? Weed him out!” I demand.
Reggie smirks and leans back against the wall, bending one leg in a casual, not-give-a-fuck stance.
“What’s so funny, Reg?” Thor turns to Reggie. A fist fight is brewing. And, at this point, I can’t say I blame them.
“I knew we couldn’t keep this operation quiet,” Reggie states. “Too many men. I was taught to keep your crew small. That minimizes the threat.”
“We have less than a hundred. How the fuck did they do it back in the day? The Revolution saw militia of hundreds of men.”
“They had to deal with fucking spies, too. Turncoats. Theft. All of it,” Shawn says. “It’s a part of the game.”
“It’s not a fucking game,” I say and lean against the long metal table. “It’s fucking life or death.”
“You know what I mean,” Shawn retorts. “I’m saying when you take down a giant, there will always be minions protecting the giant along the way. You must go through the smaller mother fuckers first before you get to the big man.”
“Clyde, do you think the inner circle can figure out who the mole is? You could have Christy or Jackson look into it.”
Clyde nods. “Abso-fucking-lutely. With pleasure.”
“Find them and bring them to council.”